The Roman Pantheon of Gods

Podcast Transcript

Like many ancient civilizations, the Romans had a vast pantheon of gods.

Unlike other civilizations, the Romans were very flexible in where their gods came from.

In particular, they adopted many of their gods from the Greek pantheon. It wasn’t just a matter of copying them. They would often rename the gods and alter their mythology to align with Roman virtues.

When it came to religion, the Romans weren’t stealing so much as they were like the Borg.

Learn more about the Roman pantheon of gods and how they borrowed their deities from other cultures on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

In a previous episode, I covered the major gods in the Greek pantheon. I mention this not because it is yet another episode of the religion of an ancient civilization, but rather because the Greek gods are vitally important to understanding the Roman gods.

The Roman adoption of Greek religion is a fascinating example of cultural syncretism. Syncretism, which is a word that you probably don’t come across that often, is the blending of different religious traditions.

The Roman adoption of Greek religious elements is probably the most well-known example of this, but there are many others.

Christianity uses Jewish holy books as one of its two testaments in the Bible. Islam recognizes Jesus as a major prophet.

To understand how and why the Romans borrowed so much of their religion from the Greeks, let’s begin with the historical context and then examine how this transformation unfolded.

Before the wholesale adoption of Greek deities, early Roman religion was characterized by animism and ritualism. The Romans believed in numerous numina, or divine spirits, that inhabited objects, places, and processes.

These included household gods like the Lares and Penates, agricultural deities such as Ceres and Terminus, and gods governing abstract concepts like Fides for trust, Pax for peace, and Fortuna for luck.

Early Roman religion emphasized ritual precision, augury, and public ceremonies over myth or storytelling.

Much of the early Roman religion was also borrowed from the Etruscans, who were the major culture on the Italian peninsula before the Romans.

Unlike Greek religion, which was highly mythological, early Roman religion was more functional and legalistic in nature. There was a strong emphasis on the pax deorum, the peace with the gods, which was thought to be essential to Rome’s prosperity.

The Romans encountered Greek culture, primarily through Greek colonies in southern Italy, which they called Magna Graecia, starting around the 8th century BC.

The process of adoption happened gradually over several centuries, driven by practical and political considerations. Roman religious practice was deeply intertwined with state power; therefore, when Romans encountered successful Greek cities with their elaborate religious systems, they viewed these gods as potentially valuable allies.

The Romans had a pragmatic approach to religion: if a god seemed powerful and could help Rome succeed, why not honor that deity?

The Roman approach to Greek religion was not dissimilar to how the Borg from Star Trek assimilate other cultures. They would take those elements that were the best to better themselves.

However, the Romans didn’t employ a simple copy/paste strategy. They didn’t crtl-c, crtl-v their gods.

Roman deities were equated with Greek counterparts. The Romans changed their names and forms of worship but borrowed some myths, attributes, iconography, and personalities of the Greek gods.

The most straightforward adoptions involved direct name changes while preserving the gods’ essential characteristics. Zeus, the Greek king of the gods, became Jupiter or Jove.

If you’ve ever heard someone say “By Jove,” they are referring to Jupiter.

The Roman god Mars provides an interesting example of how this wasn’t simply copying.

Greek Ares was a chaotic and often disliked god of war, representing the savage, destructive, and irrational aspects of battle. He was portrayed as impulsive, cowardly, and often humiliated.

Roman Mars, by contrast, became the ideal Roman warrior: disciplined, brave, and honorable. He was not just a god of war, but also a guardian of agriculture and father of the Roman people, through his supposed paternity of Romulus and Remus, the mythical founders of Rome. This gave him a foundational role in Roman mythology that Ares never had in Greece.

Greek Aphrodite was primarily a goddess of erotic love and beauty, often depicted as capricious and manipulative, influencing both gods and mortals to fall in love.

Roman Venus, while also associated with love and beauty, took on a patriotic and maternal role. Through the myth of Aeneas, the Trojan hero and son of Venus who fled to Italy and founded the Roman line, she became the divine mother of the Roman people. This gave Venus a matron-like dignity and political symbolism that was absent in Aphrodite’s mythology.

Julius Caesar utilized this for political purposes, as his family, the Julii, claimed descent from Aeneas, and thus, he claimed to be descended from a goddess

Greek Heracles was a deeply flawed hero, known for his strength but also his uncontrollable rage, excessive appetites, and tragic mistakes (including the murder of his wife and children in a fit of madness).

In Roman myth, Hercules became a symbol of strength, perseverance, and virtus, a Latin word encompassing courage, manliness, and excellence.

Roman emperors and generals frequently identified with Hercules as a heroic figure who conquered chaos and achieved immortality. His labors were framed less as penance and more as demonstrations of heroic greatness.

Greek Cronus was a tyrant who castrated his father Uranus and devoured his own children to prevent being overthrown, only to be defeated by Zeus.

The Roman Saturn, while retaining some elements of Cronus, was reimagined as a benevolent agricultural deity associated with the mythical Golden Age of peace and prosperity.

The Roman festival Saturnalia celebrated this lost age with feasting, role reversals, and gift-giving. This gave Saturn a far more positive and nostalgic connotation in Roman myth.

Greek Hestia was a modest domestic goddess of the hearth, rarely mentioned in myth and lacking a large public cult.

