Venus Castina
Encyclopedia
Venus Castina was a minor epithet
of the Roman goddess Venus
; in this form, she was associated with "the yearnings of feminine souls locked up in male bodies." Depictions of worshipers of Venus Castina display both men and women as devotees; some portraits include male worshipers dressed in female attire.
Herodotus
wrote that Venus Castina cursed a group of Scythians who pillaged Venus' temple at Ascelon by turning them into women:
Epithet
An epithet or byname is a descriptive term accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title...
of the Roman goddess Venus
Venus (mythology)
Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...
; in this form, she was associated with "the yearnings of feminine souls locked up in male bodies." Depictions of worshipers of Venus Castina display both men and women as devotees; some portraits include male worshipers dressed in female attire.
Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
wrote that Venus Castina cursed a group of Scythians who pillaged Venus' temple at Ascelon by turning them into women:
"The Scythians who plundered the temple were punished by the goddess with the female sickness, which still attaches to their posterity. They themselves confess that they are afflicted with the disease for this reason, and travelers who visit Scythia can see what sort of a disease it is. Those who suffer from it are called Enarees." — The Histories, book I, chapter 105. Herodotus.