Shrine of Venus Cloacina
The Shrine of Venus Cloacina was a small sanctuary on the Roman Forum, honoring the divinity of the Cloaca Maxima, the "Great Drain" or sewer of Rome. Cloacina, the goddess associated with the entrance to the sewer system, was later identified with the Roman goddess Venus for unknown reasons, according to Pliny the Elder.
History
The foundation and cult of the shrine was associated in Roman legend with the Sabine king Titus Tatius, who ruled during the time of Romulus. The deity Cloacina may have been associated originally with the small brook which marked the boundary between the Sabines on the Quirinal Hill and Romans on the Palatine Hill and later became the city's Cloaca Maxima.Two important episodes from Rome's founding are said to have taken place at this shrine, including the purification of the Sabine and Roman armies after a war and the death of Verginia. According to legend, the father of the virtuous Verginia, using a butcher's knife from one of the stalls of the Tabernae Novae, killed his daughter rather than let her fall victim to the lecherous attentions of Appius Claudius in 449 BC.
The Shrine of Venus Cloacina is first mentioned by the playwright Plautus in the early second century BC. It was located in the Forum in front of the Tabernae Novae and on the Via Sacra. The Tabernae Novae were replaced by the expanded Basilica Aemilia in the middle Republic, but the shrine was preserved. The round masonry Shrine probably dates from this construction.