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0113ANCIENTAphrodite_JuliusCaesar

Lucretius De rerum natura 1.1-41
larger image of this map

Julius Caesar, Forum Iulium with temple of Venus Genetrix, built in 54 B.C.

The first of the Imperial Fora, i.e. before the Forum Augusti and the Forum Traiani, which later came to flank it, Caesar's Forum Iulium commemorated Caesar greatness. The decision to place the Temple of Venus Genetrix in its center celebrated the family's descent from the divine ancestress.

The family of Julius Caesar claimed to be descendants of Venus from her union with Anchises. See Bernini's "Aeneas Escaping the Fall of Troy" for a visualization of the story told in Vergil's Aeneid.

Lucretius, who composed his great poem, De rerum natura ("On the Nature of Things", or better "On the birth of the world") at the same time that Caesar and his architects were designing this propagandistic monument. (See link upper left.)

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300 - 1990's, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.