Goddess Inc. - Aegina festival and Venus’s three stages

The Aegina celebration in Goddess Inc. made me want to check how much of Venus’s plan came from actual mythology. The festival and the three names she uses have ancient connections, but the comic brings them together in a very particular way. In issue #1, Venus says she wants to revive the Aegina celebration. She describes it as a festival that coincides with the winter solstice and ends with the rites of Venus. While it approaches, she will be ascending and reaching the height of her powers. Her plan is to bring the twelve Olympians together and restore a world where mortals worship them. Then, in issue #5, “Rites of Venus,” she explains the transformation more directly. The three stages are Caelestia, celestial; Cloacina, the purifier; and Victrix, victorious. Venus is the one saying this. These are stages she expects to pass through herself, leading to her overthrowing Zeus. They aren’t three different goddesses appearing at the festival. The first detail worth getting right is the name. The comic says Aegina, the Greek island, rather than Aegean. That turns out to matter when looking for the historical connection. In Greek Questions 44, Plutarch describes an observance in Aegina (https://sacred-texts.com/book/the-roman-and-greek-questions/40-49-2) involving sacrifices to Poseidon and sixteen days of quiet meals within families. Outsiders and enslaved servants were excluded. He explains the custom through a story about survivors returning from the Trojan War. Their families were glad to have them home, but other households were grieving, so they kept their celebrations private. That is the ancient explanation of the custom, rather than proof that it began with a particular group of returning soldiers. The part that connects most closely to Goddess Inc. comes at the end: Plutarch says the celebration finishes after the Aphrodisia, rites associated with Aphrodite. So there really is an ancient account of an Aeginetan celebration ending with Aphrodite’s observance. Venus was identified with the Greek Aphrodite, which makes the resemblance to the comic’s concluding rites of Venus fairly easy to see. The winter-solstice date needs a little more care. Plutarch doesn’t give that date in the passage. There is scholarship connecting Poseidon’s festivals with the winter-solstice season, including Noel Robertson’s 1984 paper, “Poseidon’s Festival at the Winter Solstice.” (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009838800029256) But the dating of the Aeginetan celebration has been debated. Robertson’s notes discuss an earlier proposal placing it in early spring. That leaves us with a strong historical parallel for the festival and its ending, and a scholarly argument for the seasonal connection. It doesn’t give us an uncontested ancient calendar entry matching every detail Venus explains in the comic. It also doesn’t establish which source LaToya Morgan used when writing it. The three names have their own histories. Caelestia is the spelling in the comic. The historically attested title is Venus Caelestis, meaning heavenly or celestial Venus. I would keep those spellings separate when talking about the panel and the ancient evidence. There is a very tangible example in Bochum University’s coin collection (https://mk-bochum.ikmk.net/object?id=ID641&lang=en). A Roman silver coin of Julia Soaemias, dated to 218–222 CE, carries the inscription VENVS CAELESTIS. Venus appears with an apple and a sceptre, with a star beside her. That gives the comic’s celestial stage a recognizable connection to an actual title of Venus. It doesn’t show that ancient worshippers believed she had to enter that stage before becoming the purifier. The coin belongs to Roman imperial coinage, rather than being a record of the Aeginetan festival. Cloacina is the name that takes this into a different part of Roman religion. Digital Augustan Rome describes her shrine in the Roman Forum (https://www.digitalaugustanrome.org/records/cloacina-sacrum/) and identifies her as the divinity of the Cloaca Maxima, later associated with Venus. The connection to Rome’s great sewer is real, but there is also a purification tradition behind the name. In Pliny’s Natural History, Book 15 (https://penelope.uchicago.edu/holland/pliny15.html), the Romans and Sabines are said to have purified themselves with myrtle after reconciliation, at the place associated with Venus Cluacina. Pliny connects the name with an old word for cleansing. Like Plutarch’s Trojan War explanation, this is an ancient account of a religious tradition, not an event we can simply treat as independently verified history. “The purifier” therefore has a real basis. The comic uses that association as the second stage of Venus’s transformation. The ancient evidence points to a goddess, a shrine, and ideas about cleansing. It doesn’t describe the next step in a ritual for taking Zeus’s power. Victrix means victorious, and Venus Victrix also had a substantial Roman religious presence. Pompey’s temple to Venus Victrix (https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/Rome/_Texts/PLATOP%2A/Venus_Victrix.html) was dedicated in 55 BCE as part of his theatre complex in Rome. Venus’s connection with victory belonged in a setting of military success and public power. She wasn’t confined to the love-and-beauty role that tends to be the first thing people remember about her. That makes Victrix an especially fitting name for the last stage Venus wants to reach in Goddess Inc. She is planning to defeat the existing ruler and put herself beyond anyone else’s ability to stop her. The historical title gives that ambition a meaning beyond a new costume or a stronger attack. What I couldn’t find was ancient evidence for these three names forming one established sequence of transformation. They come from different religious settings and periods. They are titles and cult associations, not a documented three-step ceremony in which Venus becomes celestial, then a purifier, and finally victorious. The comic combines a Greek festival tradition, Roman forms of Venus, and its own story about divine power. Its explanation of Zeus ending the gods’ worship belongs to that fictional story too. There is quite a bit of history behind the names. The change is in what the comic makes them do. A celebration that ends with Aphrodite becomes the opportunity for Venus’s ascent, and names associated with heaven, purification, and victory become the stages of her attempt to replace Zeus.