Barbata

The bearded, a surname of Venus among the Romans. Macrobius1 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.2 The idea of Venus thus being a mixture of the male and female nature, seems to belong to a very late period of antiquity.3

It is also a surname of Fortuna, to whom youths dedicated the first cuttings of their beards.

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References

Notes

  1. Macrobius, 3.8.
  2. Comp. Suidas, s.v. Ἀφροδίτη; Hesychius, s.v. Ἀφρόδιτος.
  3. Voß, J.H. Mythologische Briefe, ii, p. 282 ff.

Sources

  • Peck, Harry Thurston. (1898). Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities.
  • Servius on Virgil's Aeneid ii, 632.
  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.

This article incorporates text from Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) by William Smith, which is in the public domain.