Fertility Goddess
The goddess of love has an ancient history. Ishtar/Astarte was the Semitic goddess of love. In Greece this goddess was called Aphrodite. Aphrodite was worshiped especially on the islands of Cyprus and Kythera. The Greek goddess of love played a crucial role in the myths about Atalanta, Hippolytus, Myrrha, and Pygmalion. Among mortals, the Greco-Roman goddess loved Adonis and Anchises. The Romans originally worshiped Venus as goddess of fertility. Her fertility powers spread from the garden to humans. The Greek aspects of the love and beauty goddess Aphrodite were added on to Venus' attributes, and so for most practical purposes, Venus is synonymous with Aphrodite. The Romans revered Venus as the ancestor of the Roman people through her liaison with Anchises. "She was the goddess of chastity in women, despite the fact that she had many affairs with both gods and mortals. As Venus Genetrix, she was worshiped as the mother (by Anchises) of the hero Aeneas, the founder of the Roman people; as Venus Felix, the bringer of good fortune; as Venus Victrix, the bringer of victory; and as Venus Verticordia, the protector of feminine chastity. Venus is also a nature goddess, associated with the arrival of spring. She is the bringer of joy to gods and humans. Venus really had no myths of her own but was so closely identified with the Greek Aphrodite that she 'took over' Aphrodite's myths."
Aphrodite（阿佛洛狄特 司爱与美之女神） was the exception to the Greek God family tree. Some say her parents were unknown, and that she was born of sea foam. Others, like the poet Homer, said she was a daughter of the mighty Zeus宙斯（希腊神话中的主神）, king of all the gods. No one knows quite where to place her on the Greek God family tree. However she was born, Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty. She was an essential element of many Greek myths.
Venus Profile
Venus is probably most familiar from the armless Venus de Milo at the Louvre, in Paris. The Roman goddess Venus is distinct from the Greek goddess Aphrodite, although there is substantial overlap.
Portraits of Venus
Although we are most familiar with the nude Venus artistic representations, this wasn't always the way she was portrayed: "The patron deity of Pompeii was Venus Pompeiana; she was always shown as being fully clothed and wearing a crown. The statues and frescos which have been found in Pompeian gardens always show Venus either scantily clothed or totally nude. Pompeians seem to have referred to these nude images of Venus as Venus fisica; this may be from the Greek word physike, which meant 'related to nature'."
Festivals of the Goddess Venus
Encyclopedia Mythica: "Her cult orivinium in Latium. The oldest temple known of Venus dates back to 293 B.C., and was inaugurated on August 18. Later, on this date the Vinalia Rustica was observed. A second festival, that of the Veneralia, was celebrated on April 1 in honor of Venus Verticordia, who later became the protector against vice. Her temple was built in 114 B.C. After the Roman defeat near Lake Trasum in 215 B.C., a temple was built on the Capitol for Venus Erycina. This temple was officially opened on April 23, and a festival, the Vinalia Priora, was instituted to celebrate the occasion."
The Parentage of the Goddess Venus/Aphrodite
Venus was the goddess not only of love, but of beauty, so there were two important aspects to her and two main stories of her birth. Note that these birth stories are really about the Greek version of the goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite: "There were actually two different Aphrodites, one was the daughter of Uranus, the other the daughter of Zeus and Dione. The first, called Aphrodite Urania, was the goddess of spiritual love. The second, Aphrodite Pandemos, was the goddess of physical attraction."
To be fair to Aphrodite, she was not at all like Ares 阿瑞斯（战神） , the god of war. Ares loved to cause pain and havoc. Aphrodite was only merciless if you did something that truly angered her. Aphrodite was easier angered, especially when it came to vanity. For example, if you believe the old myths, it was not a quarrel over land or goods, but was instead Aphrodite's vanity that caused the Trojan War. Read the myth: Aphrodite and Queen Helen of Sparta 斯巴达（希腊南部的古代城邦）.
Legend says that Aphrodite could be kind or merciless. But the truth is that most of the myths about Aphrodite are, well, rather focused on Aphrodite. Not that she was vain. Aphrodite knew that she was the fairest in the land.