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Roman mythology

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Roman mythology
Romulus and Remus, the Lupercal, Father Tiber, and the Palatine on a relief from a pedestal dating to the reign of Trajan (AD 98–117)
Romulus and Remus, the Lupercal, Father Tiber, and the Palatine on a relief from a pedestal dating to the reign of Trajan (AD 98–117)

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.

Roman mythology also draws directly on Greek mythology, potentially as early as Rome's protohistory, but primarily during the Hellenistic period of Greek influence and through the Roman conquest of Greece, via the artistic imitation of Greek literary models by Roman authors.[1] The Romans identified their own gods with those of the ancient Greeks—who were closely historically related in some cases, such as Zeus and 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 Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. The interpretations of Greek myths by the Romans often had a greater influence on narrative and pictorial representations of "Greco-Roman mythology" than Greek sources. In particular, the versions of Greek myths in Ovid's Metamorphoses, written during the reign of Augustus, came to be regarded as canonical.

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Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome

In modern historiography, Ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic and Roman Empire until the fall of the western empire.

Latin literature

Latin literature

Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. The beginning of formal Latin literature dates to 240 BC, when the first stage play in Latin was performed in Rome. Latin literature would flourish for the next six centuries. The classical era of Latin literature can be roughly divided into the following periods: Early Latin literature, The Golden Age, The Imperial Period and Late Antiquity.

Italic peoples

Italic peoples

The Italic peoples were an ethnolinguistic group identified by their use of Italic languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family.

Greek mythology

Greek mythology

A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities of deities, heroes, and mythological creatures, and the origins and significance of the ancient Greeks' own cult and ritual practices. Modern scholars study the myths to shed light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Greece, and to better understand the nature of myth-making itself.

Hellenistic period

Hellenistic period

In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC to the death of Cleopatra VII followed by the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt the following year. The Ancient Greek word Hellas was gradually recognized as the name for Greece, from which the word Hellenistic was derived. "Hellenistic" is distinguished from "Hellenic" in that the latter refers to Greece itself, while the former encompasses all ancient territories under Greek influence, in particular the East after the conquests of Alexander the Great.

Ancient Greek literature

Ancient Greek literature

Ancient Greek literature is literature written in the Ancient Greek language from the earliest texts until the time of the Byzantine Empire. The earliest surviving works of ancient Greek literature, dating back to the early Archaic period, are the two epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, set in an idealized archaic past today identified as having some relation to the Mycenaean era. These two epics, along with the Homeric Hymns and the two poems of Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days, constituted the major foundations of the Greek literary tradition that would continue into the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods.

List of Roman deities

List of Roman deities

The Roman deities most widely known today are those the Romans identified with Greek counterparts, integrating Greek myths, iconography, and sometimes religious practices into Roman culture, including Latin literature, Roman art, and religious life as it was experienced throughout the Empire. Many of the Romans' own gods remain obscure, known only by name and sometimes function, through inscriptions and texts that are often fragmentary. This is particularly true of those gods belonging to the archaic religion of the Romans dating back to the era of kings, the so-called "religion of Numa", which was perpetuated or revived over the centuries. Some archaic deities have Italic or Etruscan counterparts, as identified both by ancient sources and by modern scholars. Throughout the Empire, the deities of peoples in the provinces were given new theological interpretations in light of functions or attributes they shared with Roman deities.

Jupiter (mythology)

Jupiter (mythology)

Jupiter, also known as Jove, is the god of the sky and thunder, and king of the gods in ancient Roman religion and mythology. Jupiter was the chief deity of Roman state religion throughout the Republican and Imperial eras, until Christianity became the dominant religion of the Empire. In Roman mythology, he negotiates with Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, to establish principles of Roman religion such as offering, or sacrifice.

List of Greek mythological figures

List of Greek mythological figures

The following is a list of gods, goddesses, and many other divine and semi-divine figures from ancient Greek mythology and ancient Greek religion.

Classical mythology

Classical mythology

Classical mythology, Greco-Roman mythology, or Greek and Roman mythology is both the body of and the study of myths from the ancient Greeks and ancient Romans as they are used or transformed by cultural reception. Along with philosophy and political thought, mythology represents one of the major survivals of classical antiquity throughout later Western culture. The Greek word mythos refers to the spoken word or speech, but it also denotes a tale, story or narrative.

