T
he city of Rome is said to
have been founded in
753 BCE by Romulus and
Remus—two descendants of the
Trojan prince Aeneas, whose
voyage from the sacked city of Troy
was the subject of the Aeneid.
Rome became a great imperial
power, at its greatest extent under
Trajan (ca. 10 0 CE), encompassing
20 percent of the world’s population.Greece and Rome
Roman culture absorbed that of
Italy’s various tribes—the Latins,
the Etruscans, the Sabines—whose
gods were adopted by Roman
mythology. However, Romans also
appropriated the myths of the
ancient Greeks, whose colonies,
culture, and myths they had taken
on, aligning many of their own
gods with Greek counterparts.The Roman gods were not, however,
simply Greek gods by different
names. Bacchus, the lighthearted
Roman god of wine and inspiration,
is more similar to the pleasure-
seeking Etruscan god Fufluns
than to the Greek Dionysus. The
“Capitoline Triad” of Jupiter, Juno,
and Minerva developed from the
Etruscan gods Tinia, Uni, and
Menvra. Only later were these
Roman gods aligned with Zeus,
Hera, and Athena.
Many Roman writers took pains
to emphasize the moral superiority
of the Roman gods over their Greek
counterparts. The Romans disliked
the wanton amorality of the Greek
gods, preferring to stress the moral
rectitude of the gods of Rome. A
myth such as that of Arachne—the
spinner and weaver who criticized
the gods by depicting their mostshameful deeds and was turned
into a spider as a result—appealed
to Roman values because it both
condemned the gods’ immorality
and punished a human for daring
to reproach them. The story of
Arachne was recorded by the poet
Ovid, one of the key authorities for
Roman mythology, but he probably
took it from a lost Greek source, as
arachne means “spider” in Greek.
Ancient Roman religion revolved
around pleasing the gods. Before
Christianity was legalized by
Constantine in 313 CE, the Roman
calendar was full of feast days,
sacrifices, and rituals to the
numerous deities. While Romans
shared and celebrated the myths
of their various gods, their religion
was based around the practice of
ritual acts, rather than beliefs in
doctrine or mythological narratives.INTRODUCTION
753 BCE
509 BCE^27 BCE 7 BCE
30 –19 BCE 27–9 BCE
Rome is founded
(according to
tradition celebrated
in the annual
Parilia festival).The last king of Rome,
Tarquin the Proud, is
overthrown; Rome
becomes a republic.After civil war
ends in victory
for Octavian, he
becomes Rome’s first
emperor, Augustus.Liv y’s History of
Rome intertwines
foundational myths
with historical
records of Rome.Roman Antiquities,
by Dionysius, traces
Rome’s history
and legends up
until ca. 240 BCE.Virgi l’s national
epic the Aeneid
recounts Aeneas’s
flight from Troy and
long journey to Italy.94
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Ovid explores the
creation, deities, history,
and rituals of Rome in
his poems, Fasti and
Metamorphoses.The Thebaid, by
Statius, depicts the
assault of Argos’s
champions on the
city of Thebes.Apuleius’s
Metamorphoses,
known as The Golden
Ass, tells the story of
Cupid and Psyche.Under Emperor
Constantine, Rome
begins to transition
to Christianity as
its official religion.Plutarch pens 23
biographies of
legendary Greeks
and Romans
in Parallel Lives.Origin stories
Much of the mythology that can
be called authentically Roman—
such as the tale of Romulus and
Remus—concerns the founding
of Rome. Virgil’s epic poem, the
Aeneid, consciously modeled on the
Greek works of Homer, explains
how the Trojan prince Aeneas fled
the sack of Troy and traveled to
Italy to found a new nation.
Another myth, recorded by
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, told of
a fleet of warships from Achaea
(Greece) that was sailing back from
Troy with some captured Trojan
women. Its triumphant journey was
interrupted when a storm forced
them onto the Italian coast. The
Acheans hauled up their ships for
the winter, and in the spring, just
as they were preparing to leave, the
Trojan women made their move.Fearing they would be sold into
slavery, they set fire to the ships,
making them unseaworthy. The
Achaeans were therefore forced to
settle there in Italy rather than
return to Greece.
Whichever myth they favored,
the Romans were proud to trace
their culture back to that of ancient
Greece, via the victorious Achaeans
or the defeated Trojans. One
account, by Hellanicus of Lesbos,
even unified the two: in this version,
Aeneas traveled to Italy alongside
Odysseus and named the city of
Rome after Romê (or Rhome), the
Trojan woman who had encouraged
the others to burn the ships.Other influences
Roman mythology was also colored
by the influence of deities and cults
from lands beyond Italy and Greece;it absorbed the stories of the Great
Mother, Cybele, from Anatolia; of
the Egyptian god Isis; and of Syrian
deities like Jupiter Heliopolitanus.
As the poet Juvenal wrote in his
Satires, “The Syrian Orontes has
been disgorging into the Tiber for
a good while now.” One god who
gained a huge following among
Roman soldiers was Mithras. His
origins may have been Persian,
but the cult of the bull-slayer was
distinctively Roman.
Ruling over a vast empire, the
Romans kept extensive records,
which helps to explain why so
much of their mythology has
survived. Art and literature—
poems, letters, and satires—
preserved and transformed Greek,
Etruscan, and eastern myths in
vivid reimaginings that still
influence Western artists today. ■ANCIENT ROME
8 CE
CA. 80 CE CA. 158–180 CE 476 CE
CA. 100 –120 CE 306–337 CE
95
Germanic leader
Odoacer deposes
Emperor Romulus,
and the Roman
empire falls.The Eastern Roman
(or Byzantine)
Empire, formed in
330 CE, falls to the
Ottoman Turks.1453 CE
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