Venus: Goddess of Love? Goddess of War? with Mary Beard

Hands up, this is far shorter than our normal videos. However, when you get 3 minutes with British Museum Trustee and world-renowned classist Professor Mary Beard, you take that 3 minutes.
And so, with neck-break speed, Mary is going to tell you a little about why Venus, often referred to as the Roman goddess of love, was so important to the Roman military and idea of warfare. Because if Venus is good enough for Caesar, she's good enough for the legions.
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[@Jokercard2009]

Disappointed it’s only 2 minutes! We need an hour

[@NIGHTGUYRYAN]

i was just gonna say. the people want more mary

[@1stHuemanAmerican]

😂

[@NightTimeDay]

I'm currently reading SPQR, it's inspiring to hear THE Mary herself speak so enthusiastically!

[@jimr9499]

Excellent book but just search her name here on the KZbins. There's a few great series that she hosts on here.

[@NightTimeDay]

@@jimr9499 thanks :)

[@Avi2Nyan]

She's so enthusiastic! I could listen to her for hours!

[@SohamShivoham]

Venus is more beautiful, graceful & sensitive than any one can imagine. She's infinitely knowledgeable & preceptor of those who seeks her refuge. Oh Gorgeous Goddess of love, beauty & pleasures please shine in my heart and show me the right path.

[@athenaartfoundation]

Mary has a wonderful way of expressing so much in such a short space of time, with such enthusiasm.

[@MrFirefox322]

an interesting thought about desire: if in fact human action in someway bottoms out at satisfying our desires, and reason stands as a method to achieving this, then it seems Venus/Aphrodite might be far more interesting that we often give her credit for...more than just simply "beautiful" but in fact the central cause of all action. interesting

[@annettefournier9655]

I don't always 100% agree with Mary's politics but I do admire her passion on her ancient subjects. Could and have listened to her for hours.

[@mojosbigsticks]

Ah yes, the famous "Venus Surprised By Sculptor".

[@eyeofloren]

Excellent! Thank you! What a passionate speaker!!!

[@kanius]

Love you Mary, you are a treasure!

[@starcapture3040]

there is a very nice song by a band called Therion the song is called Birth of Venus Illegitima 🤘

[@starcapture3040]

Bettany Hughes wrote Extremely good book about Aphrodite and her Origin of Story.

[@keovathanamak9833]

Beautiful.

[@EimiHoward-fi5tk]

does anybody know the statue she is discussing in this video?

[@cantsay]

Venus? its original time, Would the statue have been holding a cloth like in the paintings of venus?

[@augustortiz]

Where did you steal this one from?

[@youtubeuserandchef471]

Romans At least they're displaying it for everyone

[@chapultepec116]

Now someone is speaking my language.."BLACKLADY BUGLUCK "

[@grahamturner1290]

I'm reminded of the Simpsons episode about Michelangelo's David... 😊

[@davidlloyd2225]

0:01 my mother❤️🇬🇧💯 0:28

[@chapultepec116]

A disfrutar pues... mijas

[@TMPreRaff]

How was it decided that she was originally seen as so “shocking”?

[@britishmuseum]

Brace yourself for a long (but by no means exhaustive) answer: So the Venus in the video is a Roman sculpture, but the pose and the nudity of Venus/Aphrodite is thought to be based on a 4th century BC Greek sculpture that no longer survives; commonly referred to as Aphrodite of Knidos. The Aphrodite of Knidos sculpture was (as far as we know) the first female nude sculpture carved in the Greek world. Male nudes were common for about 300 years prior to this, but female sculptures were always clothed. The story of the commission of the Aphrodite of Knidos is found in accounts from across the Greek and later Roman worlds. Supposedly, it was carved by Praxiteles as one of a pair of Aphrodite sculptures; one clothed, the other nude. The Greek city of Kos rejected the nude sculpture for their temple, thinking it would bring shame to the city. The city of Knidos happily took the statue for their own temple, where it became a tourist attraction, predominately for men. Lots of the accounts of the sculpture are far later than the 4th BC, but they include kings offering to pay off the entire city of Knidos' debts in exchange for the sculpture, and others where a particularly... enthusiastic young man snuck into the temple at night to "copulate" with the sculpture (only to later throw himself from a cliff in shame). Even Plato is credited with writing lines about the sculpture from the point of view of Aphrodite, where she asks how Praxiteles came to be so aware of what she looks like naked? Pretty much, the introduction of the nude Aphrodite became a gossip story across the Greek and Roman worlds, lasting as a point of fascination for centuries. The fact so many people kept writing about it, and coming up with stories about it, strongly suggests that it was a bit different from the norm, and that many people didn't quite know what to do with it. That said, we obviously don't know what everyone thought of it, and many probably found it to be a totally normal sculpture.

[@wildmen5025]

Hail Venus!

[@bingeltube]

Why was she a goddess of war? The video is too short!