Metamorphoses

Metamorphoses

The Metamorphoses is a Latin narrative poem from 8 CE by the Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his magnum opus. The poem chronicles the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar in a mythico-historical framework comprising over 250 myths, 15 books, and 11,995 lines.

Augustus

Augustus

Caesar Augustus, also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Principate, which is the first phase of the Roman Empire, and is considered one of the greatest leaders in human history. The reign of Augustus initiated an imperial cult as well as an era associated with imperial peace, the Pax Romana or Pax Augusta. The Roman world was largely free from large-scale conflict for more than two centuries despite continuous wars of imperial expansion on the empire's frontiers and the year-long civil war known as the "Year of the Four Emperors" over the imperial succession.

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
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 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."[2] From the Renaissance to the 18th century, however, Roman myths were an inspiration particularly for European painting.[3] 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.[4] As T. P. Wiseman notes:

The Roman stories still matter, as they mattered to Dante in 1300 and Shakespeare in 1600 and the founding fathers of the United States in 1776. What does it take to be a free citizen? Can a superpower still be a republic? How does well-meaning authority turn into murderous tyranny?[3]

Major sources for Roman myth include the Aeneid of Virgil and the first few books of Livy's history as well as Dionysius's Roman Antiquities. Other important sources are the Fasti of Ovid, a six-book poem structured by the Roman religious calendar, and the fourth book of elegies by Propertius. Scenes from Roman myth also appear in Roman 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 Rome's founding myths. Material from Greek heroic legend was grafted onto this native stock at an early date. The Trojan prince Aeneas was cast as husband of Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus, patronymical ancestor of the Latini, and therefore through a convoluted revisionist genealogy as forebear of Romulus and Remus. By extension, the Trojans were adopted as the mythical ancestors of the Roman people.[5]

Other myths

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

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Pompeii

Pompeii

Pompeii was an ancient city located in what is now the comune of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area, was buried under 4 to 6 m of volcanic ash and pumice in the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

Iapyx

Iapyx

In Greek and Roman mythology, Iapyx, Iapux or Iapis was a favorite of Apollo. The god wanted to confer upon him the gift of prophecy, the lyre, etc.; but Iapyx, wishing to prolong the life of his father, preferred the more tranquil art of healing to all the others.

Aeneas

Aeneas

In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas was a Trojan hero, the son of the Dardanian prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite. His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas a second cousin to Priam's children. He is a minor character in Greek mythology and is mentioned in Homer's Iliad. Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is cast as an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome. Snorri Sturluson identifies him with the Norse god Vidarr of the Æsir.

Ascanius

Ascanius

Ascanius was a legendary king of Alba Longa and is the son of the Trojan hero Aeneas and Creusa, daughter of Priam. He is a character in Roman mythology, and has a divine lineage, being the son of Aeneas, who is the son of the goddess Venus and the hero Anchises, a relative of the king Priam; thus Ascanius has divine ascendents by both parents, being descendants of god Jupiter and Dardanus. He is also an ancestor of Romulus, Remus and the Gens Julia. Together with his father, he is a major character in Virgil's Aeneid, and he is depicted as one of the founders of the Roman race.

Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and subsequently became dictator from 49 BC until his assassination in 44 BC. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.

Julio-Claudian dynasty

Julio-Claudian dynasty

The Julio-Claudian dynasty comprised the first five Roman emperors: Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero.

Classics

Classics

Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics also includes Greco-Roman philosophy, history, archaeology, anthropology, art, mythology and society as secondary subjects.

Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas and achievements of classical antiquity. It occurred after the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages and was associated with great social change. In addition to the standard periodization, proponents of a "long Renaissance" may put its beginning in the 14th century and its end in the 17th century.

Legend

Legend

A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived, both by teller or listeners, to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude. Legend, for its active and passive participants may include miracles. Legends may be transformed over time to keep them fresh and vital.

Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri, probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante, was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa and later christened Divina by Giovanni Boccaccio, is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language.

Founding Fathers of the United States

Founding Fathers of the United States

The Founding Fathers of the United States, commonly referred to simply as the Founding Fathers or Founders, were a group of late-18th-century American revolutionary leaders who united the Thirteen Colonies, oversaw the War of Independence from Great Britain, established the United States, and crafted a framework of government for the new nation.

