Roman Gods and Goddesses

Roman Gods

~By Me

Today I'll be talking about Gods and Godnesses of Rome. Amazingly they're very similar to Greek Gods.

Here is a small table where I compared the Gods I'll be talking about

Roman Gods

Greek Gods

VenusPlutoApolloMinervaLunaAurora

AphroditeHadesApolloAthenaSeleneEos

Venus

Venus is the Roman goddess of love, beauty, prosperity, fertility, and victory. She was so important to Romans that they claimed her as their ancestress. According to mythology, her son Aeneas fled from Troy to Italy. He became the ancestor of Remus and Romulus, who founded Rome. So, in a way, it’s accurate to say that Venus was the mother of Rome. However, Venus had strong ties to Greek Mythology, too. The Romans thought she was the same goddess as Aphrodite, the Greek Godness of love. They adopted many of Aphrodite’s symbols, such as roses and myrtle, to represent Venus. Myrtle was so important to this goddess that, during her festival, worshipers and even statues of her wore myrtle wreaths.

Pluto

Pluto was one of three brothers and two sisters born to the Roman god, Saturn, and his goddess wife, Ops. Upon the death of Saturn and after the defeat of the Titans, the three brothers divided the realms of their father. Jupiter received the sky as his dominion; Neptune, the sea, and Pluto, the underworld. Though it may seem like Pluto received an inferior inheritance than that of his younger brothers, the Roman underworld was far less sinister than one might imagine. The Romans recognized that many good things came from beneath the earth, gold, silver, and their crops being chief among them, so Pluto and his domain were not considered be all that terrible. It is said that Pluto lived in a magnificent palace at the entrance to the Elysian Fields, although being underground, it was quite a dark palace.

Pluto

During the war with the Titans, the Cyclopes gifted the three brothers tools to aid them in battle. Jupiter was given thunder and lightning, Neptune received a trident, and Pluto, a Helmet of Invisibility. As its name would imply, the helmet’s primary function was to render its wearer invisible to foes, but it was also said to conceal the true nature of the wearer as well, making it easier to practice deceit. On several occasions, other gods borrowed Pluto’s Helmet to accomplish their own feats, but Pluto was always known to be its primary owner. Besides his Helmet, Pluto was known to possess a few other key items as well. He was often depicted driving an ebony chariot drawn by 4 black horses. As the ruler of the underworld, he also held the keys to the large gates that locked the dead souls permanently within his kingdom. His three headed dog, Cerberus, helped guard the entrance to the underworld, making sure that no one was able to escape as the gates were closed behind them.

Pluto

Pluto’s chief duty as God of the Underworld was meet the newly dead after they were rowed across the River Styx and then to bind the souls in chains and escort them to be judged. After they were judged according to the life they had lived and their deeds while on earth, Pluto then escorted them to their new homes in the underworld. Those who were judged to be good would live forever in in the blissful Elysiun Fields, the land of the blessed; the evil were sentenced to a dark eternity in Tartarus, the region of torment. To ensure that Pluto dealt with their departed loved ones fairly, Romans made yearly sacrifices of all black bulls, sheep, or pigs to him in night time ceremonies. The sacrifices were done over a pit so that the blood could drip down to Pluto in the underworld. Additionally, cypress wood was usually burned at Roman funerals,as it was sacred to Pluto.

Pluto

After a time, Pluto recognized that he needed a wife to help him rule and to have an heir. Unfortunately, being that Pluto was rather pale and homely from spending so much of his time underground, none of the goddesses wanted to marry him and come live in his dark and gloomy kingdom. During one of his visits above ground he was playfully shot by one of Cupid’s arrows and immediately fell in love with the goddess Proserpine, who was frolicking near the river with her maids. He grabbed the beautiful Proserpine and rode away with her in his chariot, and, opening a passage in the river Chemarus, descended with her into the night lands. In spite of being violently kidnapped from her home, Proserpine eventually grew to love Pluto, and, unlike most other gods, Pluto was always faithful to her.

Apollo

Apollo is one of the most complex and important gods, and is the god of many things, including: music, poetry, art, oracles, archery, plague, medicine, sun, light and knowledge. He is the son of Zeus and the Titan Leto, and was born in the Greek island of Delos, along with his older twin sister Artemis – goddess of the hunt. Apollo is the ideal of the kouros, which means he has a beardless, athletic and youthful appearance. He is also an oracular god as a patron of Delphi and could predict prophecy through the Delphic Oracle Pythia. Both medicine and healing are associated with Apollo and were thought to sometimes be mediated through his son, Asclepius. However, Apollo could also bring ill-health and deadly plague.

