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Malfarian
2015-08-20, 09:29 PM
Hi all,
I really thought dnd once treated Zeus and Jupiter as different gods, but I've looked through several deities and demigods and I see no indication this was the case.

Is this another flawed memory from my teens all those decades ago?
Thanks,
Mal

Jay R
2015-08-20, 09:47 PM
In the first version published, Gods, Demigods, and Heroes, (1976), the Greek gods were listed but the Romans ones weren't. This book also included the gods from the Conan and Elric stories, before TSR had careful attorneys.

Malfarian
2015-08-20, 11:12 PM
So the change was listing alternate names? Or am I missing something?

Jeraa
2015-08-20, 11:15 PM
After a bit of looking, it was Dragon Magazine #133 that had the Roman gods. Says to use the Greek deities Legends & Lore stats with a couple of changes (Jupiter uses Zeus stats, but is Lawful Neutral).

woweedd
2015-08-21, 01:06 AM
After a bit of looking, it was Dragon Magazine #133 that had the Roman gods. Says to use the Greek deities Legends & Lore stats with a couple of changes (Jupiter uses Zeus stats, but is Lawful Neutral).
Yeah, the Greek and Roman Gods are very similar, though there are a few differences.

Templarkommando
2015-08-21, 02:21 AM
One of the things that the Romans were always dealing with was assimilating people into their society. So they'd conquer a new territory with a new religion, and instead of getting the new religion, they'd say: "Hey, you know the God at the head of your pantheon is kinda like Zeus." This is incidentally what happened to the Greeks. Zeus and Jupiter are extremely similar - which might explain why it became common practice later to point out the similarities and try to say they were the same - but they're not quite the same god. However, if everyone goes around thinking that their gods are essentially the same, there's a lot less religious unrest.

hamishspence
2015-08-21, 06:39 AM
In the Discworld series - it's the god that "rebrands themselves" to fit whatever the locals want.

So Blind Io is every thunder god on the Disc - and has a bunch of different hammers and so forth, as props that allow him to cover the differences.

In the Percy Jackson series, the deities evolve new iterations over time - so the wine deity is both Dionysus and Bacchus - but looks slightly different in each version, and behaves slightly differently.

The issues of the gods being "two-minded" becomes a major plot point in the second series.

ExLibrisMortis
2015-08-21, 07:22 AM
The names Zeus and Jupiter are both evolutions of a proto-Indo-European *Dyeus ph2tēr 'sky father'. A similar god is attested in the Rigveda, an ancient Sanskrit text (also Indo-European). It's quite possible that the deities Zeus and Jupiter are evolutions of a PIE 'sky father' deity, in concept as well as name.

Yora
2015-08-21, 07:41 AM
Pretty all the polytheistic religions from Britain to India evolved from the same mythological source. As it spread out, people added and modified regional myths and interpretations. When they later got into contact again, they still were able to recognize the significant overlap.

Flickerdart
2015-08-21, 11:07 AM
One of the things that the Romans were always dealing with was assimilating people into their society. So they'd conquer a new territory with a new religion, and instead of getting the new religion, they'd say: "Hey, you know the God at the head of your pantheon is kinda like Zeus." This is incidentally what happened to the Greeks. Zeus and Jupiter are extremely similar - which might explain why it became common practice later to point out the similarities and try to say they were the same - but they're not quite the same god. However, if everyone goes around thinking that their gods are essentially the same, there's a lot less religious unrest.
Zeus was Greek, and Jupiter was Roman.

Segev
2015-08-21, 11:13 AM
Incidentally, I'm given to understand (but have not confirmed with independent research) that the Romans were known for conquering cities in part by subverting their clergy. They'd build shrines to the city's most influential gods, then lavish them with a wealth of tribute far greater than the city was able to provide, and tell the gods (and the priests thereof) how much better off they'd be with the city run by Rome.

Dienekes
2015-08-21, 11:26 AM
One of the things that the Romans were always dealing with was assimilating people into their society. So they'd conquer a new territory with a new religion, and instead of getting the new religion, they'd say: "Hey, you know the God at the head of your pantheon is kinda like Zeus." This is incidentally what happened to the Greeks. Zeus and Jupiter are extremely similar - which might explain why it became common practice later to point out the similarities and try to say they were the same - but they're not quite the same god. However, if everyone goes around thinking that their gods are essentially the same, there's a lot less religious unrest.

While right, the interaction with the Greeks and the Romans was a bit larger than the other examples over the Roman history. For example, the Egyptians also had sky gods and the like, and we see the Roman gods take aspects of Egyptian style deities after the conquest of Egypt, but when the Romans and Greeks mingled in looks like the Romans largely gutted their older Etruscan myths and applied translated Greek mythos onto the old names. Historians are still wondering why the transplanting was so successful.

There are still many differences, of course (Biggest example is probably Ares/Mars, where Ares was a violent sociopath and Mars is considered honorable, noble and second only to Jupiter).

Yora
2015-08-21, 12:18 PM
The Germans also had this interesting oddity of having the Father of the Pantheon and the Sky and Thunder god being two separate beings, while usually they are the same.

Egypt had a truly "foreign" pantheon that developed separately. But even there we have the interesting development of Isis being adopted and apparently quite popular among the Greeks and Romans. And not as a local cultural interpretation of Hera/Iuno.

Anxe
2015-08-21, 01:06 PM
Incidentally, I'm given to understand (but have not confirmed with independent research) that the Romans were known for conquering cities in part by subverting their clergy. They'd build shrines to the city's most influential gods, then lavish them with a wealth of tribute far greater than the city was able to provide, and tell the gods (and the priests thereof) how much better off they'd be with the city run by Rome.

The Greeks did that as well. It's just they were often fighting each other so it wasn't really a subversion of the conquered city's clergy.

