Differences between Aphrodite and Venus – Part I – The Beginning

Aphrodite and Venus... the only good excuse Renaissance artists had for depicting naked females. But I must say, not my favorite goddesses from the bunch – I'll tell you why some other time. For now, let me get to the differences between Aphrodite and Venus – a long overdue piece.

Before Aphrodite and before Venus there was an Etruscan goddess called Turan – a young girl with wings, believed to be Venus' great-grandmother, because she was a common decoration for mirrors, and because she was surrounded by swans and doves. And geese. Geese are the birds of love too, you know.

Before landing the job of ultimate swimsuit top-model, Venus started out as the goddess of gardens and vegetation. And before moving to the capital of fashion, love, good food and, well, capital of the entire world at the time, Venus resided in the small town of Ardea, where we find the oldest temple dedicated to the goddess (in 293 BC, on the 15 of August – if you want to be that specific, though you shouldn't ask a goddess how old she is). This aspect of Venus was perhaps prolonged later on, after her association with Aphrodite, when she was considered to be the mother of Priapus, also a god of gardens, vegetation, and, well, other things.

It's quite possible that this young Venus was seen as an intermediary for prayers, and, as original goddess of beauty, she probably presided over all aspects of beauty, not just that of women (naked, mostly). Even in this primitive form, Venus made her debut in Rome rather late, and sometime during the second Punic War the famous Sibylline oracle had to ask the Romans to import a foreign Venus to their city.

Similar to all Roman gods, Venus doesn't have any stories of her own, and overlaps with Aphrodite in literature and arts. (Which is ok, since Aphrodite had enough adventures and affairs to fill several volumes and an entire television series.)

With the town of Rome itself, Venus would have a rather special relationship. As Aphrodite, she started the Trojan war, lost it, and managed to save only her son, Aeneas. As Venus, she now protected the town of Aeneas, Rome. Things will get even more personal, as Caesar, and the entire Julian family, claimed to be direct descendents of Aeneas, and thus close family to Venus. Considering what we know of Caesar's life, the goddess of love favored him more than other mortals, so maybe there is some truth to this story, no matter how outrageous it may seem today.  

Steven Saylor - A Murder on the Appian Way - Review

I'm quite good at starting the review of a series with the most illogical item. So, keeping up with a good tradition, A Murder on the Appian Way is the fifth volume in Steven Saylor's “Roma Sub Rosa” series.

I've been meaning to write about the Roma Sub Rosa series for some time now, as it stands out from the dozens of whodunits placed against a historical background due to the impressive research work and accurate re-creation of the Roman world in the troubled moments when the republic was about to become an empire.

Argh, who am I kidding? If you like the historical mysteries genre, you'll like them all, and you must try Saylor's series.

The main character, Gordianus the Finder, is more realistic than his detective counterparts from similar books – wiser, kinder, more mature. Since he's not part of the nobility, his family, his home and his habits provide a believable reconstruction of the daily life of the regular people, in contrast with the unavoidable descriptions of the properties of the rich and famous.

That being said, I'm not sure I like Gordianus. He's old, happily married with children, which is not at all my idea of a mysterious, sexy, adventurous private eye. (Yes, it's a cliché. Go read Dostoevsky if cliches bother you that much.)

The murder on the Appian Way is that of Clodius, and Saylor takes the opportunity to recreate in detail the most famous of the famous Roman roads. This is one of the highlights of the novel, along with the delicate study of mob control techniques – not that different back then from what they are now. I also enjoyed the portrayal of Cicero, very close to how I imagined him, and not so much that of Clodia – but this is mostly my problem, Clodia keeps popping up in every book I've been reading recently, and she's so not worth all the hype.

If the historical part of the book is brilliant, I can't say the same for the mystery part, which was a bit disappointing. The action drags along at times, and the murderer is... well, go read it and judge for yourselves. A Murder on the Appian Way did not make it in my personal top ten, but it was definitely worth my time.

I write like...

I write like
William Shakespeare

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

This was the third attempt to have my writing analyzed on this site, but well worth it. The sample text, in case you're wondering, was taken from this blog. Go me.

And in case you missed me... I'll be back in a couple of days with more Shakespearean writing samples, apologies for a couple of dry months and crude ancient jokes.

Go Read a Book

Take a day off from history and unplug with a smart book.

And what can be smarted than a book about the human mind? Find a wide selection of books and reviews available on Mind Stories - a site that showcases books on the altered mind, including hypnosis, psychedelic experiences and other things I can't pretend I understand.

When's the last time you put yourself through a real challenge? Go read a book.

Nero's Bowel Movements

History is all about finding pieces of the great puzzle, answers to fundamental questions, and solutions to timeless problems. Like constipation. What, you think emperors don't get constipated? And poor Romans didn't even have fiber supplements, digestive yogurt or bran muffins. Come to think of it, maybe they had bran muffins, I should check. And yogurt – I mean, how difficult is it to add whole grains to it?

Oh, dear. So many questions, so few answers uncovered until now. Let me get back to what we know for sure: what did Nero eat when he was constipated?

