Roman mythology

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Father Tiber, and the Palatine on a relief from a pedestal dating to the reign of Trajan
(AD 98–117)
Mythology
Mythologies
Types
Lists
Related concepts
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Roman mythology is the body of

myths of ancient Rome as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans. One of a wide variety of genres of Roman folklore, Roman mythology may also refer to the modern study of these representations, and to the subject matter as represented in the literature and art of other cultures in any period. Roman mythology draws from the mythology of the Italic peoples and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European mythology
.

The Romans usually treated their traditional narratives as historical, even when these have miraculous or supernatural elements. The stories are often concerned with politics and morality, and how an individual's personal integrity relates to his or her responsibility to the community or Roman state. Heroism is an important theme. When the stories illuminate Roman religious practices, they are more concerned with ritual, augury, and institutions than with theology or cosmogony.[1]

Roman mythology also draws on

Jupiter—and reinterpreted myths about Greek deities under the names of their Roman counterparts. Greek and Roman mythologies are therefore often classified together in the modern era as Greco-Roman mythology
.

Latin literature was widely known in Europe throughout the

canonical
.

Nature of Roman myth

In this wall painting from Pompeii, Venus looks on while the physician Iapyx tends to the wound of her son, Aeneas; the tearful boy is her grandson Ascanius, also known as Iulus, legendary ancestor[citation needed] of Julius Caesar and the Julio-Claudian dynasty

Because ritual played the central role in Roman religion that myth did for the Greeks, it is sometimes doubted that the Romans had much of a native mythology. This perception is a product of Romanticism and the classical scholarship of the 19th century, which valued Greek civilization as more "authentically creative."[3] From the Renaissance to the 18th century, however, Roman myths were an inspiration particularly for European painting.[4] The Roman tradition is rich in historical myths, or legends, concerning the foundation and rise of the city. These narratives focus on human actors, with only occasional intervention from deities but a pervasive sense of divinely ordered destiny. In Rome's earliest period, history and myth have a mutual and complementary relationship.[5] As T. P. Wiseman notes:

The Roman stories still matter, as they mattered to

tyranny?[4]

Major sources for Roman myth include the

wall painting, coins, and sculpture, particularly reliefs
.

Founding myths

Main article: Founding of Rome

The Aeneid and Livy's early history are the best extant sources for

convoluted revisionist genealogy as forebear of Romulus and Remus. By extension, the Trojans were adopted as the mythical ancestors of the Roman people.[6]

Other myths

Mucius Scaevola in the Presence of Lars Porsenna (early 1640s) by Matthias Stom
arrival of Galatea; ancient Roman fresco painted in the "Fourth Style" of Pompeii
(45–79 AD)

The characteristic myths of Rome are often political or moral, that is, they deal with the development of Roman government in accordance with divine law, as expressed by Roman religion, and with demonstrations of the individual's adherence to moral expectations (mos maiorum) or failures to do so.

Religion and myth

Main article: Religion in ancient Rome

Narratives of divine activity played a more important role in the system of Greek religious belief than among the Romans, for whom ritual and cult were primary. Although Roman religion did not have a basis in

Sibylline books, which Tarquin the Proud (according to legend) purchased in the late 6th century BC from the Cumaean Sibyl. Some aspects of archaic Roman religion survived in the lost theological works of the 1st-century BC scholar Varro
, known through other classical and Christian authors.

Capitoline Triad

The earliest pantheon included Janus,

mythographical classic The Golden Bough
.

Punishment of Ixion: in the center stands Mercury holding the caduceus, and on the right Juno sits on her throne. Behind her Iris stands and gestures. On the left Vulcan (the blond figure) stands behind the wheel, manning it, with Ixion already tied to it. Nephele sits at Mercury's feet. – Roman fresco from the eastern wall of the triclinium in the House of the Vettii, Pompeii, Fourth Style (60–79 AD).

The gods represented distinctly the practical needs of daily life, and Ancient Romans scrupulously accorded them the appropriate rites and offerings. Early Roman divinities included a host of "specialist gods" whose names were invoked in the carrying out of various specific activities. Fragments of old ritual accompanying such acts as plowing or sowing reveal that at every stage of the operation a separate deity was invoked, the name of each deity being regularly derived from the verb for the operation. Tutelary deities were particularly important in ancient Rome.

Thus,

Jupiter, the ruler of the gods, was honored for the aid his rains might give to the farms and vineyards. In his more encompassing character he was considered, through his weapon of lightning, the director of human activity. Due to his widespread domain, the Romans regarded him as their protector in their military activities beyond the borders of their own community. Prominent in early times were the gods Mars and Quirinus
, who were often identified with each other. Mars was a god of war; he was honored in March and October. Modern scholars see Quirinus as the patron of the armed community in time of peace.