Republic

Republic

A republic is a system of government where people choose representatives through elections to make decisions in the public's interest. In contrast, a democracy might rely primarily on sortition to make decisions by a representative sample of the public while an autocracy concentrates power in very few hands.

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 scriptures and exegesis, priestly literature was one of the earliest written forms of Latin prose.[11] The books (libri) and commentaries (commentarii) of the College of Pontiffs and of the augurs contained religious procedures, prayers, and rulings and opinions on points of religious law.[12] Although at least some of this archived material was available for consultation by the Roman senate, it was often occultum genus litterarum,[13] an arcane form of literature to which by definition only priests had access.[14] Prophecies pertaining to world history and to Rome's destiny turn up fortuitously at critical junctures in history, discovered suddenly in the nebulous 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
Capitoline Triad

The earliest pantheon included Janus, Vesta, and a leading so-called Archaic Triad of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus, whose flamens were of the highest order. According to tradition, Numa Pompilius, the Sabine second king of Rome, founded Roman religion; Numa was believed to have had as his consort and adviser a Roman goddess or nymph of fountains and of prophecy, Egeria. The Etruscan-influenced Capitoline Triad of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva later became central to official religion, replacing the Archaic Triad – an unusual example within Indo-European religion of a supreme triad formed of two female deities and only one male. The cult of Diana became established on the Aventine Hill, but the most famous Roman manifestation of this goddess may be Diana Nemorensis, owing to the attention paid to her cult by J.G. Frazer in the 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).
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, Janus and Vesta guarded the door and hearth, the Lares protected the field and house, Pales the pasture, Saturn the sowing, Ceres the growth of the grain, Pomona the fruit, and Consus and Ops the harvest. Even the majestic 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 Georg Wissowa[15] thought that the Romans distinguished two classes of gods, the di indigetes and the di novensides or novensiles: the indigetes were the original gods of the Roman state, their names and nature indicated by the titles of the earliest priests and by the fixed festivals of the calendar, with 30 such gods honored by special festivals; the novensides were later divinities whose cults were introduced to the city in the historical period, usually at a known date and in response to a specific crisis or felt need. Arnaldo Momigliano and others, however, have argued that this distinction cannot be maintained.[16] During the 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.[17]

Foreign gods

Mithras in a Roman wall painting
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 (peregrini) and former slaves (libertini) continued their own religious practices within the city. In this way 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.

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Exegesis

Exegesis

Exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text. The term is traditionally applied to the interpretation of Biblical works. In modern usage, exegesis can involve critical interpretations of virtually any text, including not just religious texts but also philosophy, literature, or virtually any other genre of writing. The phrase Biblical exegesis can be used to distinguish studies of the Bible from other critical textual explanations.

Latin literature

Latin literature

Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. The beginning of formal Latin literature dates to 240 BC, when the first stage play in Latin was performed in Rome. Latin literature would flourish for the next six centuries. The classical era of Latin literature can be roughly divided into the following periods: Early Latin literature, The Golden Age, The Imperial Period and Late Antiquity.

College of Pontiffs

College of Pontiffs

The College of Pontiffs was a body of the ancient Roman state whose members were the highest-ranking priests of the state religion. The college consisted of the pontifex maximus and the other pontifices, the rex sacrorum, the fifteen flamens, and the Vestals. The College of Pontiffs was one of the four major priestly colleges; originally their responsibility was limited to supervising both public and private sacrifices, but as time passed their responsibilities increased. The other colleges were the augures, the quindecimviri sacris faciundis , and the epulones.

Augur

Augur

An augur was a priest and official in the classical Roman world. His main role was the practice of augury, the interpretation of the will of the gods by studying events he observed within a predetermined sacred space (templum). The templum corresponded to the heavenly space above. The augur's decisions were based on what he personally saw or heard from within the templum; they included thunder, lightning and any accidental signs such as falling objects, but in particular, birdsigns; whether the birds he saw flew in groups or alone, what noises they made as they flew, the direction of flight, what kind of birds they were, how many there were, or how they fed. This practice was known as "taking the auspices". As circumstance did not always favour the convenient appearance of wild birds or weather phenomena, domesticated chickens kept for the purpose were sometimes released into the templum, where their behaviour, particularly how they fed, could be studied by the augur.

