Romans had already availed themselves of this aspect of the goddess when they invited
Venus Erycina to Rome in the midst of the Second Punic War. There is, then, noth-
ing unusual about the prominence of Venus or the significance of her presence at
this time; the innovation of the late republic again lies in the attempt to divert the
divine connection from the community to the individual. In their competition for
predominance, both Pompey and Caesar took further steps down the path that had
already been marked out, and in so doing paved the way for the religious develop-
ments that occurred under Augustus.
Pompey’s attempts to claim the patronage of Venus date back to the beginnings
of his career under Sulla; even as a young man he may have competed for the favor
of Venus with the dictator. Pompey’s connection to the goddess is revealed most
clearly in the temple he built to Venus Victrix in 55 bceas part of a vast complex
in the Campus Martius. The project is most famous for the stone theater that was
attached to it, which was the first permanent stone theater to be constructed in Rome.
Christian sources would complain that Pompey evaded the objections to a stone
theater by claiming that the seats in the theater were merely steps for the temple, just
as the steps of the temple of the Magna Mater provided seating for the audience at
the Megalesian games in her honor (Tertullian, Spect.10). Such extreme skepticism
is misplaced; since the second century the Romans had included temples as part of
larger complexes, and the theater was not the only element of Pompey’s building
program. The complex also included a massive garden laid out in the Hellenistic
Greek style, complete with numerous statues including representations of the 14 nations
conquered by Pompey. Even more than other temples built by late republican mil-
itary dynasts, this complex clearly placed primary focus on Pompey himself as a man
who had achieved a significant number of “firsts”: first to build a stone temple in
Rome, first to conquer the specified territories. Since such complexes were often con-
nected with ruler cult in the Hellenistic east, Pompey may even have been the first
to aim at divine honors in Rome. The temple to Venus Victrix is a far cry from the
displays of devotion to the gods and res publicarepresented by most mid-republican
temples.
Caesar, as he did so often in confronting Pompey, chose not to give ground, but
competed with Pompey directly to see who favored, and was favored by, Venus the
most. In this contest, Caesar was able to claim an immediate advantage; the Julian
clan traced its ancestry to Iulus, the son of Aeneas and hence the grandson of Venus.
Many other families in the late republic claimed heroic lineages to build support,
but Caesar could go one step further and claim divine lineage, and this aspect became
an important part of his public image. Even Pompey recognized this problem; an
anecdote tells how on the night before the climactic battle of Pharsalus with Caesar,
he dreamed of spoils decorating the temple of Venus Victrix, but was afraid that the
dream favored Caesar rather than himself (Plutarch, Pompey68). When it came time
to give the watchwords for the night, Pompey gave Hercules Invictus while Caesar
stayed with Venus Victrix (Appian, Civil Wars2.76). Though these stories may have
originated as a way of explaining Pompey’s defeat, they indicate that competition
for the favor of Venus was seen by Romans as essential to the contest between Pompey
and Caesar.
68 Eric Orlin