Since we're talking about syncretism, let's use the word for it! Syncretism is when one god is the same as a similar god in a different culture. Zeus to Jupiter being one of the most wellknown examples. Zeus to Odin/Thor as well. Dionysus to Osiris. Etc.

A lot of myth stories are shared between different cultures. The Romans and the Greeks share even more than other cultures, with a few of the same names for deities and every character always being involved in the same myth (Aphrodite and Venus both being the mother of Aeneas for example).

Most of the differences between the myths come from Etruscan influence on the Romans. These differences don't come up in the main myths, but in myths about minor deities that we don't hear as often.

I'd say the biggest difference is in how the gods are worshiped. The Romans worshiped each deity in a very different way than how the Greeks worshiped them. You can check specifics for yourself, but nearly every religious observance is changed. Mars/Ares is one of the bigger changes (some of the myths also equate Romulus with Mars/Ares).

Segev
2015-08-21, 02:21 PM
The major Roman/Greek deities really were so similar that they amount to the same god with different names. I would not say that Odin and Zeus/Jupiter share this trait; the myths about Odin are quite different. He is also a god of magic, and not known for nearly the infidelity and half-divine kids that Jupiter/Zeus was. He's also not married to the Norse goddess of Marriage. (Which is one reason why Hera/Juno was so royally angered at Zeus/Jupiter's fillandering: he was not just cheating on her, his wife, he was disrespecting her very purview.

Odin is...generally much more respectable, as husbands go, and I don't believe Frigga was the goddess of Marriage to begin with.

Thor, too, has no real counterpart in Greco-Roman myth. The closest analogous figure usually used is Hercules, and they're very different characters. (Thor, incidentally, is the one responsible for thunder in Norse myth, while Haephestus is in Greek. Thor has little else in common with Haephestus, though, other than both being the sons of the kings of the gods. Thor was a prince for it; Haephestus was just one of the other gods...and not a well-liked or -respected one, at that.)

Malfarian
2015-08-21, 03:00 PM
A lot of great replies, thank you!

I really believed that at one point I held a Deities & Demigods OR legends and lore and it had Zeus and Jupiter both listed as different gots, I guess that is wrong.

Thanks
Mal

Anxe
2015-08-21, 03:34 PM
The major Roman/Greek deities really were so similar that they amount to the same god with different names. I would not say that Odin and Zeus/Jupiter share this trait; the myths about Odin are quite different. He is also a god of magic, and not known for nearly the infidelity and half-divine kids that Jupiter/Zeus was. He's also not married to the Norse goddess of Marriage. (Which is one reason why Hera/Juno was so royally angered at Zeus/Jupiter's fillandering: he was not just cheating on her, his wife, he was disrespecting her very purview.

Odin is...generally much more respectable, as husbands go, and I don't believe Frigga was the goddess of Marriage to begin with.

Thor, too, has no real counterpart in Greco-Roman myth. The closest analogous figure usually used is Hercules, and they're very different characters. (Thor, incidentally, is the one responsible for thunder in Norse myth, while Haephestus is in Greek. Thor has little else in common with Haephestus, though, other than both being the sons of the kings of the gods. Thor was a prince for it; Haephestus was just one of the other gods...and not a well-liked or -respected one, at that.)

It wasn't the best example of how syncretism works, true. The two pantheons never interacted as far as I know. Syncretism happened more often with small regional deities. "Your island worships Leela, goddess of the wild? Sounds a lot like our Diana, goddess of the hunt!"

Osiris is paired with Dionysus, but a pairing with Cronus would also work due to the chopped off Willie. I think the ancients would've gone with whatever pairing suited them best at the time. There weren't any official rules for this sort of thing.

Yora
2015-08-21, 03:49 PM
The major Roman/Greek deities really were so similar that they amount to the same god with different names. I would not say that Odin and Zeus/Jupiter share this trait; the myths about Odin are quite different. He is also a god of magic, and not known for nearly the infidelity and half-divine kids that Jupiter/Zeus was. He's also not married to the Norse goddess of Marriage. (Which is one reason why Hera/Juno was so royally angered at Zeus/Jupiter's fillandering: he was not just cheating on her, his wife, he was disrespecting her very purview.

Odin is...generally much more respectable, as husbands go, and I don't believe Frigga was the goddess of Marriage to begin with.

Thor, too, has no real counterpart in Greco-Roman myth. The closest analogous figure usually used is Hercules, and they're very different characters. (Thor, incidentally, is the one responsible for thunder in Norse myth, while Haephestus is in Greek. Thor has little else in common with Haephestus, though, other than both being the sons of the kings of the gods. Thor was a prince for it; Haephestus was just one of the other gods...and not a well-liked or -respected one, at that.)

It evolved quite a lot. Celtic, Baltic, and Slavic gods also have many differences. The Greek and Roman gods are a special case in that they match up much better than any other Indo-European pantheons. Though I believe that's actually a relatively late development, as the earlier Etruscan pantheon was quite different from the later Roman one.
The Greeks had a number of very succesful colonies in southern Italy and certainly brought their own religion with them and mixed it with that of the locals. In the north the Etruscans would have maintained their native religion in a much "purer" form. Later the Romans claimed to be descendants of Aeneas, a man who escaped from Troy to settle in Italy and also happened to be a son of Aphrodite. The Romans wanted to see themselves as descenants of the Greek culture and a continuation of Greek myth, so they probably also adapted their religion to be more Greek looking and distancing themselves from the culture of their Etruscan neighbors.

Templarkommando
2015-08-21, 05:38 PM
Zeus was Greek, and Jupiter was Roman.

You are correct. My mistake.

dream
2015-08-22, 01:18 AM
Rome ate the gods of conquered cultures, if only to appease the assimilated society. They were syncretistic. Curiously, the Cthulhu cult was smallish.

