Aphrodite vs Venus: The Difference Between the Greek and Roman Goddess

Aphrodite and Venus are the Greek and Roman goddesses of love, and the Romans came to identify one with the other. They are not simply two names for the same figure, though. Aphrodite belongs to Greek poetry, cult and art; Venus was a Roman goddess with her own history, who became central to Rome's story about itself.

Aphrodite in Greece

Greek sources give Aphrodite two different births. In Hesiod's Theogony she rises from the sea foam off Cyprus; in Homer she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione. The Metropolitan Museum of Art describes her as a goddess of love, beauty and fertility, and her cults at Cyprus and Cythera were among the most famous in the Greek world.

Venus in Rome

As Roman religion absorbed Greek myth, Venus took on Aphrodite's stories, but she also carried a political weight Aphrodite never had. Romans traced their origins to the Trojan hero Aeneas, son of Venus, and Julius Caesar's family claimed descent from him. In 46 BC Caesar dedicated a temple in his new forum to Venus Genetrix, "Venus the Mother", turning a goddess of love into the ancestress of his line.

Same goddess or two?

The best answer is: identified, not identical. Romans used Greek myths when they told Venus's stories, and artists freely borrowed Greek images, but her Roman cults, titles and political role were her own. The same pattern holds for many Greek and Roman pairs, such as Zeus and Jupiter or Demeter and Ceres.

Aphrodite and Venus in jewellery

A design inspired by Aphrodite or Venus can reference love and beauty, classical art, or the Roman idea of Venus as mother of a people. Take a look at the AURYN Aphrodite/Venus charm, read about the Roman grain goddess Ceres, or compare the Egyptian goddess of love, Hathor. For a wilder figure of Greek myth, meet Pan.