childbirth. Her name
is based on the stem _di_, 'to shine,'[1388] which appears in 'Jupiter'
and 'Juno'; but she is not a sky-goddess--the "shining" in her case is
that of trees and plants, the green color that gleams in the light, so
that the grove is called _lucus_, the 'shining mass.'[1389] Diana was
soon identified with Artemis, and was endowed with her attributes.

+807+. Another Italian goddess, Minerva, stood, probably, in the earlier
time for the simpler arts of a simple community--she was the patroness
of manual work and of the healing art. The expression _omnis Minervae
homo_, descriptive of a man capable in his line of work, almost reduces
her to an abstract idea. The name (as the older form, Menerva, more
clearly indicates) is based on the stem _man_ (found in Latin _mens_),
and appears to mean 'endowed with mind' (or, 'spirit'), though exactly
what was the range of this conception in the earliest times is not
clear.[1390] Later her function was extended to embrace intellectual
capacity, but it was not until her identification with Athene (not later
than the third century B.C.) that she attained her full cultic
significance.[1391]

+808+. Venus, though an old Italian deity (as her name and her ancient
temples show), was so early Hellenized that her proper native
development was cut short. The fact that she was in early times the
patroness of gardens[1392] suggests that she was originally a deity of
the productive field; probably she belonged in the group of goddesses
(Libera, Bona Dea, and others)[1393] who presided over fertility. It
would seem that every region in Italy had such a _numen loci_ (naturally
mainly agricultural). It is not clear to what particular spot Venus was
originally attached,[1394] or how she came to be revered over a wide
region. Under ordinary Italian conditions she might have become a deity
like Ceres. But in Sicily, at Mount Eryx, according to tradition, her
cult came into contact with that of Aphrodite, whose qualities she soon
assumed.[1395]

+809+. In the third century B.C. the cult of the Sicilian Venus (Venus
Erycina) was brought to Rome by direction of the Sibylline Books, and
from this time onward her advance to prominence was continuous. As a
great goddess she became (like Ishtar and Aphrodite) in a warlike
community the patron of war (Venus Victrix). When the AEneas myth was
adopted in Rome she took the place of Aphrodite as mother of that hero
(who became the founder of