Principally, the Greek gods were borrowed from Kemet/Egypt, and later became Roman (Ra = Apollo = Sol). The whole of Roman culture strongly mimics the Greeks/Spartans, who were educated by Egypt.

Eldan
2015-08-22, 04:38 AM
Citation needed?

The Egyptian gods are quite different. At least those sets of Egyptian gods I can think of. Noticeably, for the Egyptian, the sky is female and the earth male, which is a major exception among indogermanic religions. And for the Greeks, at least, the sun is not the main god. I can also not think of any good equivalents to Osiris/Asari and Seth. A lot of the broader concepts are quite different, too, such as the whole concept of the underworld and divine judgement or Ma'at.

Dienekes
2015-08-22, 07:16 AM
Rome ate the gods of conquered cultures, if only to appease the assimilated society. They were syncretistic. Curiously, the Cthulhu cult was smallish.

Principally, the Greek gods were borrowed from Kemet/Egypt, and later became Roman (Ra = Apollo = Sol). The whole of Roman culture strongly mimics the Greeks/Spartans, who were educated by Egypt.

A few points. No, they were not. The myths themselves are widely different between the Greeks and Egyptians. However, they probably had a similar proto-Indo-European root. That's why there were so many parallels. They were close enough that Herodotus considered the Egyptian and Greek gods the same deities who chose to reveal themselves in different forms. Herodotus makes a whole host of claims that most of the Greeks myths, culture, and political practice were derived from the Egyptians. Which as far as we know, is pretty much bologna. If anything, modern historians are drawing that the Greeks more closely derived from the Mesopotamians. Though even that is debated. Herodotus simply loved the Egyptians, he spent months of his life wandering Egypt and learning their myths and history. He was smart enough to pick up on the similarities and, as was his usual style, made stuff up to fit his personal beliefs.

Secondly, while the Romans did take a bit from the Greeks in terms of culture, I'm curious why you would point out specifically the Spartans, when from the information we know that was the one they really didn't. The Spartans had the agoge, and was firmly pro-monarchy, mostly against expansion. What I can say does fit is they were both slave societies, though that was true of pretty much everywhere, and the way the Spartans treated their slaves was wildly different than the Romans, to the point it may be more accurate to describe the Spartan's slaves as closer to terrible mistreated serfs rather than actual slaves.

Beleriphon
2015-08-22, 08:58 AM
While right, the interaction with the Greeks and the Romans was a bit larger than the other examples over the Roman history. For example, the Egyptians also had sky gods and the like, and we see the Roman gods take aspects of Egyptian style deities after the conquest of Egypt, but when the Romans and Greeks mingled in looks like the Romans largely gutted their older Etruscan myths and applied translated Greek mythos onto the old names. Historians are still wondering why the transplanting was so successful.

There are still many differences, of course (Biggest example is probably Ares/Mars, where Ares was a violent sociopath and Mars is considered honorable, noble and second only to Jupiter).

The Romans were considerably more warlike than the Greeks. I mean you don't here about the Greeks building empires that lasted for centuries beyond the original conquerer. Julius Caesar is amongst the most successful conquerors of the ancient world.

As for the Greek/Roman over lap. At a certain point Greek education was all the rage in the Roman Republic for essentially everybody above a certain station, so basically anybody important. So take that, look at your own religion and apply a Greek education to it and suddenly everything starts to look Greek. If you apply Latin names you get everything matching Greek myths and stories more than the original ones of the Etruscans.

On the topic of Norse to Greek lets take a look at the Poetic and the Prose Eddas. The Prose Edda is the most complete retelling of the classic Norse myths that we have, and it was written by an Icelandic Christian in the 14th century. The stories essentially look at the Norse gods as kings and mighty heroes of the fallen city of Troy. So they're linked to Greek myth by proxy.

dream
2015-08-22, 10:47 AM
A few points. No, they were not. The myths themselves are widely different between the Greeks and Egyptians. However, they probably had a similar proto-Indo-European root. That's why there were so many parallels. They were close enough that Herodotus considered the Egyptian and Greek gods the same deities who chose to reveal themselves in different forms. Herodotus makes a whole host of claims that most of the Greeks myths, culture, and political practice were derived from the Egyptians. Which as far as we know, is pretty much bologna. If anything, modern historians are drawing that the Greeks more closely derived from the Mesopotamians. Though even that is debated. Herodotus simply loved the Egyptians, he spent months of his life wandering Egypt and learning their myths and history. He was smart enough to pick up on the similarities and, as was his usual style, made stuff up to fit his personal beliefs.

Secondly, while the Romans did take a bit from the Greeks in terms of culture, I'm curious why you would point out specifically the Spartans, when from the information we know that was the one they really didn't. The Spartans had the agoge, and was firmly pro-monarchy, mostly against expansion. What I can say does fit is they were both slave societies, though that was true of pretty much everywhere, and the way the Spartans treated their slaves was wildly different than the Romans, to the point it may be more accurate to describe the Spartan's slaves as closer to terrible mistreated serfs rather than actual slaves.The Egyptian dynasties were the zenith of human civilization and most ancient writers/philosophers (many NON-Egyptian) wrote of this. That modernists try to change the past means nothing, because the past is already written and easy to research for those seeking understanding.

Books for you:

Herodotus' Histories
Dr. Ben Yosef Jochannan's Africa: Mother of Western Civilization
George James' Stolen Legacy
Dr. Frances Cress-Welsing's The Isis Papers
Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop's The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality?
Michael Bradley's The Iceman Inheritance

Anxe
2015-08-22, 10:58 AM
The Egyptian dynasties were the zenith of human civilization and most ancient writers/philosophers (many NON-Egyptian) wrote of this. That modernists try to change the past means nothing, because the past is already written and easy to research for those seeking understanding.

