[23] Why do they sell articles for funerals in the precinct of Libitina, whom they identify with Venus?[43]
Is this also one of the philosophic devices of king Numa, that they should learn not to feel repugnance at such things nor shun them as a pollution?
Or is it rather a reminder that whatever is born must die, since one goddess presides over births and deaths? For in Delphi there is a little statue of Aphrodite of the Tomb, to which they summon the departed to come forth for the libations.