Roman Vesta, by contrast, was the guardian of Rome’s sacred fire, tended by the Vestal Virgins, a group of elite priestesses whose chastity and discipline symbolized the purity of the Roman state. The myths of Vesta were minimal, but her cult and rituals became central to Roman civic religion, far more prominent than Hestia’s in Greece.

There are of course many more than these. Poseidon, god of the sea, became Neptune. Athena, goddess of wisdom, became Minerva. Diana, goddess of the hunt, became Artemis. Hephaestus, the god of fire and metalworking, became Vulcan. Hermes, the messenger of the gods, became Mercury. Dionysus, the god of wine, became Bacchus. Hades, the god of the underworld, became Pluto.

There is one god who should be mentioned, because his name never changed. It was the same in both Greece and Rome: Apollo.

The god Apollo is unique among the major deities of the Roman pantheon in that his name, attributes, and mythology were adopted from the Greeks with relatively little change. However, while the core identity of Apollo remained consistent between Greek and Roman religion, there were significant differences in emphasis, cultural significance, and religious practice that distinguished the Roman Apollo from his Greek counterpart.

In Greek mythology, Apollo was a multifaceted Olympian god associated with prophecy, healing, music, poetry, archery, and the sun. He was the epitome of youthful beauty, reason, and balance, serving as a conduit between mortals and the divine, particularly through the Oracle at Delphi.

Greek Apollo embodied harmony, intellect, and the artistic spirit, often juxtaposed with the more chaotic Dionysus to represent order versus ecstasy.

In Roman religion, Apollo retained his Greek attributes but became more politically important, especially under the rule of Augustus. Though not originally part of the early Roman pantheon, Apollo was adopted as a god of healing and protection during times of plague and later became a symbol of imperial ideology.

Augustus claimed Apollo’s patronage following his victory at the Battle of Actium, building a grand temple in his honor and casting him as the guardian of Roman order, morality, and destiny.

Here I should note that not every Roman god was a Temu verison of a Greek god.

While most major Roman gods were borrowed from the Greek pantheon, some, like Janus, the god of beginnings, doorways, and transitions, and the namesake of the month of January, had no Greek counterpart. Janus was a native Roman god and played a critical role.

Likewise, many minor household gods were uniquely Roman and had no counterpart in Greek mythology.

The Roman pantheon, or at least the interpretation of the pantheon, wasn’t permanent and evolved over time.

Augustus fundamentally reshaped Roman religion as a tool of imperial legitimacy. He didn’t abandon the traditional pantheon but rather reorganized it around imperial themes.

The most significant innovation was the imperial cult, the worship of deceased emperors as gods and the veneration of living emperors as divinely appointed.

He had his adoptive father, Julius Caesar, declared a god, which was a major change to the Roman Pantheon and was previously unheard of.

This was primarily done for political reasons. After his father was declared a god, August was then able to call himself Divi filius, which means son of a god.

The deification of emperors then became a thing and served as a sort of referendum on their reign after their death. A total of approximately 40 Roman emperors and members of the imperial family were officially deified by the Roman Senate after their deaths,

The imperial period also saw the continued absorption of foreign deities, but now they were often reframed in imperial terms. Egyptian Isis, Persian Mithras, and other “mystery” gods gained followings throughout the empire, but their worship was generally expected to complement, not replace, traditional civic religion.

By the second century, traditional Roman religion faced mounting challenges. The empire’s vast size meant that local deities and practices increasingly competed with Roman gods. More fundamentally, Roman religion had always been transactional; you honored the gods, and they provided prosperity and victory.

But as the empire faced increasing difficulties, including plagues, invasions, and economic troubles, many Romans began questioning whether the old gods were keeping their end of the bargain.

This period witnessed the rise of what scholars call “theological anxiety.” People sought more personal, emotionally satisfying religious experiences than traditional Roman religion typically provided.

The mystery religions flourished because they offered individual salvation and direct personal relationships with deities. Mithraism became particularly popular among soldiers, while the cults of Isis and Cybele attracted urban populations.

One of the biggest attempted changes to the Roman religion was done by the Emperor Elagalabus, perhaps the worst emperor in Roman history.

Born in Syria as a hereditary priest of the Syrian sun god, Elagabal, Elagabalus became emperor at age 14 and immediately set about importing not just his god but entire religious practices to Rome.

He built a massive temple on the Palatine Hill and physically moved the sacred black stone representing Elagabal from Syria to Rome, positioning it as the supreme deity above Jupiter himself.

The young emperor forced the Roman Senate and people to participate in elaborate Syrian religious ceremonies, including ritual dancing, music, and what Romans considered unseemly displays of religious ecstasy that violated traditional Roman religious norms.

The experiment lasted only four years before Elagabalus was assassinated by his own Praetorian Guard in 222 CE. His successor, Alexander Severus, immediately restored traditional Roman religious practices and had Elagabal’s sacred stone returned to Syria, demonstrating how thoroughly the religious revolution had failed to take root in Roman society.

However, the Roman religion was showing cracks. As it expanded, many local and regional religions chipped away at the Roman religion throughout the empire.

This eventually paved the way for the rise of Christianity, which replaced the polytheistic religion and fundamentally changed the empire.

The Roman religious system was odd. While most belief systems have elements that were borrowed from previous ones, nothing quite ever matched the wholesale adoption that the Romans exhibited.

They took bits from other traditions and made it something uniquely their own.