[@joshuapray]

For a couple of reasons. I think one thing Mary Beard is getting at is that Venus wasn't so much just the goddess of what we think of as romantic love, but passion. And passion drives people to do sometimes incredible, sometimes insane and sometimes violent things. More specifically, in Greek myth, it was Aphrodite (Venus is her Latin incarnation) that made the match between Helen of Sparta and Paris, thereby sparking the Trojan War. And Venus was also (as stated in the video) the mother of Aeneas, the mythical founder of the Roman people, a warrior himself who fathered one of the most militaristically capable societies in human history. There is something very dramatic and beautifully ironic in what being the goddess of passionate love makes one capable of engendering. But, to be clear, there is no ancient account that I know of ascribing warfare to Venus -- this is artistic interpretation, not history (or even mythohistory).

[@bingeltube]

@@joshuapray your comment is longer than the video. Did you write this yourself or did you copy and paste? 😊

[@joshuapray]

@@bingeltube Haha. Sorry! I did write it -- but I teach classical lit, so I love talking about it!

[@bingeltube]

@@joshuapray you don't have to be sorry. Your writing was not bad. I pray you will soon feature your own KZbin video on this subject and I will be glad to be the first viewer. Sapere aude!

[@lugalke5499]

Venus is a copy of the Greek Aphrodite. And Aphrodite is a copy from the Phoenician Astarte. Astarte is a copy of the Sumerian-Babylonian Ishtar. Ishtar is the goddess of war and love.

[@wardafournello]

This is the result of the globalization in mythology and history supported by states and peoples with no ancient history.

[@davidsolomon9684]

Anyone else thinking about The Sandman 😅.

[@BlueBaron3339]

A bit - meaning very much like - nose art on American bombers during WWII. The message is: what we are fighting for...what we are *actually* fighting for 😜

[@spmoran4703]

As a Taurus . She is the Goddess that rules my sign. And she really works .

[@youtubeuserandchef471]

Okay how would you know the zodiac sign of that

[@livinginparallel]

Your Sun or Ascending?

[@livinginparallel]

​​@@youtubeuserandchef471o to astro-seek and create your birth chart, then find Venus. She rules Taurus & Libra, so if she's in one of those, then she may be well expressed😌💕🥰

[@theom79]

Return the Parthenon marbles to Greece.

[@theobolt250]

Hence "All is fair in Love AND War". 😜 (read: anything to get in Venus' nickers)

[@theseustoo]

Of course, the 'Divine' Julius Caesar claimed descent from the goddess, Venus, so it's hardly surprising that we should see her image stamped on Julius' coins... nor that she would assume great importance to his legions, regardless of her usual status as a goddess of love. I don't think this means we should start to regard her as a 'goddess of war' also. In the Ancient Greek pantheon (as opposed to the Roman one...) Aphrodite was purely a goddess of love (though she could also show a bit of spite if she felt slighted... or jealous!), whereas Athene was the goddess of war... who could also, in some instances, show more tender emotions. (Athene was also regarded as the goddess of wisdom, hence her fondness for owls...) Perhaps this is where Ms Beard is getting her ambivalent feelings about Venus from.

[@britishmuseum]

The widespread use of Venus in a war context does predate Caesar by at least a couple of decades (and less so beforehand). Sulla had coins with Venus stamped on them in the eastern empire, and Pompey the Great dedicated a temple to Venus Victrix (the victor) on the Campus Martius in Rome. This being Mars' area of Rome, shows that Venus could already be seen in the war field. Neither Sulla nor Pompey claimed decent from Venus, yet both credited Venus for their military victories. The really interesting thing about Roman gods is, provided you used them in a way that made sense, almost any god could be used for an area 'traditionally' covered by another. There are countless votive offerings to Mars in healing shrines. The logic being that if you had a fever, you could pray to Mars and, as god of war, he could fight that fever for you. I assume while people were doing this Aesculapius was sat in the corner sulk-petting his snakes.

[@cherry-vz5kx]

The Christians didn`t get their axes on her.

[@bobcricket4873]

There was little to no shock in the 4th Century BC, there is some victorian conflation here in the perceptions of that classical time, which I'm afraid this narrator has a tendancy to also reflect in modern societal auspices, an agenda and accordingly a confirmation bias for which she is well known.

[@JJONNYREPP]

22.9.22 1822pm shocking!!! indeed... very shocking. nude. women. very. where are they...? i am sure i would like to judge for myself.

[@1stHuemanAmerican]

I knew JESUS wasn't Real here we go again another W♾️man

[@boobio1]

Its bc not bce.

[@cherry-vz5kx]

Before the Christian Era.Both are used equally.

[@johanneswerner1140]

CE is common era, BCE is before common era. Used more and more to avoid using the reference to Christ. Funny thing: invented by monks who were fed up by calling a year by some king, which was quite some hassle, Kings came and went, and not every portion of the area where they had monasteries was ruled over by the same king. Reference point is the birth of Christ....

[@joshuapray]

@@cherry-vz5kx It's become quite a lot more common in academia to use BCE and CE, just to avoid a.) ascribing any particular religious doctrine to what we're discussing, and b.) alienating any non-Christian students and/or scholars.

[@AlexanderLittlebears]

@@joshuapray Don’t you agree that this is absurd?

[@joshuapray]

@@AlexanderLittlebears Not at all.