How and under what form the cult of Venus came into Italy is uncertain, but the legend represents Aeneas as having brought it from Troy to Lavinium and Laurentum[64], and already in the time of Romulus a Venus Myrtea (Venus of the Myrtle) was venerated at Rome. In addition a Venus Cloacina, Erycina, Victrix, and Verticordia (Venus—the Purifier, of Mount Eryx, of Victory, the Turner of Hearts) are mentioned, as also a Venus _Calva_ (bald), whose worship King Ancus is said to have introduced, at a time when the Roman women had lost their hair through a plague and it had grown again by the help of Venus[65]. Not only are the notices as to Venus worship in Italy very scanty, but everything on the subject points to the fact that what there was of it in later times showed little of the Asiatic impress; and we can conveniently leave the matter where it is. Some questions belonging to the subject will be discussed later under the heading _Brothels_. In Spain too the worship of Venus was so unimportant that there is no need to enter more closely into the point.
Whilst the cult of Venus sprang up in the interior of Asia and was disseminated from thence over other parts of the world, it is in India that the Lingam ritual took its rise, a ritual more closely corresponding with the egotism of man. The idea that was early formed as the result of observation, that the man’s genitals were the determining element in the process of generation, was bound to conceive these organs themselves as being, in the prevailing system of Pantheism, under the Government of a Deity, and therefore as specially holy[66]. Now how could this Deity be represented to the eyes of men otherwise than by that organ whereby he pre-eminently showed himself efficacious? The later legend it is true put the matter into another shape; and we find in _Sonnerat_[67] the myth of the Lingam-ritual amongst the worshippers of Vishnu related in the following form:
“The Penitents had by means of their sacrifices and prayers attained great power; but their hearts and their wives’ hearts must ever remain pure, if they would continue in possession of it. Now Siva had heard the beauty of these latter highly extolled, and formed the determination of seducing them. With this aim in view he took on him the form of a young mendicant[68] of perfect beauty, bade Vishnu transform himself into a fair maiden and resort to the spot where the Penitents dwelt, in order to make them fall in love with him. Vishnu betook himself thither, and as he passed through their midst threw them such tender glances that they were all enamoured. They left all their sacrifices to follow after the youthful fair one.[69]