Books for you:

Herodotus' Histories
Dr. Ben Yosef Jochannan's Africa: Mother of Western Civilization
George James' Stolen Legacy
Dr. Frances Cress-Welsing's The Isis Papers
Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop's The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality?
Michael Bradley's The Iceman Inheritance


I know that the ones I highlighted are discredited by most other historians. From what I've heard the historian started with a conclusion and looked for evidence to support it.

Either way, I'm sure all of them have some good points and some bad. Could you pull some specific examples from the books that you've read for us to talk about here?

dream
2015-08-22, 11:43 AM
I know that the ones I highlighted are discredited by most other historians. From what I've heard the historian started with a conclusion and looked for evidence to support it.

Either way, I'm sure all of them have some good points and some bad. Could you pull some specific examples from the books that you've read for us to talk about here?
Actually, I'd rather not derail the thread any more than I already have.

We could debate history, but I'd rather leave it at "Zeus and Jupiter were essentially the same fellow":smallwink:

Dienekes
2015-08-22, 04:28 PM
The Egyptian dynasties were the zenith of human civilization and most ancient writers/philosophers (many NON-Egyptian) wrote of this. That modernists try to change the past means nothing, because the past is already written and easy to research for those seeking understanding.

Books for you:

Herodotus' Histories
Dr. Ben Yosef Jochannan's Africa: Mother of Western Civilization
George James' Stolen Legacy
Dr. Frances Cress-Welsing's The Isis Papers
Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop's The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality?
Michael Bradley's The Iceman Inheritance


I've read Herodotus' Histories, Hell, my rebuttal is the first thing that brings what they say, up. He provides no evidence for many of his assertions and goes entirely on hearsay. Hell, the guy makes **** up all the time. The one-breasted Amazons, the 100 meter high walls of Babylon, the giant fuzzy ants of Persia. He was a genius and one of the fathers of our concept of history, but his view of history was a bunch of myths, and some half cocked ideas. There's a reason why he's also referred to as "The Father of Lies."

Africa: Mother of Western Civilization I read in grad school as an example of in-substantiation and bias contorting beliefs. Let's clear some stuff up. From the critiques I've read of Cheikh Anta Diop's writings means it appears he's cut from the same cloth.

History has moved past just taking everything that was written down (often by people who were righting hundreds of years after the events they were talking about) as the gospel truth. We can look at bone records, weather records, we can go back further with information that Herodotus couldn't even dream of. We can verify what people were saying with uncovered records of soldiers, or long forgotten artifacts. And this has allowed us to question and even say: Hey what Cassius Dio wrote about Aeneas doesn't really add up to what we've uncovered about the origins of Rome. Actually, it seems entirely wrong.

From that we can say: Africa, was wildly important. Amazingly advanced for its time. What they were not, was perfect, the sole provider of ideas for the Western world. They were not "the zenith of human civilization" Persia was as powerful if not moreso at the time, Greek philosophies borrowed from Egypt of course, but they came up with their own ideas as well. No one had a monopoly on good ideas. The earliest cities weren't in Egypt, they were in modern day Iraq and then in India. They created ideas that spread out, and mixed with the locals ideas. This happened in Greece, in Egypt, and so on. And these new cultures came up with their own ideas and spread them back the other way. And I'm saying, mythological scholars give both Egyptian and Greek gods as coming from a proto Indo-European root. It was not Egypt. It was not Greece. Both have similarities because of having a similar origin point, and further because when the cultures re-converged they stole ideas from each other, but the Greeks did not uproot their old myths and replace them with Egyptian ones like the Romans did with their gods. A simple look at the main myths would be enough to realize this. Zeus and Amun are very different. The Greeks attempted at times to merge them, but it was a weird sort of stealing of notes and symbols without completely disrupting the underlying myths. Amun was just seen as Zeus when he revealed himself to the Egyptians, and the differences were largely ignored or swept under the rug. Like for Herodotus, who doesn't ever explain how Zeus and Amun are the same just that they are. That they don't even share the same powers, wives, or children is not addressed. They were just both the high fathers of their pantheon, therefore Amun had to be Zeus and vice versa


The Romans were considerably more warlike than the Greeks. I mean you don't here about the Greeks building empires that lasted for centuries beyond the original conquerer. Julius Caesar is amongst the most successful conquerors of the ancient world.

As for the Greek/Roman over lap. At a certain point Greek education was all the rage in the Roman Republic for essentially everybody above a certain station, so basically anybody important. So take that, look at your own religion and apply a Greek education to it and suddenly everything starts to look Greek. If you apply Latin names you get everything matching Greek myths and stories more than the original ones of the Etruscans.

I'm not sure I agree here. The Greek states were in a pretty constant state of warfare, either among themselves or with the Persians, or used as mercenaries by the Persians. The reason you don't see large conquests is because of all the in-fighting. Admittedly, most of it was small scale, you'll see the occasion huge war like the Peloponnesian War, but mostly they just fought a bunch of battles of hegemony with each other. When they were finally united under a single leader, you do see them go conquering. But immediately after the conqueror's death, they fall back into infighting, again.

Rome's big benefit wasn't that they were somehow more warlike, I would argue at least, but that they were originally unified. There were the Etruscans, and the Romans. Romans beat the Etruscans, gained all the Etruscan people under their belt and they stayed one group that could happily spend their war energies outward rather than inward.

That said your views on why the Romans adopted Greek gods I totally agree with.

Susano-wo
2015-08-23, 06:26 PM
As for the Greek/Roman over lap. At a certain point Greek education was all the rage in the Roman Republic for essentially everybody above a certain station, so basically anybody important. So take that, look at your own religion and apply a Greek education to it and suddenly everything starts to look Greek. If you apply Latin names you get everything matching Greek myths and stories more than the original ones of the Etruscans.

Yeah, pretty much this. Specifically an education in Philosophy was prized (which was in some ways broader than our understanding of the word, and included things we would today call science), of which the Greeks were the undisputed experts in--by which I mean Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle :smallwink:

dream
2015-08-24, 12:57 AM
"There is no Greek Philosophy."

