Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans.
The Romans usually treated their traditional narratives as histor...
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People often think that Jupiter, King of the Roman Gods, and Zeus, King of the Greek Gods, are the same god.
But the truth is that Jupiter was as different from Zeus as the ancient Romans were from the ancient Greeks.
The Romans worshiped thousands of gods. As they expanded their empire, they discovered new gods from the people they conquered. When they ran into a god (or goddess) they liked, they adopted him (or her.) When they heard about the Greek gods, they adopted nearly all of them.
They gave the Greek gods Roman names, and acted as if they had been Roman gods all along.
But they did more than that. The ancient Romans changed some of the Greek myths to better reflect Roman beliefs. They changed some of the Greek gods' personalities to better reflect the Roman way of life. This did not happen overnight.
In Roman mythology, for example, Jupiter rarely, if ever, came down to earth. He ruled from the heavens above, and his word was final. (The Greek God Zeus, on the other hand, was forever showing up on earth in disguise, and had a great time doing it. He was terrified of his wife Hera, and somewhat ruled himself by the Fates.)
Juno, the Queen of all the Roman Gods, was motherly. Her job was to watch over the women of Rome. When she wasn't doing that, she was busy with her own children and her own household. (Hera, the Queen of all the Greek gods, was jealous and petty. When she wasn't keeping an eagle eye on Zeus, she was plotting against any god or mortal who had angered her.)
The truth about myths is that they change with the storyteller, the civilization, the times, and the translation.
Still, the Greek myths were so wonderful that the ancient Roman storytellers and poets and writers might change some them, to bring them closer to the Roman way of life, but overall, they left quite a few of them very close to the way they found them, and treated the ancient Greek myths as great stories, which indeed they are!
How Greek Myths Become Roman Myths
From the founding of the Roman empire to its fall in A.D. 476, Rome dominated Europe and much of North Africa, the Near East, and Asia Minor*. Although this sprawling empire encompassed many cultures with their own myths and legends, the mythology of the Romans themselves revolved around the founding, history, and heroes of the city of Rome. The Romans had developed their own pantheon of gods and goddesses. After they conquered Greece, however, their deities became increasingly associated with the figures of Greek mythology.
Background and Sources
Although Rome's early history is difficult to separate from the legends that formed around it, the city appears to have begun as a community of central Italian peoples known as Latins. The Latins merged with the Etruscans, who had come to Italy from Asia Minor before 800 B.C.
Until 510 B.C. , Rome was ruled by kings. Then it became a republic governed by elected officials. The Roman republic eventually dominated most of Italy and conquered the North African coast and Greece. By 31 B.C. , Rome governed all the lands around the Mediterranean Sea as well as northwest Europe.
The principal sources of information about Roman mythology appeared during the early years of the empire, between about 20 B.C. and A.D. 20. The poet Virgil produced Rome's national epic, the Aeneid, which drew on myths that linked the city's founding with Greek deities and legends. Another poet, Ovid, wrote the Metamorphoses, a collection of Near Eastern and Greek myths that the Romans had adopted. Ovid's Fasti describes Roman myths about the gods according to the festivals in their calendar. In his history of Rome, Livy portrayed legends about the city's founding as though they were historical events. These and other writers worked to create an "official" Roman mythology, one that gave Rome an ancient, distinguished, and glorious heritage.
pantheon alt the gods of a particular culture
deity god or goddess
epic long poem about legendary or historical heroes, written in a grand style
MAJOR DEITIES. In their early years, Roman people had many gods and goddesses called numina, or powers. Unlike the Greek deities, the numina did not have distinctive, well-defined personalities and characteristics. Few stories about them existed. They were simply the forces that oversaw the activities of daily life. Examples include Janus, god of doorways and archways, and Terminus, god of boundaries. Many early Roman deities were patrons of farming, crops, or the land. Sylvanus, for example, was the protector of woodcutters and plowmen. Other early deities represented virtues or qualities, such as Concordia (goddess of agreement), Fides (goddess of honesty), and Fortuna (goddess of fate or luck).
Captivated by the elaborate and entertaining myths the Greeks had woven around their gods and goddesses, the Romans gradually changed some of their numina into Roman versions of the major Greek deities. The ancient Roman god Saturn, guardian of seeds and planting, became identified with the Titan* Cronus, who appeared in Greek mythology as the ancestor of the gods. Aphrodite became Venus, the Roman goddess of love. Zeus and Hera, the king and queen of the Greek gods, became the Roman Jupiter (sometimes called Jove) and Juno.
PATRON special guardian, protector, or supporter
Mars, a Roman deity first associated with agriculture, took on the characteristics of Ares, the Greek god of war, which explains why the Roman version of this god is concerned with both war and farming. Diana, a traditional Roman goddess of the forests, was identified with Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt. Minerva was the Roman version of Athena*, Neptune of Poseidon*, Vulcan of Hephaestus*, Mercury of Hermes*, Ceres of Demeter*, and Bacchus of Dionysus*. Apollo*, too, was brought into the Roman pantheon, where he was known as both Apollo and Phoebus.
The Romans gave their deities some of the characteristics and even some of the stories associated with the Greek gods and goddesses. They also imported other foreign deities, such as Cybele from near Troy in Asia Minor and the Persian god Mithras. At the same time, in their own homes they continued to worship their traditional household gods, known as the Lares and Penates.
Roman mythology also includes human heroes. Sometimes these mortals became deities. Romulus, the legendary founder of the city of Rome, was thought to have become the god Quirinus. Many emperors were declared gods by the Roman senate after their deaths, and people worshiped them in temples. The most honored heroes, however, were Aeneas, Romulus and Remus, and others from myths about Rome's beginnings and early history.
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