How the Romans Adopted the Greek Gods - Ancient History DOCUMENTARY

Script: David Muncan
Animation: Lucas Salatiel
Illustration: Lucas Salatiel

#Religon #Documentary #RomanHistory

[TetsuShima]

5:19 *Fun fact:* Speaking of Castor and Pollux, many citizens of Rome considered blasphemous and intolerable that Emperor Caligula, who had proclaimed himself a God, desecrated the pavilion of the two gods by creating a tunnel to the Palace between the two statues of the siblings, which made Castor and Pollux look like mere ornaments rather than holy figures to be worshipped. This controversy motivated the Praetorians to kill Caligula and his family.

[sankyu]

Can we have a video of how the Romans look at Alexander and the impact of Alexander to roman culture

[marcbrown]

Reminds me of the saying, "Romans arms conquered Greece but Greek culture conquered Rome."

[sladewinberry]

I love historical parallels and ironies. Like the fact the city of Rome was started by a Romulus and ended with a Romulus. In this case, Greek slaves gave the Romans their pantheon. And then gave them Christianity the same way.

[johnroberts]

The Romans already essentially had the “Greek” gods. Or, more accurately, the same Indo-European gods the Greeks worshipped. Since all Indi-European peoples share a common origin in the original Indo-European tribes around the Black and Caspian seas (4500-3500BC) most of their core pantheon remained common to all of them. As they migrated out of the core homeland over time and eventually became Celts, Tocharians, Germanics, Balts, Slavs etc. they did pick up various new gods from the non-Indo-European peoples they encountered along the way. But the core Indi-European gods remained the same. It’s only differences in dialect as the various Indo-European languages evolved separately over time that cause the names of those gods to sound different. For instance, the original chief Indo-European god was “Deus Pitar” (sky father). The Greek tribes simply referred to him as “Zeus”, dropping the following “father” part. The Romans included the “father” part and referred to him as Jiu-Pitar. Jupiter.

[Endspiel]

genuinely love your work. easily one of the best channels on youtube

[Jeznyve]

You are one of the best YouTuber and I'm French and they are plenty of excellent French podcasters about history; well done you are the best actually

[aokiaoki]

"This god has civilized, by the agency of the Greek colonies, the greatest part of the habitable globe; he has prepared it the more readily to submit to the Romans----a race possessing not merely a Grecian origin, but also Greek,  and who have established and maintained a creed as regards the gods that is thoroughly Greek from, beginning to end; and who, besides all this, have founded a form of government in no way inferior to that of the best regulated states----even if of all the governments that have ever been tried, it be not the very best; from all which circumstances, I think I have myself recognized the Roman state as being Greek both in its origin and in its government.

Emperor Julian.

[spaghettitime]

Great topic, I can't believe how consistently you guys deliver

[generalflubjub]

I absolutely love this channel, some quality work right here.

[ancientsitesgirl]

I am waiting for the episode about the cult of Isis and Serapis in Rome! