Differences between Greek and Roman gods | The same mythology?

It is very common for people to confuse the gods of Ancient Greece with those of the Roman Empire, so we should not be surprised by questions such as: "Was Vulcan Greek or Roman?" But, to be fair, these are valid and logical doubts, since Roman mythology welcomed, in its own way, the deities of its Hellenic predecessors. Therefore, now we have to ask ourselves something: Greek gods and Romans ... are they the same mythology?

Differences between Greek and Roman gods

After the Mycenaean period, it became relevant in Mediterranean one of the great cultures of the History of Humanity: the Greek civilization. It was around 1200 a.C. when the historic stage of the Ancient Greece , which would become the first great civilization of Europe and the germ of what is now known as Western culture.

The Greeks developed a whole mythology , inspired by some oriental beliefs, in which the deities not only looked human, they even let themselves be carried away by their passions and feelings just like mortals did. In addition, these gods were strongly linked to earthly affairs. In fact, while the major cities competed for power, the Greeks imagined that these clashes were related to internal disputes between the gods.

Greece He succumbed to Roman power in 147 BC. With its fall, the Greek gods were renamed by the emerging great empire of the Mediterranean . Now, these deities would serve the new masters, so the Greek Acropolis was abandoned and new temples erected in his honor. Finally, the Romans would abandon polytheism for the cult of Jesus of Nazareth, which began to be preached in Ephesus and whose cult was established by the Emperor Constantine. This new god, who came to banish the previous ones, would explain one of the great questions of Humanity: what is in the hereafter.

Greek Acropolis

Ruins of the Acropolis of Athens

Roman mythology, how is it different from Greek?

The Greeks devised a whole mythology that explained the origin of the universe . As it collects Hesiod , at first there was only chaos, from which Gea emerges -also called Earth-. This deity begot Uranus, with whom he would later conceive the titans, the Titanides, the cyclops and the Hecatonchires. However, Uranus, who did not want to have children, kept his descendants in the mother's womb. Cronos , one of the unborn sons of Gea and Uranus, castrated his father as revenge. However, the story was repeated when the Titan Cronus married Rea. Each time his wife gave birth, the titan devoured the newborn. Rea managed to save and hide one of the little ones, Zeus, who would later avenge his mother by killing Cronos. When he died, all the children he devoured would come out of his womb.

In this way the Greeks explain the origin of Zeus , the most important god among all the deities, both in Greek and Roman mythology, with the proviso that in Rome it was known as Jupiter . Both are known to be the gods of the heavens, and their most prominent attribute is lightning. It should also be noted that both Zeus and Jupiter were married to their sister, known as Hera by the Greeks and Juno by the Romans.

As we see, the Roman representation of the gods of Olympus is practically the same as the Greek one. Nevertheless, Jupiter was also in charge of laws and social order , besides being the most important figure of the capitolina triad.

One of the differences that we can appreciate between the Greek and the Roman cult, between the Greek and Roman gods, is that the Italians used to gather their deities in groups of three, called triads . The most important of all was the aforementioned capitol triad , composed by Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. The latter was the goddess of wisdom and war and, like the rest of Olympian gods, Minerva was also an adaptation of another Greek goddess: Athena. It is also worth noting that this capitoline triad was based on the Etruscan triad composed by Tinia, Uni and Menrva.

Despite the general tendency of the Romans to rename the gods of Olympus, there was a Greek god who retained his name and remained genuinely Greek. This is the case of Apollo. Although it has sometimes been described by Roman poets as Phoebus, the truth is that Apollo can be considered a Greco-Roman divinity .

Mythological names: Dafne

Apollo chasing Daft, from Maratta.

Another of the Greek contributions to Roman mythology was the anthropomorphism of the gods . In the beginning, the Romans imagined their gods with an appearance similar to that of the elements of Nature, such as stones. However, they ended up adopting the human physiognomy of Greek mythology, so the Greek and Roman gods began to look even in their representations, for example Zeus and Jupiter were drawn and sculpted in a similar way in both cultures. In any case, it must be emphasized that the Romans did not consider that the gods acted in an identical way to that of mortals , so his literature focused less exhaustively on the activities of his deities.

Greek and Roman gods

Excerpt from Assembly of the Gods, by Raphael.

Therefore, we can summarize that the Greek and Roman gods were really similar. The Greeks developed all a series of myths that were transmitted orally through the generations. In fact, according to most classicists, Greek poets, like Homer , they would collect the myths of this oral tradition to translate them into their poems. On the other hand, the Romans adopted a foreign mythology and, instead of transmitting it from mouth to mouth -which could have generated variations in the myths-, they immortalized it in their literature.


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