All philosophy from Greece is an extension of Egyptian Mystery School. Myth is all about Mystery School. If you haven't studied it, you wont understand the path of relation. Didn't want to derail the thread, but it seems very much derailed, regardless. So, I'll educate people in regard to the Egyptian Mystery.

The greek philosophers, as in, the scholars who migrated to what would become Greece, studied heavily in Egypt. Even Plato refered to the Egyptian master-teacher Imotep as a god (Asclepius (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asclepius)). The Greek concept of "the word" (Logos) began understanding of the Egyptian Mystery of Consciousness (that voice in your head). Best reference for this is Julian Janes' The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind'.

Fantastic read.

Thought, as it exists, is a POWER among men, some exercising it greater than others, to their advantage. This is the short "God-form" of consciousness, in keeping with "man created in the image of God". You can do "as God" because you have the God-self as consciousness.

Hard to convey for many.

In the pyramids of Egypt, men seeking wisdom found a depth within their minds previously unknown (consciousness). This eventually became the seat of "Magic', or, the power of words and how they impact human minds (minds, as in how the wise knew how thought worked versus the unenlightened). The unenlightened thought the voice in their head was the "gods", the wise learned that the voice was themselves.

So --- yeah. It was all about intellectual evolution.

Templarkommando
2015-08-24, 01:00 AM
Citation needed?

The Egyptian gods are quite different. At least those sets of Egyptian gods I can think of. Noticeably, for the Egyptian, the sky is female and the earth male, which is a major exception among indogermanic religions. And for the Greeks, at least, the sun is not the main god. I can also not think of any good equivalents to Osiris/Asari and Seth. A lot of the broader concepts are quite different, too, such as the whole concept of the underworld and divine judgement or Ma'at.

Again, the Egyptians were quite a project, and I think it could be argued that the attempt to assimilate Egypt failed - especially since so many of their deities are closely associated with animals. Cats, jackals, hawks, etc. This puts them at odds with the Roman/Greek concept of a deity, because you see Zeus, and he's basically an extremely powerful human. It wasn't the Romans that I recall that did the assimilating of Egypt though. Instead, most of the attempt was made by Alexander's Generals(In Egypt's case Ptolemy) - who divided up his empire after Alexander's rather abrupt death. Take for example the God Serapis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serapis

While Serapis seems to be aimed at Egyptian culture - he's the consort of Isis instead of Osiris, he's equivalent in Greatness to Apis etc. - he's a distinctly Greek god in concept.

I hope that helps.




The Romans were considerably more warlike than the Greeks. I mean you don't here about the Greeks building empires that lasted for centuries beyond the original conquerer. Julius Caesar is amongst the most successful conquerors of the ancient world.

As for the Greek/Roman over lap. At a certain point Greek education was all the rage in the Roman Republic for essentially everybody above a certain station, so basically anybody important. So take that, look at your own religion and apply a Greek education to it and suddenly everything starts to look Greek. If you apply Latin names you get everything matching Greek myths and stories more than the original ones of the Etruscans.

On the topic of Norse to Greek lets take a look at the Poetic and the Prose Eddas. The Prose Edda is the most complete retelling of the classic Norse myths that we have, and it was written by an Icelandic Christian in the 14th century. The stories essentially look at the Norse gods as kings and mighty heroes of the fallen city of Troy. So they're linked to Greek myth by proxy.

I think you are incorrect here. Have you seen a map of Alexander's Empire? The Empire did last centuries beyond it's original conqueror, though I will admit it lasted in 4 separate parts.

LibraryOgre
2015-08-24, 05:07 PM
The major Roman/Greek deities really were so similar that they amount to the same god with different names. I would not say that Odin and Zeus/Jupiter share this trait; the myths about Odin are quite different. He is also a god of magic, and not known for nearly the infidelity and half-divine kids that Jupiter/Zeus was. He's also not married to the Norse goddess of Marriage. (Which is one reason why Hera/Juno was so royally angered at Zeus/Jupiter's fillandering: he was not just cheating on her, his wife, he was disrespecting her very purview.

Odin is...generally much more respectable, as husbands go, and I don't believe Frigga was the goddess of Marriage to begin with.

Thor, too, has no real counterpart in Greco-Roman myth. The closest analogous figure usually used is Hercules, and they're very different characters. (Thor, incidentally, is the one responsible for thunder in Norse myth, while Haephestus is in Greek. Thor has little else in common with Haephestus, though, other than both being the sons of the kings of the gods. Thor was a prince for it; Haephestus was just one of the other gods...and not a well-liked or -respected one, at that.)

Yes and no; some of this goes back to the idea of a proto-Indo-European pantheon, that evolved in different ways as their societies evolved. That Thunder God became Thor in Scandinavia, Donar in Germany, Taranis in Gaul, Jupiter in Rome, and Zeus in Greece. Not infrequently, he was a Sky Father type and a chief, but different societies had different chiefs... Odin is seen as more akin to Mercury/Hermes, with his secret knowledge and wanderings. You also have deities who merged or diverged in different contexts, and ones who grew more similar due to proximity (this would be the case with Zeus and Jupiter, as cultural connections between the Greeks and the Romans melded the two).

When you start getting outside of where the Indo-Europeans and Indo-Iranians settled, you start getting religions that have different assumptions (like the aforementioned Egyptians, or the Japanese, Chinese, or pretty much anywhere which isn't Europe and South Asia), and those distinctions become more tenuous, if not strictly imaginary (connecting, say, Raiden as a god of lightning to Jupiter is going to be a lot more difficult to prove).

