Mythology

[Vedennius]

Anyways, I have a question: the Romans adopted most of their gods from the Greek, but how much did the gods change? Did the Romans "reinvent" them, or merely adopt them and rename them?

I would assume that the process and its results were fairly complex? (but I would be very happy if somebody would correct me on this; or concur ).

From what I understand, Roman religion initially was animistic, dealing with "abstract" forces and natural phenoma, without attaching any human behaviour or human "looks" to them. This was followed in a second phase by assimilation and "adoption" of - first - Sabine, Etruscan etc. deities, and - later - the Greek pantheon, following contacts with the Greek colonies in southern Italy. The resulting Roman pantheon would probably be a mix of all those influences, both in terms of deities, and in terms of aspects of those deities (one wonders whether the process worked in the other direction as well, i.e. if other Italic peoples adopted aspects of early Roman religion). I seem to recall that e.g. deities such as Jupiter and Juno retained various Etruscan aspects, next to what was assimilated from their Greek counterparts. I would be very interested to know if some kind of time-line exists for this assimilation process, such as when particular deities are first mentioned?

Regarding the particular importance the Greek pantheon seems to have here, I wonder what the reason for that would be? I seem to recall rising Roman interest in all things Greek following Flaminius' "interventions" there - is there a correlation with Rome embracing the Greek pantheon?

This process of assimilation and "adoption" of foreign deities seems to have been on-going for most of Roman history (at least for the pagan part) - other examples of this would be Isis, Mithras and others. Although for these "later" examples, I am under the impression that they do not really became part of the "official" Roman pantheon like the earlier examples did... Again, can anybody correct me on this, or confirm this? If this is indeed the case, again, what would be the reason(s) for this? Would this be related to e..g Augustus wanting to revive/restore Roman values?

(yes, I know I asked more questions, and that answering questions with questions is usually not considered polite, but I hope you'll all indulge me on this :wink: )