| abstract
| - The mythology of ancient Greece and Rome is the Older Than Feudalism source of many tropes, as well as well-known gods, heroes and monsters. An important element of Ancient Greece, The Roman Republic and The Roman Empire. Classical mythology is sometimes referred to as Greek Mythology by people who don't think the Romans contributed much, and those who prefer not to lump Greek and Roman myths together. For the record: the main alteration of the Romans was to rename all the characters, and produce the Aeneid, a piece of imperial propaganda which chronicles the Romans' claim to a Trojan pedigree and fabricate prophecies of the rise of the Caesars (this is not to deny the Aeneid's widely recognized literary merits, just to say that it was also an Anvilicious piece of imperial propaganda). However, contrary to common belief, Roman mythology isn't completely identical; according to Rome's own legends became closer to Greek mythology around the end of the monarchy and the foundation of The Republic. Before that, Roman mythology was probably (though records are sparse) more similar to that of their closer neighbors - the Etruscans. Take, for instance, the emphasis on complicated divination methods that were alien to the Greeks or the fact that some of their gods, such as Mars or Saturn, are largely different from their Greek counterparts. The Roman religion (the actual practice of worshiping the gods in question) was also extremely different from the Greek one, dealing more with human representatives of the remote gods rather than stories of the gods themselves. Essentially, think of the Roman version as a Continuity Reboot if that helps. It's not really, but it's a close enough analogy. The Aeneid was a sequel to and imitation of the Greek Iliad, which is attributed to Homer. The Odyssey was the original (surviving) sequel to the Iliad, written in Greek and supposedly by the same guy who wrote the Iliad, though we really don't know (especially since Homer was a blind, illiterate poet who relied solely on oral recitations). Both were part of the Trojan Cycle, which included six other lost epics. The central figures of Greek mythology were the Twelve Olympians: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Ares, Hermes, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, and Hestia. Hades lived in the Underworld and thus was not an Olympian; Hestia was sometimes not counted because she gave up her seat to Dionysus. In Homer's portrayal, they were basically super-powered humans without the super- that comes standard with powers these days. Zeus, for example, was a philandering rapist, responsible for a large share of the god-human hybrids running around. Many of these became great heroes, the most famous of which was Hercules/Heracles/Herakles. Though you'd think Zeus's wife and sister Hera would be a sympathetic character, she spends most of her time taking out her frustrations on said heroes, probably because Zeus, said to be more powerful than all the other gods and goddesses combined, was beyond her ability to take any meaningful revenge on. Other gods engaged in similar behavior. Hades, while not as evil as his Theme Park Version, got his wife by kidnapping his niece Persephone (with Zeus's approval and assistance). This prompted the girl's mother, Demeter, to create summer in retaliation. Greece and Italy are considerably warmer than other parts of Europe, and their summers are much hotter, so as the myth moved north, it became the explanation for winter instead. And Ares... Well, he defines Jerkass. The Titans were a previous generation of gods overthrown by Zeus, though in The Theme Park Version they tend to be treated as another class of beings entirely. There were also minor gods such as the Muses, Graces, and countless nymphs, plus various monsters which you can today read about in the Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual. Also there are the oft forgotten, primordial gods that preceded the Titans, Gaia being the most well known of them (though often mistaken for a titan). While the Romans generally tried to identify their deities with the Greek ones, there were a few Roman/Italic ones for which no exact Greek equivalent could be found, e.g. Flora and Bellona. The former was a nymph-like goddess of flowers and spring (most similar to Chloris), and the latter was a goddess of war variously identified as Mars' wife or sister (most similar to Enyo). It should be noted that Greek and Roman religious ideas were not monolithic. In later years, people began worshiping all kinds of newfangled eastern gods. Plato wanted to outlaw Homer's epics because he thought their gods were bad role-models. Considering their lack of Comes Great Responsibility, he may have had a point. Philosophers exercised various degrees of skepticism towards the old myths, to the point that the Epicureans were accused of atheism (though some scholars say that atheism in those days meant a lack of worship for the gods and not a lack of belief). Some historians, notably Euhemerus, tried to reinterpret the gods as having originally been great kings. The Epicurean writer Lucian of Samosata was already deconstructing popular religious stories in the second century AD. Belief in classical mythology gradually waned between the second and fifth centuries, largely due to the spread of the then-new religion Christianity. In fact the Romans' dislike of Christians stemmed from the fact that Christians refused to accept any god but their own, which the Romans considered arrogant. In addition to all this, the Greeks (and, later, the Romans) had a habit of identifying and referring to other people's gods by the names of their own deities. So a Germanic tribe might be said to said to worship Mercury if their principal god was similar enough to the guy; it helped that many of the peoples they came in contact with (the Celts and Germans in particular) were Indo-European and thus their mythologies shared a common origin. There was also strong regional variation in worship of individual gods, both in emphasizing individual gods and particular attributes of the various gods. Characters from this period are universally recognizable to viewers thanks to a dress code heavy in drape-and-cinch unpatterned linens, plus, they've all made the uncanny decision to speak with a British Accent. For further details, see the character sheet. Greek Mythology has been very influential in literature, art, and many other things so it's named a lot of Tropes. See the list here.
- Classical mythology or Greco-Roman mythology is the cultural reception of myths from the ancient Greeks and Romans. Along with philosophy and political thought, mythology represents one of the major survivals of classical antiquity throughout later Western culture. Classical mythology has provided subject matter for all forms of visual, musical, and literary art in the West, including poetry, drama, painting, sculpture, opera, and ballet, as well as forms of popular culture such as Hollywood movies, television series, comic books, and video games. Classical myths are also alluded to in scientific naming, particularly in astronomy, chemistry, and biology, and in the psychoanalytic theory of Freud and the archetypal psychology of Jung. During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, when Latin remained the dominant language in Europe for international educated discourse, mythological names almost always appeared in Latinized form. With the Greek revival of the 19th century, however, Greek names began to be used more often, and "Zeus" may be more familiar than "Jove" as the name of the supreme god of the classical pantheon.
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