How are Venus and Aphrodite related?
Venus was an old Roman goddess of spring and fertility. Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love. The Romans became obsessed with Greek culture, and applied all of the myths about Aphrodite to their Venus. So, in Roman religion Venus was quite distinct from Aphrodite, but in myth they are represented as one and the same. The Romans built a large empire, and they regarded every love-goddess of every culture as faces of Venus. So, for the Romans the Egyptian goddess Hathor was also Venus, as was the Syrian goddess Ashtarte.