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Minerva

Minerva is the Roman goddess of wisdom. She was also the goddess of trade, the arts, and strategy in war. Her domains included medicine, poetry, and handicrafts as well. She was in charge of so many things that Ovid called her the “goddess of a thousand works”! Minerva was highly influenced by the Greek goddess Athena. When the Romans made contact with the Greeks, they saw their gods as being similar to those of the Greeks. In fact, they decided that they were the same gods under different names.

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Minerva

She was often portrayed wearing a chiton, which is an ancient Greek garment, and a helmet. Many statues of her show her holding a spear and a shield, to represent her interest in war. But she can often be found offering an olive branch to the defeated. Minerva was a gracious winner in war, who had sympathy for those her armies beat.

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Minerva

After Athena began to influence Minerva, her symbol became the owl, which today continues to represent wisdom. She also gained a backstory worthy of a comic book. She was born when her father, Jupiter, swallowed her mother, Metis. He did this because of a prophecy that his child would one day defeat him.

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Minerva

While inside Jupiter, Metis forged weapons for the baby Minerva. The constant noise gave Jupiter a terrible headache. He asked another god, Vulcan, to hit his head with a hammer and split it open. Although this is a pretty extreme solution for a headache, it worked. Minerva emerged fully-grown from Jupiter’s forehead. She had the weapons and armor that her mother had made for her.

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Minerva

Another story about Minerva comes from Ovid’s book Metamorphosis. In this book, a young woman named Arachne brags about her weaving skills. She says that they’re even better than Minerva’s! Minerva, angry about this challenge, appeared to Arachne and challenged her to a weaving competition.

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Minerva

Another story about Minerva comes from Ovid’s book Metamorphosis. In this book, a young woman named Arachne brags about her weaving skills. She says that they’re even better than Minerva’s! Minerva, angry about this challenge, appeared to Arachne and challenged her to a weaving competition.

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Minerva

The subjects of their two tapestries were very different. Minerva, maybe with an eye to influencing any judges, wove a tapestry that featured herself beating all the other gods in a competition. Around the edges of the tapestry were figures of people who had challenged the gods and lost. Arachne, meanwhile, chose to depict the gods in various forms tricking humans.

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Minerva

Arachne’s work was an amazing piece of art, made with incredible skill. But, not too surprisingly, Minerva declared herself the winner. She knocked Arachne on the head three times and turned her into a spider to punish her for her unwise boast.

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Minerva

As proof that Minerva could win contests with other gods, though, here’s one more story about her, again drawn from Greek myths. The gods had a contest to see who could create the most useful item for humans. Neptune made a horse – definitely a very useful animal for the ancients. Minerva, however, created the olive tree. Olive oil was very important to Mediterranean cultures – as we can see from the fact that Minerva was declared the winner of the contest.

Selene

Selene, goddess of the moon, truly represented the moon itself to the Greeks. Although she counts as a goddess in her own right, Selene often gets associated with archer goddess, Artemis, who is also a moon goddess. These two goddesses have additional association with Hecate. Selene is a Titan goddess. Titan gods and goddesses were actually the divine beings that preceded the Olympian gods and goddesses. The first of these divine beings emerged from the primordial and originally called Gaea mother and Uranus father.

Aurora

Aurora was the Roman goddess of the dawn. The Greeks called her Eos. She was the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia and the sister of Helios (the sun god) and Selene (the moon goddess). Every morning, Aurora arose from the sea and rode in her horse-drawn chariot across the sky ahead of the sun, carrying a pitcher from which she sprinkled dew upon the earth.Titan one of a family of giants who ruled the earth until overthrown by the Greek gods of Olympus Aurora's first husband was the Titan Astraeus. They had several sons: the winds Boreas, Eurus, Notus, and Zephyrus as well as the morning star Eosphorus and the evening star Hesperus. Aurora's beauty caused Mars, the god of war, to take an interest in her. This angered Venus (Aphrodite) *, who caused Aurora to fall in love with a number of mortals. She married one of them, Tithonus, and begged Zeus * to make him immortal. Zeus granted her wish, but she had forgotten to ask for Tithonus's eternal youth too. As a result, he continued to age until he became decrepit and shriveled. Aurora shut him away in his room until the gods finally took pity on him and turned him into a cicada. Read more: http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Ar-Be/Aurora.html#ixzz6uLpD2IIg

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Here is a small video about Roman Gods :)

Thanks for your attention!