AphroditeVVenusWorship. Although Aphrodite did not have a strong cult following in classical Greek religion, Venus was a prominent deity in imperial Rome. As Venus Genetrix (mother of the gens Iulia), she was honored with a temple in 46 bce by Julius Caesar, who traced his heritage to lulus, son of Aeneas, and thus to Aeneas’s mother, Venus. In the postdassical arts, various aspects of the traditional worship of Venus are treated, ranging from depictions of sacrifices to or statues of the goddess to descriptions of temples, fountains, or gardens sacred to her. The subject is popular not only in painting, but also in poetry; the theme of the Temple of Venus was borrowed by Chaucer from Boccaccio, and taken up later by Spenser and Marlowe, among others. Feasts of Venus show her worshipers in worldly devotion, and the Garden of Love became, through Rubens, a set piece of decorous amorousness. Classical Source. Philostratus, Imagines 1.6, 2.1.