Kal. Apr. (April 1). F.
Veneralia: Ludi. (Philoc.)
Note in Praen.: ‘FREQUENTER MULIERES SUPPLICANT FORTUNAE VIRILI, HUMILIORES ETIAM IN BALINEIS, QUOD IN IIS EA PARTE CORPOR[IS] UTIQUE VIRI NUDANTUR, QUA FEMINARUM GRATIA DESIDERATUR.’
Lydus193 seems to have been acquainted with this note of Verrius in the Fasti of Praeneste; if so, we may guess that some words have been omitted by the man who cut the inscription, and we should insert with Mommsen194, after ‘supplicant,’ the words ‘honestiores Veneri Verticordiae.’ If we compare the passage of Lydus with the name Veneralia given to this day in the calendar of Philocalus, we may guess that the cult of Venus on April 1 came into fashion in late times among ladies of rank, while an old and gross custom was kept up by the humiliores in honour of Fortuna Virilis195. This seems to be the most obvious explanation of the concurrence of the two goddesses on the same day; they were probably identified or amalgamated under the Empire, for example by Lydus, who does not mention Fortuna by name, and seems to confuse her worship on this day with that of Venus. But the two are still distinct in Ovid, though he seems to show some tendency to amalgamation196.
Fortuna Virilis, thus worshipped by the women when bathing, would seem from Ovid to have been that Fortuna who gave women good luck in their relations with men197. The custom of bathing in the men’s baths may probably be taken as some kind of lustration, more especially as the women were adorned with myrtle, which had purifying virtues198. How old this curious custom was we cannot guess. Plutarch199 mentions a temple of this Fortuna dedicated by Servius Tullius; but there was a strong tendency, as we shall see later on, to attribute all Fortuna-cults to this king.
The Venus who eventually supplanted Fortuna is clearly Venus Verticordia200, whose earliest temple was founded in 114 B.C., in obedience to an injunction of the Sibylline books, after the discovery of incest on the part of three vestal virgins, ‘quo facilius virginum mulierumque mens a libidine ad pudicitiam converteretur201.’ Macrobius insists that Venus had originally no share in the worship of this day or month202; she must therefore have been introduced into it as a foreigner. Robertson Smith203 has shown some ground for the conjecture that she was the Cyprian Aphrodite (herself identical with the Semitic Astarte), who came to Rome by way of Sicily and Latium. For if Lydus can be trusted, the Roman ceremony of April 1 was found also in Cyprus, on the same day, with variations in detail. If that be so, the addition of the name Verticordia is a curious example of the accretion of a Roman cult-title expressive of domestic morality on a foreign deity of questionable reputation204.