Venus Barbata ('Bearded Venus') was an epithet of the goddess Venus among the Romans.[1] Macrobius[2] also mentions a statue of Venus in Cyprus, representing the goddess with a beard, in female attire, but resembling in her whole figure that of a man (see also Aphroditus).[3] The idea of Venus thus being a mixture of the male and female nature seems to belong to a very late period of antiquity.[4]
The idea of Venus having a double-sexed nature has the same double meaning, in the mythological sense, that there is not only a Luna, but also a Lunus. The name Venus in itself, is masculine in its termination, and it was perceived that the goddess becomes the god and the god the goddess sometimes.[5]
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "Barbata". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.
- Royal Society of London (1683). Philosophical Transactions. Vol. 13. Printed at the Theater in Oxford. pp. 389–390.
- Jennings, Hargrave (1884). Phallicism: Celestial and Terrestrial, Heathen and Christian. London: Redway. p. 234.
- Pulham, Patricia (2008). Art and the Transitional Object in Vernon Lee's Supernatural Tales. Ashgate Publishing. p. 58. ISBN 978-0-7546-5096-6.