Interpretatio romana
Greek ↔ Roman names
Type a Greek or a Roman name and get its counterpart, with the Latin passage that uses it, the Etruscan name where one is well attested, and the catch.
Result
Found as a Greek name
GreekZeus Ζεύς
Why the matches are not exact
The Romans had gods of their own long before they read Greek poetry, and as they came to know Greek myth they identified each with a Greek god. In 217 BC Rome honoured twelve gods in six pairs, Jupiter and Juno, Neptune and Minerva, Mars and Venus, Apollo and Diana, Vulcan and Vesta, Mercury and Ceres (Livy 22.10.9): one for each of the twelve Greek gods usually counted as Olympians. Latin poets then told Greek stories under Roman names, which is why Ovid's Venus and Mars are caught in Vulcan's net exactly as Aphrodite and Ares are in the Odyssey.
But the pairs were never the same gods under two names, an identification that scholars call interpretatio romana:
- Different weight. Mars was father of Romulus and Remus in Rome's founding story (Livy 1.4.2), far more central than Ares was in Greece.
- Old Italian gods. Saturn was an Italian god whom Virgil has rule a golden age in Latium after fleeing Jupiter (Aeneid 8.319–325), not simply Cronus renamed.
- Merged gods. Cicero separates Liber, the son of Semele, from the Roman Liber worshipped with Ceres and Libera (On the Nature of the Gods 2.62).
- No match at all. Janus, god of doors and beginnings, says in Ovid that Greece has no god like him (Fasti 1.89–90).
All the names
Etruscan god names are known from inscriptions, including the labels on engraved bronze mirrors that show Greek myths. The table lists only names that a reference work gives with their Greek or Roman match, such as Tinia for Zeus and Fufluns for Dionysus; many Etruscan gods had no Greek match at all.
Sources
Ancient explanations of the names are guesses, not modern etymology: Cicero's speaker derives Juno from iuvare, to help, and Neptune from nare, to swim (On the Nature of the Gods 2.66).
Latin texts
- Ovid, Metamorphoses, Latin text with Brookes More's translation (1922), Perseus Digital Library.
- Ovid, Fasti, Latin text, Scaife reader (Perseus).
- Virgil, Aeneid, Latin text, Perseus Digital Library.
- Virgil, Eclogues, Latin text, Scaife reader (Perseus).
- Catullus, Poems, Latin text, Perseus Digital Library.
- Horace, Odes, Latin text with John Conington's translation (1882), Perseus Digital Library.
- Livy, History of Rome, Latin text, Scaife reader (Perseus).
- Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, Latin text, Perseus Digital Library.
Reference works
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Tinia”, britannica.com.
- B. B. Powell, review of N. T. de Grummond, Etruscan Myth, Sacred History, and Legend (2006), Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2007.06.16.
Questions
What is Zeus called in Roman myth?
Jupiter (Latin Iuppiter). Ovid tells the Greek story of Europa and the bull with Jupiter in Zeus's place, and Livy lists Jupiter first among the twelve gods honoured in 217 BC. The Etruscans called him Tinia.
Is Pluto the Roman name of Hades?
Mostly Dis, or Dis Pater, with Pluto (from the Greek Plouton) used too. Cicero derives Dis from dives, rich, like the Greek Plouton, and Plato's Cratylus explains Pluto as the giver of wealth that comes up out of the earth.
Why is Apollo the same in both lists?
Rome took Apollo over with his Greek name; Cicero remarks that “Apollo's name is Greek”. A few other figures, such as Triton and Aeneas, also keep their names.
Where do the Etruscan names come from?
From Etruscan inscriptions, including labels on engraved bronze mirrors. Only names that Encyclopaedia Britannica or the Bryn Mawr Classical Review's discussion of Etruscan myth give with a Greek or Roman match are listed here.