C HAPTER26
ROMAN MYTHOLOGY AND SAGA
The fundamental differences between Greek and Roman mythology account for
the dominant influence of Greek myths over native Italian myths and Roman
legends. The Italian gods were not as generally anthropomorphic as the
Olympian gods, about whom the Greeks developed legends that they expressed
in poetry and art of great power. The Roman gods were originally associated
more with cult than with myth, and such traditional tales as were told about
them did not have the power of Greek legends. In the third century B.c., when
the first historians and epic poets began to write in Latin, the influence of Greek
literature was already dominant. Many of the early authors were themselves
Greeks, and were familiar with Greek mythology. Thus many Roman legends
are adaptations of Greek legends, and to a varying extent they owe their pres-
ent form to sophisticated authors such as Vergil and Ovid.
Roman mythology nevertheless had an independent existence in the cults
of Roman religion and the legends of early Roman history. The roots of Roman
religion lay in the traditions of pre-Roman Italic peoples such as the Sabines and
Etruscans. The native Italian gods, however, became identified with Greek
gods—Saturnus with Cronus, Jupiter with Zeus, and so on. The poet Ennius
(239-169 B.c.) came from southern Italy and spoke Greek, Oscan, and Latin.
He equated the twelve principal Roman gods with the twelve Olympians as
follows:^1f
luno (Hera), Vesta (Hestia), Minerva (Athena), Ceres (Demeter), Diana (Artemis),
Venus (Aphrodite), Mars (Ares), Mercurius (Hermes), Iovis (Zeus), Neptunus
(Poseidon), Vulcanus (Hephaestus), Apollo.
Of these only Apollo is identical with his Greek counterpart. Of the others,
the Italian fertility spirit, Venus, becomes the great goddess underlying the fer-
tility of nature and human love. In contrast, the great Italian agricultural and
war deity, Mars, is identified with Ares, one of the less important Olympians.
The others more or less retain their relative importance.
As a result of these identifications Greek myths were transferred to Roman
gods. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, for example, most of the myths of the Olympians
are Greek, although the names of the gods are Roman. Some genuinely Roman
or Italic legends, however, have been preserved in the poetry of Ovid, Vergil,623