User blog comment:SayuriDarling/The Mark of Athena Official Discussion/@comment-4649443-20121111201446/@comment-3146930-20121119053139

Not exactly. Aphrodite was born first, as the Greeks were the ones that named the gods in their stories and myths. The Romans eventually adopted the gods, but changed them to match what they needed and changed the names. Meaning that without Aphrodite, their wouldn't have been a Venus. Same could be said for the other gods, as if Zeus had never existed, Jupiter couldn't have existed.

Because gods tend to appear as they are needed, if the Romans needed a god of Beginnings and Endings, they made one. Think of it as the opposite of fading. I mean the Romans had dozens of gods for everyday things, so not every god changed from Greek to Roman and the Romans had gods of their own.

What I'm pretty much saying is that the Greek gods came first, meaning that Greek is their default form. You couldn't have had the Roman gods without the Greek gods coming first, so while you could say that Aphrodite = Venus, Venus =/= Aphrodite