Flora Unveiled

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The goddess Venus does not appear to have been among the original Roman deities.

She seems to have arisen later, outside of Rome, as the Italian equivalent of Aphrodite,

the mother of the Trojan hero Aeneas. Like Aphrodite, Venus was initially worshipped

as the protector of gardens before acquiring her more famous attribute as the goddess of

love. She was worshipped during two wine festivals:  the Vinalia rustica (country wine

festival), held in the fall, and the Vinalia urbana (city wine festival), celebrated in the

spring.^5

The fact that Venus, rather than the wine god Liber- Dionysus, was venerated during the

two Vinalias may reflect the origin of these holidays as military/ agricultural festivals rather

than as ecstatic mystery rites. According to tradition, the Vinalia rustica began as a feast

day in which libations of wine were poured in Jupiter’s honor in gratitude for Aeneas’s vic-

tory over the Etruscan king, Mezentius. Because the festival coincided with the date of the

founding of Rome’s first temple to Venus in 295 bce, the two feast days were combined into

one. Thereafter, in addition to the pouring of libations to Jupiter, offerings were also made

to Venus for the protection of both vegetable gardens and vineyards. The Vinalia urbana,

held in late April, was a feast celebrating the arrival in the city of the previous year’s wine,

stored in jars and wineskins. It was appropriate for Venus to be associated with the Vinalia

urbana because of her strong ties to spring:

And no season was more fitting for Venus than spring.

In spring the landscape glistens; soft is the soil in spring;

Now the grasses push their blades through the cleft ground;

Now the vine- shoot protrudes its buds in the swelling bark.^6

Venus’s specific identification with sexual love is attested by the fact that during the

Vinalia she was worshipped by Rome’s prostitutes:

I will now tell of the festival of the Vinalia;

But there is one day interposed between the two.

You street women celebrate the divinity of Venus:

Venus favors the earnings of ladies of the liberal profession.

Offer incense and pray for beauty and popular favor;

Pray to be charming and witty;

Give to the Queen her own myrtle and the mint she loves,

And wicker baskets filled with clustered roses.^7

In this passage, Venus is identified with flowers, blurring the line between Venus and

Flora, the goddess of flowers. As noted in Chapter  7, Chloris, the Greek goddess of flow-

ers, was assimilated as the Roman Goddess, Flora. Flora (Figure 9.2) was also among the

early Roman deities, predating Venus, as evidenced by the special priest (Flamen Florialis)

assigned to her worship. A festival with games, the Floralia, was held on April 28, the day of

the dedication of her first temple in 240 bce. Women wore multicolored garments at the

Floralia, and grain and legumes were scattered as fertility symbols. A general mood of mer-

riment and sexual license prevailed, encouraged, no doubt, by the presence of prostitutes

who worshipped Flora at the Floralia as they did Venus at the Vinalia.