Oxyporium or oxyporum was a product designed to help digestion, based on vinegar or pepper – or both, for really stubborn cases. The name is a transliteration from ancient Greek, as I'm sure you've figured out already. Nero's favorite recipe included quinces, pomegranates, rowan berries (you'd say an emperor so obsessed with poisoning would be more careful about those), boiled in must with saffron and tanner's sumach (which, by the way, is also very toxic. Maybe emperors didn't get poisoned because somebody wanted them dead, they were just trying to regulate their bowl movements). Come to think of it, must is already a very strong laxative and diuretic; adding more laxatives to the combo makes me think Nero had a very, very bad case of constipation. Couldn't that explain some of his rather controversial decisions?

That's a rowan berry bush. I had to look it up.

Apicius gives a gentler recipe, calling it oxygarum:

“1/2 ounce of pepper, 3 scruples of Gallic silphium, 6 scruples of cardamom, 6 of cumin, 1 scruple of leaves, 6 scruples of dry mint. These ingredients are broken singly and crushed and made into a paste bound by honey. When this work is done or whenever you desire add broth and vinegar to taste.”

(Translation from Walter M. Hill, because I'm already lost among all the spices; text is public domain.)

I think (but don't quote me on that) you're supposed to add this mixture to the previously prepared garum, and use everything as a sauce. Or take a spoonful after each meal. Or you know what? Go get a bran muffin.  

Differences between Hades and Pluto

The relationship between Hades and Pluto is a bit more complicated than the simple association between a Greek god and its Roman counterpart. The ancient Greeks weren't too fond of Hades – the Unseen - so much so, that they even avoided mentioning his name – and for the world, I can't imagine why. Well, he was god of the Underworld and spent his time among the dead, but still, there's nothing spooky or ruthless about Hades, quite to the contrary, he was a just and reliable ruler, and got a bad name just because he wasn't in the habit of allowing people to leave his kingdom and return to earth... which, putting things into perspective, seems fair enough to me.

Still, the Greeks always fancied the glitzy Zeus or Poseidon against the reliable and just Hades, so the god of the dead didn't even have myths of his own. He's only mentioned in the story of how Persephone was kidnapped – which belongs to the cycle of legends related to Demeter – and in another story in which Herakles descends in the Inferno, wounding Hades in the process. Of course, this second story belongs to the cycle of legends related to Herakles – leaving poor Hades with very little to say for himself. He does make some cameo appearances in the stories that involve all gods, like the battle against the titans – but those don't really count, do they?

Still, every now and then the Greeks had to mention Hades, and when this happened, they preferred to use a euphemism instead of his real name, and one of their favorites was Pluton – meaning “the rich” - which later was Latinized and ended up as the Pluto we know today. Now, Hades / Pluto was in a way the god of riches, especially those that came from underground – silver, gold and gems. Also, during the winter, the seeds of plants, being underground themselves, were in the care of Hades and especially of his wife, Persephone / Prosepina. For these reasons, both these gods were often represented with a cornucopia, symbol of abundance and riches, and, in the classical tradition, also a symbol of Demeter, Persephone's mother (family ties... nothing like them, in myth and in life).

Now, Pluto the rich should not be mixed with Ploutos, god of riches... oh, well, the similarities are striking, so let's talk a bit about this Ploutos, even if he doesn't technically belong here. He was the son of Demeter, and initially a companion of his mother and sister (the sister being Persephone, in case you've lost track of relatives). As society evolved, wealth increased, and Ploutos gained the right to become a proper god, not just a mere companion. But responsibility came at a price, and Zeus blinded him, to make sure he didn't see which humans were good and which ones were bad – and thus riches were distributed to all, randomly, and not based on their merits. See? Nothing to do with the just Hades / Pluto, who distributed rewards and punishments according to the merits and deeds done in life.

Before becoming Pluto, the Latin god of the dead was Dis Pater – father of all riches – an agrarian deity. There was also an Etruscan god named Orcus, originally ruler of the underworld, who was later on demoted to punisher of people who broke their oaths. Accidentally, Orcus may be the root which led to the word orc.

The Differences Between Rhea and Ops

Being a woman was so little fun in antiquity, that not even being a goddess could compensate. Sure, some could pull it off by playing the virgin warrior or the eternal lover, but for most, there was no way out from the birth cycles.

So, let's talk about...

Rhea, a Titaness, wife of Cronus, mother of six.

Ops, a Titaness, wife of Saturn, mother of six.

End of story.

Cybele in a museum in Berlin. Because they didn't have Rhea

Awfully dull, nondescript entities, both of them got assimilated, early on, with the more exotic Phrygian goddess Cybele – which is amusing, because, at a first glance, they don't seem to have much in common. Cybele is adventurous, mysterious, all powerful, while Rhea and Ops are insipid, to put it kindly. The association was based on them being fertility goddesses, the great mothers of gods, which is even more amusing, since Cybele went through an initial hermaphrodite phase, before becoming the great mother, while Rhea and Ops were so great, they tolerated their respective husbands to eat five of their children each, before taking a stand and doing something to rescue their offspring.

Another Cybele, again in Berlin. Because they didn't have Ops, either

Ops was a more primitive version of a goddess of abundance, and as such, one of the many agrarian deities introduced to Rome by the mythical king Titus Tatius.

Sometimes Ops is also associated with Levana – one of the – again, countless – deities that protected children, in this particular case, her job starting after the child was recognized by the father (assuming he didn't eat the child in the process, of course).