Lucius Tarquinius Superbus

Lucius Tarquinius Superbus

Lucius Tarquinius Superbus was the legendary seventh and final king of Rome, reigning 25 years until the popular uprising that led to the establishment of the Roman Republic. He is commonly known as Tarquin the Proud, from his cognomen Superbus.

Cumaean Sibyl

Cumaean Sibyl

The Cumaean Sibyl was the priestess presiding over the Apollonian oracle at Cumae, a Greek colony located near Naples, Italy. The word sibyl comes from the ancient Greek word sibylla, meaning prophetess. There were many sibyls in different locations throughout the ancient world. Because of the importance of the Cumaean Sibyl in the legends of early Rome as codified in Virgil's Aeneid VI, and because of her proximity to Rome, the Cumaean Sibyl became the most famous among the Romans. The Erythraean Sibyl from modern-day Turkey was famed among Greeks, as was the oldest Hellenic oracle, the Sibyl of Dodona, possibly dating to the second millennium BC according to Herodotus, favored in the east.

Marcus Terentius Varro

Marcus Terentius Varro

Marcus Terentius Varro was a Roman polymath and a prolific author. He is regarded as ancient Rome's greatest scholar, and was described by Petrarch as "the third great light of Rome". He is sometimes called Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus.

Capitoline Triad

Capitoline Triad

The Capitoline Triad was a group of three deities who were worshipped in ancient Roman religion in an elaborate temple on Rome's Capitoline Hill. It comprised Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. The triad held a central place in the public religion of Rome.

Archaic Triad

Archaic Triad

The Archaic Triad is a hypothetical divine triad, consisting of the three allegedly original deities worshipped on the Capitoline Hill in Rome: Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus. This structure was no longer clearly detectable in later times, and only traces of it have been identified from various literary sources and other testimonies. Many scholars dispute the validity of this identification.

Numa Pompilius

Numa Pompilius

Numa Pompilius was the legendary second king of Rome, succeeding Romulus after a one-year interregnum. He was of Sabine origin, and many of Rome's most important religious and political institutions are attributed to him, such as the Roman calendar, Vestal Virgins, the cult of Mars, the cult of Jupiter, the cult of Romulus, and the office of pontifex maximus.

King of Rome

King of Rome

The king of Rome was the ruler of the Roman Kingdom. According to legend, the first king of Rome was Romulus, who founded the city in 753 BC upon the Palatine Hill. Seven legendary kings are said to have ruled Rome until 509 BC, when the last king was overthrown. These kings ruled for an average of 35 years.

Egeria (mythology)

Egeria (mythology)

Egeria was a nymph attributed a legendary role in the early history of Rome as a divine consort and counselor of Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, to whom she imparted laws and rituals pertaining to ancient Roman religion. Her name is used as an eponym for a female advisor or counselor.

Astronomy

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

In Roman and Greek mythology, Jupiter places his son born by a mortal woman, the infant Heracles, on Juno's breast while she is asleep so the baby will drink her divine milk and thus become immortal, an act which would endow the baby with godlike qualities. When Juno woke and realized that she was 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.[18][19][20]

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Milky Way (mythology)

Milky Way (mythology)

There are many myths and legends about the origin of the Milky Way, the crowd of stars that makes a distinctive bright streak across the night sky.

Tintoretto

Tintoretto

Tintoretto was an Italian painter identified with the Venetian school. His contemporaries both admired and criticized the speed with which he painted, and the unprecedented boldness of his brushwork. For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed Il Furioso. His work is characterised by his muscular figures, dramatic gestures and bold use of perspective, in the Mannerist style.

Astronomical object

Astronomical object

An astronomical object, celestial object, stellar object or heavenly body is a naturally occurring physical entity, association, or structure that exists within the observable universe. In astronomy, the terms object and body are often used interchangeably. However, an astronomical body or celestial body is a single, tightly bound, contiguous entity, while an astronomical or celestial object is a complex, less cohesively bound structure, which may consist of multiple bodies or even other objects with substructures.

