"When their city was occupied by the Gauls, and the Romans, who were besieged in the Capitol, had made military engines from the hair of the women, they dedicated a temple to the Bald Venus"
About this Quote
The intent isn’t admiration for civic sacrifice; it’s exposure of a cultural reflex. Rome can’t just endure crisis. It must mythologize it, build a temple, and call the wound a virtue. Lactantius wants the reader to feel the moral sleight of hand: an act of desperation gets retrofitted as piety, and a god’s portfolio gets stretched to accommodate an embarrassment. That’s the subtextual indictment of pagan religion as infinitely pliable, a system that sanctifies whatever happened to occur, however absurd.
Context matters: Lactantius writes as a Christian critic with an insider’s education in Roman letters. He doesn’t need to refute paganism abstractly; he can win by showing it at its most self-parodying. “Bald Venus” is theology as coping mechanism, civic propaganda masquerading as devotion.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
|---|---|
| Source | Later attribution: Ante-Nicene Fathers: Fathers of the Early Church (Complete) (Philip Schaff) modern compilationISBN: 9781465541055 · ID: Ii0KdLNdPEgC
Evidence:
... When their city was occupied by the Gauls, and the Romans, who were besieged in the Capitol, had made military engines from the hair of the women, they dedicated a temple to the Bald Venus. They do not therefore understand how vain are ... |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Lactantius. (2026, March 23). When their city was occupied by the Gauls, and the Romans, who were besieged in the Capitol, had made military engines from the hair of the women, they dedicated a temple to the Bald Venus. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/when-their-city-was-occupied-by-the-gauls-and-the-107579/
Chicago Style
Lactantius. "When their city was occupied by the Gauls, and the Romans, who were besieged in the Capitol, had made military engines from the hair of the women, they dedicated a temple to the Bald Venus." FixQuotes. March 23, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/when-their-city-was-occupied-by-the-gauls-and-the-107579/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"When their city was occupied by the Gauls, and the Romans, who were besieged in the Capitol, had made military engines from the hair of the women, they dedicated a temple to the Bald Venus." FixQuotes, 23 Mar. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/when-their-city-was-occupied-by-the-gauls-and-the-107579/. Accessed 4 Apr. 2026.
