ROMAN MYTHOLOGY: Major GODS

The Ancient Rome it was, together with Ancient Greece, the great ancient classical civilization, many of its key elements being key to understanding the Western thought and reaching its ideals to the present, being its base beliefs for much of art during centuries. To know in depth one of its main elements of this civilization in this lesson from a PROFESSOR we must talk about the gods of Roman mythology most important.

The Roman mythology It was a series of beliefs and myths of the Roman civilization, being a religion that happened to be born as a series of beliefs related to the etruscan rituals towards a mythology full of legends and deities similar to the greek.

A sample of the late existence of gods in Roman beliefs shows the observer the more classical sources, in which the existence of gods was very limited and over the years, Y greek influence, which caused the roman gods.

To better understand what the mythology consisted of, we must talk about its main features, which were the following:

• She is a polytheistic mythologyIn other words, there were many very different gods with certain aspects.
• The gods used to not be indigenous, coming from other cultures assimilated by conquest or in most cases being a copy of Greek deities.
• Roman gods and goddesses personify all aspects of Roman society, but also the nature that surrounded the Romans.
• Roman mythology arises from the union of Etruscan rituals and the beliefs of other cultures such as the greek.
• The intention of the Romans is that all conquered peoples they will change their beliefs and they will take Roman mythology as their own, this being a process that continued until the rise of Christianity.
• Holidays were very common, being in most cases petitions to the gods so that Roman life was simpler.

The enormous number of relevant deities within the Roman pantheon makes it necessary divide the gods in two categories: in masculine and feminine. In addition, it serves to understand that in Roman society there was a certain gender equality between the relevance of the gods. Main male roman gods were the following:

• Jupiter: Supreme God of the Romans, being the father of the gods and the Romans and ruling over the sky from where he dominated the rays. His Greek counterpart was Zeus, possessing many of his attributes.
• Mars: God of war, so he was one of the main deities of a people as warlike and conquering as the Roman was. His Greek counterpart was Ares, the Greek god being much less important than the Roman.
• Mercury: Messenger of the gods like his Greek counterpart Hermes. He was the god of messengers, thieves and protector of the roads, being closely related to the Roman merchants.
• Poseidon: God of the sea, the oceans and earthquakes, the rituals that were done to him to protect the Roman ships in their travels or confrontations are well known.
• Pluto: God of the underworld and king of the dead, being very relevant as it shows that he was one of the gods chosen for the most expensive representations. His Greek counterpart was Hades, although Pluto was much more evil and violent than Hades.
• Phoebus: God of light, poetry, music and medicine among many others, being the Roman counterpart of the god Apollo and being like him a god with many facets.
• Bacchus: God of wine and festivals, both being very common elements in Roman society and especially in the upper classes. He was one of the gods most named for the idle character of Roman culture.
• Vulcan: Blacksmith of the gods and god of fire. Counterpart of the Greek god Hephaestus like him was protector of the Roman blacksmiths.

To finish this lesson on the gods of Roman mythology, we must talk about the main goddesses of the Roman beliefs, being a series of deities that had a great relevance in this town and that received an importance similar to the one they possessed in the Greek people. The main Roman goddesses are the following:

• Juno: Queen of the gods and the deity in charge of women, marriage and childbirth. For all this she was in charge of receiving the rites prior to childbirth so that everything went well. Unlike in Greece and her counterpart Hera it seems that Juno was also a warrior deity.
• Minerva: Goddess of wisdom and strategic victory. Her counterpart was Athena in Greece, but Minerva was not as important to the Romans as she was Athena to the Greeks.
• Diana: Goddess of the hunt, the Moon and virginity, she was considered one of the main Roman goddesses, being more important than her Artemis counterpart of hers in Greece.
• Venus: Goddess of love, sex, fertility and prostitution, the latter being a highly valued job in Roman life. The importance of Venus was key especially after Julius Caesar who placed her as his protector because of the importance of love for the Roman.
• Vesta: Represents the fire the relevance of it was born from being the defender of the vestals, some fortune-tellers related to the reading of fire.
• Ceres: Goddess of vegetation and crops, like her Greek counterpart, she was one of the main deities of her culture.