Mercury (planet)

Mercury (planet)

Mercury is the smallest planet in the Solar System and the closest to the Sun. Its orbit around the Sun takes 87.97 Earth days, the shortest of all the Sun's planets. It is named after the Roman god Mercuriuscode: lat promoted to code: la (Mercury), god of commerce, messenger of the gods, and mediator between gods and mortals, corresponding to the Greek god Hermes. Like Venus, Mercury orbits the Sun within Earth's orbit as an inferior planet; its apparent distance from the Sun as viewed from Earth never exceeds 28°. This proximity to the Sun means the planet can only be seen near the western horizon after sunset or the eastern horizon before sunrise, usually in twilight. At this time, it may appear as a bright star-like object, but is more difficult to observe than Venus. From Earth, the planet telescopically displays the complete range of phases, similar to Venus and the Moon, which recurs over its synodic period of approximately 116 days. Due to its synodic proximity to Earth, Mercury is most often the closest planet to Earth, with Venus periodically taking this role.

Mars

Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, larger only than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere and has a crust primarily composed of elements similar to Earth's crust, as well as a core made of iron and nickel. Mars has surface features such as impact craters, valleys, dunes, and polar ice caps. Mars has two small, irregularly shaped moons, Phobos and Deimos.

Jupiter

Jupiter

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, and slightly less than one one-thousandth the mass of the Sun. Jupiter is the third brightest natural object in the Earth's night sky after the Moon and Venus, and it has been observed since prehistoric times. It was named after Jupiter, the chief deity of ancient Roman religion.

Saturn

Saturn

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 times more massive.

Neptune

Neptune

Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times the mass of Earth, and slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus. Neptune is denser and physically smaller than Uranus because its greater mass causes more gravitational compression of its atmosphere. Being composed primarily of gases and liquids, it has no well-defined solid surface. The planet orbits the Sun once every 164.8 years at an average distance of 30.1 astronomical units. It is named after the Roman god of the sea and has the astronomical symbol , representing Neptune's trident.

Heracles

Heracles

Heracles, born Alcaeus or Alcides, was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon. He was a great-grandson and half-brother of Perseus, and similarly a half-brother of Dionysus. He was the greatest of the Greek heroes, the ancestor of royal clans who claimed to be Heracleidae (Ἡρακλεῖδαι), and a champion of the Olympian order against chthonic monsters. In Rome and the modern West, he is known as Hercules, with whom the later Roman emperors, in particular Commodus and Maximian, often identified themselves. The Romans adopted the Greek version of his life and works essentially unchanged, but added anecdotal detail of their own, some of it linking the hero with the geography of the Central Mediterranean. Details of his cult were adapted to Rome as well.

Juno (mythology)

Juno (mythology)

Juno was an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counsellor of the state. She was equated to Hera, queen of the gods in Greek mythology and a goddess of love and marriage. A daughter of Saturn, she was the sister and wife of Jupiter and the mother of Mars, Vulcan, Bellona and Juventas. Like Hera, her sacred animal was the peacock. Her Etruscan counterpart was Uni, and she was said to also watch over the women of Rome. As the patron goddess of Rome and the Roman Empire, Juno was called Regina ("Queen") and was a member of the Capitoline Triad, centered on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, and also including Jupiter, and Minerva, goddess of wisdom.

Milky Way

Milky Way

The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. The term Milky Way is a translation of the Latin via lactea, from the Greek γαλακτικὸς κύκλος, meaning "milky circle". From Earth, the Milky Way appears as a band because its disk-shaped structure is viewed from within. Galileo Galilei first resolved the band of light into individual stars with his telescope in 1610. Until the early 1920s, most astronomers thought that the Milky Way contained all the stars in the Universe. Following the 1920 Great Debate between the astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Doust Curtis, observations by Edwin Hubble showed that the Milky Way is just one of many galaxies.

Minerva

Minerva

Minerva is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. Minerva is not a patron of violence such as Mars, but of strategic war. From the second century BC onward, the Romans equated her with the Greek goddess Athena. Minerva is one of the three Roman deities in the Capitoline Triad, along with Jupiter and Juno.

Source: "Roman mythology", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, March 16th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_mythology.