Thinker
2015-08-24, 09:21 PM
Yes and no; some of this goes back to the idea of a proto-Indo-European pantheon, that evolved in different ways as their societies evolved. That Thunder God became Thor in Scandinavia, Donar in Germany, Taranis in Gaul, Jupiter in Rome, and Zeus in Greece. Not infrequently, he was a Sky Father type and a chief, but different societies had different chiefs... Odin is seen as more akin to Mercury/Hermes, with his secret knowledge and wanderings. You also have deities who merged or diverged in different contexts, and ones who grew more similar due to proximity (this would be the case with Zeus and Jupiter, as cultural connections between the Greeks and the Romans melded the two).

When you start getting outside of where the Indo-Europeans and Indo-Iranians settled, you start getting religions that have different assumptions (like the aforementioned Egyptians, or the Japanese, Chinese, or pretty much anywhere which isn't Europe and South Asia), and those distinctions become more tenuous, if not strictly imaginary (connecting, say, Raiden as a god of lightning to Jupiter is going to be a lot more difficult to prove).

It wasn't solely a matter of diverging over time. Different localities also inherited trappings of the aboriginal people who were already living where the Indo-Europeans and Indo-Iranians settled.

Tobtor
2015-08-25, 03:12 AM
Yes and no; some of this goes back to the idea of a proto-Indo-European pantheon, that evolved in different ways as their societies evolved. That Thunder God became Thor in Scandinavia, Donar in Germany, Taranis in Gaul, Jupiter in Rome, and Zeus in Greece. Not infrequently, he was a Sky Father type and a chief, but different societies had different chiefs... Odin is seen as more akin to Mercury/Hermes, with his secret knowledge and wanderings. You also have deities who merged or diverged in different contexts, and ones who grew more similar due to proximity (this would be the case with Zeus and Jupiter, as cultural connections between the Greeks and the Romans melded the two).

When you start getting outside of where the Indo-Europeans and Indo-Iranians settled, you start getting religions that have different assumptions (like the aforementioned Egyptians, or the Japanese, Chinese, or pretty much anywhere which isn't Europe and South Asia), and those distinctions become more tenuous, if not strictly imaginary (connecting, say, Raiden as a god of lightning to Jupiter is going to be a lot more difficult to prove).

I slightly disagree: the presented picture is sort of a "backtrack" of a imagined development. Very popular by historians of religion, especially previously. The thing is, if we look at the evidence for it in the historical and archaeological material, the reality is much more diversified. The "Scandinavian" pantheon as we know it, doesn't develop until much later than the supposed split of the "indo-european" relgions. If looking at Roman sources, archaology etc, there is not a Thor/Odin/Freja/etc worship in the 1-4rd century AD.

So the "Scandinavian Pantheon" is likely developed out of a mix of earlier local gods, influences from Etruscan, Roman and other sources, as well as new developments.

There is really no connection between Thor and Zeus, other than they are both thunder gods. at least I cannot see any, but if you have any points I would be willing to change my mind. And yes Odin does have similarities to Hermes, but not really a connection - not any more than other wandering gods across the world. He is a god of war, the dead, strategy, kings and lords, as well as poetry and scalds, and he is the king of gods. In some ways Hermes/Mercury is closer to Heimdal, but then there are completely other things where they do not cennect, and so on. There really is NO one-to-one translation of Scandinavian and Roman/Greek gods.

Much of the aforementioned ideas of a "indo-european" origin really comes out of 19th century scolarship, among a group of scholars primarily with the background in the classics, and then they try to fit everything else imagined "indo-european" toegether. To this day scholars (linguist, archaologist etc) cannot even say when and what indo-eruopean is and when they emerged (so wildly different ideas exist) so anything on detailed religious connection is vary sketchy in my eyes.

Anxe
2015-08-25, 09:06 AM
I would say that parallels between Odin/Thor probably would've been drawn with Zeus or Heracles if the Pantheons were worshipped at the same time. The Egyptian comparisons are a stretch as well, but they happened.

I wonder if genetic maps could solve that "origin of the Indo-Europeans" question. To the Google!

Thinker
2015-08-25, 10:10 AM
I would say that parallels between Odin/Thor probably would've been drawn with Zeus or Heracles if the Pantheons were worshipped at the same time. The Egyptian comparisons are a stretch as well, but they happened.

I wonder if genetic maps could solve that "origin of the Indo-Europeans" question. To the Google!

Wikipedia suggests the Caspian-Pontic Steppe, though I'm not in a position to research if that is true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-Europeans

LibraryOgre
2015-08-25, 11:14 AM
It wasn't solely a matter of diverging over time. Different localities also inherited trappings of the aboriginal people who were already living where the Indo-Europeans and Indo-Iranians settled.

Another fair point; the religions that developed were syncretic with the folks who were pre-Indo-European invasions.


I slightly disagree: the presented picture is sort of a "backtrack" of a imagined development. Very popular by historians of religion, especially previously. The thing is, if we look at the evidence for it in the historical and archaeological material, the reality is much more diversified. The "Scandinavian" pantheon as we know it, doesn't develop until much later than the supposed split of the "indo-european" relgions. If looking at Roman sources, archaology etc, there is not a Thor/Odin/Freja/etc worship in the 1-4rd century AD.

By those names? No. But there are analogues, who later developed into the Aesir we know today (my pet theory is that the Vanir may represent earlier deities still, but that's admittedly a pet theory).



There is really no connection between Thor and Zeus, other than they are both thunder gods. at least I cannot see any, but if you have any points I would be willing to change my mind. And yes Odin does have similarities to Hermes, but not really a connection - not any more than other wandering gods across the world. He is a god of war, the dead, strategy, kings and lords, as well as poetry and scalds, and he is the king of gods. In some ways Hermes/Mercury is closer to Heimdal, but then there are completely other things where they do not cennect, and so on. There really is NO one-to-one translation of Scandinavian and Roman/Greek gods.