The 19th-century scholar

war with Hannibal, any distinction between "indigenous" and "immigrant" gods begins to fade, and the Romans embraced diverse gods from various cultures as a sign of strength and universal divine favor.[18]

Foreign gods

Mithras
in a Roman wall painting

The absorption of neighboring local gods took place as the Roman state conquered neighboring territories. The Romans commonly granted the local gods of a conquered territory the same honors as the earlier gods of the

Roman state religion. In addition to Castor and Pollux, the conquered settlements in Italy seem to have contributed to the Roman pantheon Diana, Minerva, Hercules, Venus, and deities of lesser rank, some of whom were Italic divinities, others originally derived from the Greek culture of Magna Graecia. In 203 BC, Rome imported the cult object embodying Cybele from Pessinus in Phrygia and welcomed its arrival with due ceremony. Both Lucretius and Catullus
, poets contemporary in the mid-1st century BC, offer disapproving glimpses of Cybele's wildly ecstatic cult.

In some instances, deities of an enemy power were formally invited through the ritual of evocatio to take up their abode in new sanctuaries at Rome.

Communities of foreigners (

Mithras came to Rome and his popularity within the Roman army spread his cult as far afield as Roman Britain. The important Roman deities were eventually identified with the more anthropomorphic
Greek gods and goddesses, and assumed many of their attributes and myths.

Astronomy

Main article: Milky Way (mythology)
The Origin of the Milky Way (c. 1575–1580) by Tintoretto

Many astronomical objects are named after Roman deities, like the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune.

In Roman and Greek mythology, Jupiter places his son born by a mortal woman, the infant

breastfeeding an unknown infant, she pushed him away, some of her milk spills, and the spurting milk became the Milky Way. In another version of the myth, the abandoned Heracles is given by Minerva to Juno for feeding, but Heracles' forcefulness causes Minerva to rip him from her breast in pain. The milk that squirts out forms the Milky Way.[19][20][21]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Roman mythology.

References

  1. ^ John North, Roman Religion (Cambridge University Press, 2000) pp. 4ff.
  2. ^ Rengel, Marian; Daly, Kathleen N. (2009). Greek and Roman Mythology, A to Z. United States: Facts On File, Incorporated. p. 66.
  3. ^ T. P. Wiseman, The Myths of Rome (University of Exeter Press, 2004), preface (n.p.).
  4. ^ a b Wiseman, The Myths of Rome, preface.
  5. ^ Alexandre Grandazzi, The Foundation of Rome: Myth and History (Cornell University Press, 1997), pp. 45–46.
  6. ^ See also Lusus Troiae.
  7. ^ J.N. Bremmer and N.M. Horsfall, Roman Myth and Mythography (University of London Institute of Classical Studies, 1987), pp. 49–62.
  8. ^ Bremmer and Horsfall, pp. 63–75.
  9. ^ Bremmer and Horsfall, pp. 76–88.
  10. ^ Bremmer and Horsfall, pp. 89–104; Larissa Bonfante, Etruscan Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan Studies (Wayne State University Press, 1986), p. 25.
  11. ^ Bremmer and Horsfall, pp. 105–111.
  12. ISBN 978-0-231-51487-3
    .
  13. ISBN 978-0-521-20069-1
    .
  14. ^ Cicero, De domo sua 138.
  15. ^ Jerzy Linderski, "The libri reconditi", Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 89 (1985) 207–234.
  16. ^ Georg Wissowa, De dis Romanorum indigetibus et novensidibus disputatio (1892), full text (in Latin) online.
  17. ^ Arnaldo Momigliano, "From Bachofen to Cumont", in A.D. Momigliano: Studies on Modern Scholarship (University of California Press, 1994), p. 319; Franz Altheim, A History of Roman Religion, as translated by Harold Mattingly (London, 1938), pp. 110–112; Mary Beard, J.A. North and S.R.F. Price. Religions of Rome: A History (Cambridge University Press, 1998), vol. 1, p. 158, note 7.
  18. ^ William Warde Fowler, The Religious Experience of the Roman People (London, 1922) pp. 157 and 319; J.S. Wacher, The Roman World (Routledge, 1987, 2002), p. 751.
  19. ^ "Myths about the Milky Way". judy-volker.com. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  20. ISBN 978-0-19-511957-2
    .
  21. ISBN 978-0-19-538839-8
    .

Sources

External links

Library resources about
Roman mythology
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