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Further Reading

Venus (mythology)

Jupiter (mythology)

Semele

Liber

Novensiles

Quirinus

Etruscan religion

Religion in ancient Rome

Classical mythology

Interpretatio graeca

Lares

List of Roman deities

Dii Consentes

Saturn (mythology)

Mars (mythology)

Aventine Triad

Devotio

October Horse
See also
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Roman mythology.
References
  1. ^ Rengel, Marian; Daly, Kathleen N. (2009). Greek and Roman Mythology, A to Z. United States: Facts On File, Incorporated. p. 66.
  2. ^ T. P. Wiseman, The Myths of Rome (University of Exeter Press, 2004), preface (n.p.).
  3. ^ a b Wiseman, The Myths of Rome, preface.
  4. ^ Alexandre Grandazzi, The Foundation of Rome: Myth and History (Cornell University Press, 1997), pp. 45–46.
  5. ^ See also Lusus Troiae.
  6. ^ J.N. Bremmer and N.M. Horsfall, Roman Myth and Mythography (University of London Institute of Classical Studies, 1987), pp. 49–62.
  7. ^ Bremmer and Horsfall, pp. 63–75.
  8. ^ Bremmer and Horsfall, pp. 76–88.
  9. ^ Bremmer and Horsfall, pp. 89–104; Larissa Bonfante, Etruscan Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan Studies (Wayne State University Press, 1986), p. 25.
  10. ^ Bremmer and Horsfall, pp. 105–111.
  11. ^ Moses Hadas (1952). A History of Latin Literature. Columbia University Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-231-51487-3.
  12. ^ C. O. Brink (1963). Horace on Poetry: Epistles Book II: The Letters to Augustus and Florus. CUP Archive. p. 64. ISBN 978-0-521-20069-1.
  13. ^ Cicero, De domo sua 138.
  14. ^ Jerzy Linderski, "The libri reconditi," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 89 (1985) 207–234.
  15. ^ Georg Wissowa, De dis Romanorum indigetibus et novensidibus disputatio (1892), full text (in Latin) online.
  16. ^ 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.
  17. ^ 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.
  18. ^ "Myths about the Milky Way". judy-volker.com. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  19. ^ Leeming, David Adams (1998). Mythology: The Voyage of the Hero (Third ed.). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. p. 44. ISBN 978-0-19-511957-2.
  20. ^ Pache, Corinne Ondine (2010). "Hercules". In Gargarin, Michael; Fantham, Elaine (eds.). Ancient Greece and Rome. Vol. 1: Academy-Bible. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. p. 400. ISBN 978-0-19-538839-8.
Sources
  • Beard, Mary. 1993. "Looking (Harder) for Roman Myth: Dumézil, Declamation, and the Problems of Definition." In Mythos in Mythenloser Gesellschaft: Das Paradigma Roms. Edited by Fritz Graf, 44–64. Stuttgart, Germany: Teubner.
  • Braund, David, and Christopher Gill, eds. 2003. Myth, History, and Culture in Republican Rome: Studies in Honour of T. P. Wiseman. Exeter, UK: Univ. of Exeter Press.
  • Cameron, Alan. 2004. Greek Mythography in the Roman World. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  • Dumézil, Georges. 1996. Archaic Roman Religion. Rev. ed. Translated by Philip Krapp. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
  • Fox, Matthew. 2011. "The Myth of Rome" In A Companion to Greek Mythology. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. Literature and Culture.Edited by Ken Dowden and Niall Livingstone. Chichester; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
  • Gardner, Jane F. 1993. Roman Myths: The Legendary Past. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press.
  • Grandazzi, Alexandre. 1997. The Foundation of Rome: Myth and History. Translated by Jane Marie Todd. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
  • Hall, Edith 2013. "Pantomime: Visualising Myth in the Roman Empire." In Performance in Greek and Roman Theatre. Edited by George Harrison and George William Mallory, 451–743. Leiden; Boston: Brill.
  • Miller, Paul Allen. 2013. "Mythology and the Abject in Imperial Satire." In Classical Myth and Psychoanalysis: Ancient and Modern Stories of the Self. Edited by Vanda Zajko and Ellen O'Gorman, 213–230. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Newby, Zahra. 2012. "The Aesthetics of Violence: Myth and Danger in Roman Domestic Landscapes." Classical Antiquity 31.2: 349–389.
  • Wiseman, T. P. 2004. The Myths of Rome. Exeter: Univ. of Exeter Press.
  • Woodard, Roger D. 2013. Myth, Ritual, and the Warrior in Roman and Indo-European Antiquity. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.
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