Much of the aforementioned ideas of a "indo-european" origin really comes out of 19th century scolarship, among a group of scholars primarily with the background in the classics, and then they try to fit everything else imagined "indo-european" toegether. To this day scholars (linguist, archaologist etc) cannot even say when and what indo-eruopean is and when they emerged (so wildly different ideas exist) so anything on detailed religious connection is vary sketchy in my eyes.

Wikipedia has a fairly good entry on what I recall as the standard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-Europeans), but I also recognize that it's not a universally held hypothesis. A useful model, but not one that's rigorously provable.

Tobtor
2015-08-26, 05:03 AM
By those names? No. But there are analogues, who later developed into the Aesir we know today (my pet theory is that the Vanir may represent earlier deities still, but that's admittedly a pet theory).

Do tell which one you mean and what evidence there is of "analogues" to the Aesir in the time of proto-europeans spread... I am all ears.

That Vanir represent earlier elements is suggested by several serious scholars, so not as much a pet theory. Especially since there seem to be a goddess "Nerthus" in Roman sources, who could be a female version of Njord, and that Would give "Nerthus"/Njord parallel to Freja/Frej (the children of Njord). Its vague and possible, but definately a theory with some scholars behind it. They suggest it happens 1ad-500Ad or thereabouts (various theories). Far later than any "proto-Indo-European" religion




Wikipedia has a fairly good entry on what I recall as the standard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-Europeans), but I also recognize that it's not a universally held hypothesis. A useful model, but not one that's rigorously provable.

So any suggestions about the religious practise of the Bronze age (2.000BC) is really where the connection should be, unless you favour other theories (like the one from resent genetic studies pointing to the expansion of genetic trademarks of the "corded ware" culture 2.800BC. Research about northern European religion in that time have no parallels to the "Aesir", but perhaps some "sun-worship", with scholars prefers to refer to Egyptians (if anything).

But anyway by 200 AD we have no signs of any religions resembling the Aesir in Scandinavia (except perhaps "Nerthus", which might be a female counterpart to an minor Vanean inclusion to the aesir, namely Njord). By the 4th-7yh century, we see Bractaetes which depict a spear wielding horseman (suggested proto-odin) and another god with two wolves being bit in the hand (Early version of Tyr with one hand bitten of by Fenris). Thus the Scandinavian pantheon develops during the later part of the Roman period and in the post Roman world of the migration period.

LibraryOgre
2015-08-26, 01:30 PM
I haven't looked at this stuff in more than a decade. The analogues would be Germanic (the aforementioned Donar\Thor), and the Germanic influence spread into Scandinavia over time, but it's been a long time since I dealt with this stuff.

Roderick_BR
2015-08-26, 02:14 PM
Not adding to the topic, just wanted to point out two interesting stories.

On DC Comics, they use mostly the Greek pantheon for Wonder Woman's lore, but they sometimes bring in the roman ones, including a story arc where both pantheons were on a fully open war between the two groups.

On Disney, in one of the Young Hercules' cartoons they made it clear they are the same Gods, as the Greeks were answering an ad for Rome's patron deities, and Icaro (Hercules' wacko inventor friend) was tasked to give them local names (after causing trouble being mistaken by a god himself) because the Roman were "too proud to use the God of some other people" so they got the new names to make them look more "exclusive."
The episode ends with Hades complaining that "Pluto" is a name so silly he wouldn't even name his dog that.

Zaydos
2015-08-26, 02:51 PM
For the most part Rome took the Greek gods. Zeus became Jupiter. There are some that show major differences, and some that have more minor differences. For example the Romans played down Jupiter's infidelity and Juno's jealousy (at least until the Roman Empire), and Mars was closer to the Spartan Ares than to the Athenian Ares/Homeric Pan-Hellenistic Ares we are most familiar with. Bigger differences are noted with Saturn, who was a fully respected god, and who we have evidence of being from before the assimilation of Greek culture, and Janus who has no Greek equivalent. If you're interested in this sort of stuff look into Robert Graves' book of Greek Myths it has the most background information to the myths of any I can think of, though he will try and turn anything and everything into proof of Great Mother worship because that was his pet theory.

On the topic of equivalencies with other gods. Tacitus discusses the early Germanic religions in his Germania. There he equates Odin with Mercury, Thor with Hercules, and Tyr with Mars; this does date the Aesir to the 1st Century AD at the latest. Or that's the believed equivalences. He lists them all as the head deity of separate groups also. This is our earliest source on a lot of Germanic religion, and Tacitus even mentions Great Mother worship/groups with a head female deity specifically the Nerthus mentioned earlier; who I personally took as a prototype of Freyja since they are both warrior goddesses of fertility and Freyja retains trappings associated with the head of a pantheon. I forget who he equates her to as it's been a while, and I think it might have been Isis. The theory I've heard for Vanir/Aesir is that they were worshiped by separate sets of tribes and that the Aesir were consolidated into a pantheon before the Vanir were added to it; this works with how Tacitus discussed the deities traceable to Aesir and the one traceable to Vanir as being from different regions of Germany. What I've heard from various books on comparative mythology is that Tyr is a relatively late comer to the Aesir, having been the head god of his own pantheon till relatively recently (Tyr/Tui means God), and that the Vanir were added not too long after; I remember it got mentioned in Gog and Magog even though it mainly dealt with early Britain religion. Tacitus of course doesn't mention it directly except in that he references a warrior god named a word for god which he chooses to call the German Mars as a head deity of one of multiple groups.

As for the Egyptian gods the Romans would call some of them with Roman names sometimes using them as a title. The one that stands out in my mind is Mercury as either Osiris or Anubis as they all three took the role of psychopomp. I have also seen things that associate Set or Apep with Typhon but that's less primary sources and more secondary sources/historical fiction.

theMycon
2015-08-26, 03:25 PM
Yes, they're different. Zeus was a myth. A fairy story. He never existed.

