Introduction to the History of Religions Handbooks on the...

1385 See above, § 43.

1386 Compare the Greek Hestia and the Hindu house-goddess (Hopkins, Religions of India, pp. 374, 530).

1387 On the Arician Diana see Frazer, Golden Bough, 2d ed., i, 230 f.

1388 Or, better, from deiā.

1389 The prevailing view is that the grove is an opened place into which light enters, and it is thus distinguished from the dark and gloomy forest. The verbs nitere, nitescere, virere, are used by Ovid and other writers to describe this gleaming of leaves, plants, trees, groves, and of the earth.

1390 An early divine name expressive of intellectual power is not probable.

1391 On her origin cf. Wissowa, Religion der Römer, p. 203 ff.

1392 Varro, De Re Rustica, i, 1.

1393 See above, § 803.

1394 In favor of Ardea, twenty miles south of Rome, as her original seat, cf. Wissowa, Religion der Römer, p. 235.

1395 Her identification with the Greek goddess was perhaps furthered by a supposed relation between her name and the noun venustas, 'grace, beauty,' the special quality of Aphrodite. If that was the original sense of 'Venus,' it could hardly have indicated an æsthetic perception of nature (Wissowa, op. cit.); such a designation would be foreign to early ways of naming deities. Whether the stem van might mean 'general excellence' (here agricultural) is uncertain; on the Greek epithets 'Kallisto,' 'Kalliste,' and so forth, cf. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie, p. 1270 f. The name 'Venus,' if connected with the root of venerari, might mean simply 'a revered object,' a deity; cf. Bona Dea and Ceres (creator).