Jupiter told some really cool stories about what he did hundreds of years ago when nobody was looking, and a lot of people believed him, and he might've borrowed a few older stories later on, but Zeus was just a myth.

RedWarlock
2015-08-26, 03:56 PM
Ooh, I love this topic.

The PIE concept does also merge Zeus and Poseidon, having them be two cultures that split, their chief god, one land-based, the other sea-based (their names share a common PIE root word) but who, when the re-encountered one another and traded stories, decided their equally-powerful gods much be brothers rather than one being subservient to the other.

Likewise, Tyr in the norse/germanic pantheon was once the leader, but was ousted when a Wodan/Odin figure was raised to god-hood. (Maybe Wodan was a regional king who was deified, and the relationships of the former leader became his as stories conflated.)

Of course, I did a lot of my research through the lens of a concrete unified world mythology for use with an urban-fantasy story-concept (So the Vanir were actually the Celtic deities, and they were LITERALLY at war with the Germanic pantheon) so my memory is a little distorted by trying to squish together the content. (Like I still assert that the ahura/asura and Daeva/Deva are opposite sides of a cultural war, being the supernaturals of their respective cultures, and demonized in the other. There are academic assertions that this is wrong, but it works for my headcanon-mythology.)

TheCountAlucard
2015-08-26, 04:26 PM
The PIE concept does also merge Zeus and Poseidon, having them be two cultures that split, their chief god, one land-based, the other sea-based (their names share a common PIE root word) but who, when the re-encountered one another and traded stories, decided their equally-powerful gods much be brothers rather than one being subservient to the other.:durkon: (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0561.html) PUPPETS CANNAE EVEN EAT PIE!!!

Tobtor
2015-08-27, 03:32 AM
On the topic of equivalencies with other gods. Tacitus discusses the early Germanic religions in his Germania. There he equates Odin with Mercury, Thor with Hercules, and Tyr with Mars; this does date the Aesir to the 1st Century AD at the latest. Or that's the believed equivalences.

Is that the believed equivalence? By whom? As far as I remember Tacitus there is nothing that relates those gods to the Aesir, that is nothing linguistics or any stories etc. So the connection is: Tacitus hears about local Germanic of various gods from different tribes, he sort of connects to Roman gods (some times he has difficulty making one-one comparisons), but thats because he clearly belives the gods exist, so anything worshipped must be one of these gods. Then 19th century scholars go the other way and claim "since Mercury is sort of like Odin, then the Germanic god Tacitus thinks is a bit like Mercury, must be Odin". yea - I am not convinced....


Tacitus even mentions Great Mother worship/groups with a head female deity specifically the Nerthus mentioned earlier

Yes there is much interesting on the subject of Nerthus, who seem to be the only god/godess worshipped among the northern germanic tribes.


who I personally took as a prototype of Freyja since they are both warrior goddesses of fertility

There is nothing about Nerthus being a warrior goddess.... and Freja is not really a godess of fertility, but of love, beauty and war. Frej is a fertility god, and perhaps also Thors wife Sif. Nerthus is connected to cows (and a "bull" is also mentioned being worshipped), while Freja is connected to cats (and a pig). The resemblance is vague at best. The linguistic relation to Njord is there however, and a female version of Njord is a possibility, however not possible to prove.


I forget who he equates her to as it's been a while, and I think it might have been Isis.

He doesn't really connect her to anyone.



The theory I've heard for Vanir/Aesir is that they were worshiped by separate sets of tribes and that the Aesir were consolidated into a pantheon before the Vanir were added to it; this works with how Tacitus discussed the deities traceable to Aesir and the one traceable to Vanir as being from different regions of Germany.

Again the gods Tacitus discuss cannot directly be traced as either Vanir or Aesir (or anything else really), except perhaps Nerthus. They could equally be a completely different set of gods (not that I think they are). The thing is, its a circular argument. "These gods are the Aesir, thus the Aesir must have existed at the time of Tacitus, and thus these gods must be the Aesir". There really isn't any EVIDENCE for the theory.

Anyway, none of this would have happened before the time of Tacitus, that is first century AD. So any indo-european "pantheon" is out of the question. Instead its a process happening at the time between 1st/2nd century ad, and is finalised before the advent of christianity in the 10-11th century AD.


What I've heard from various books on comparative mythology is that Tyr is a relatively late comer to the Aesir, having been the head god of his own pantheon till relatively recently (Tyr/Tui means God)

There is a lot of discussion of the meaning of Tyr (Tiwar in old runic inscriptions). It is true it means "god" and some scholars have used this to suggest that he really never existed, and that his inclusion is due to a 13th century misunderstanding. However, we do have bractaetes with the depiction of a god being bitten by a dog/wolf. Interestingly these are a) early, and b) mainly from the northen Germany/southern Jutland area, related to the Angles and Saxons.

Any relation between Tyr and MArs, is a modern invention. There is nothing pointing to Tyr being a god of war. He is a god, of justice, bravery etc. But war is more the domain of Odin. Which is why any of the comparisons between Norse and Roman gods fall apart as soon as you look into the actual stories. Whatever god Tacitus compared to Mars, we have no indication that this is the same god as the god later refered to as Tyr. At all.

Much of the "comparative" mythology never really interest themselves in actual finds of figures, depictions etc, but mainly relies on linguistic evidence and their own opinions.

It interesting that before 200AD, wagons are found in bogs (suggested to relate to the Nerthus cult), depictions of bulls and birds and other animals are common, that while the bracteates and other later depictions are more readily compared to later norse mythology.

woweedd
2015-08-29, 09:30 AM
Yes, they're different. Zeus was a myth. A fairy story. He never existed.

Jupiter told some really cool stories about what he did hundreds of years ago when nobody was looking, and a lot of people believed him, and he might've borrowed a few older stories later on, but Zeus was just a myth.
What is that supposed to mean?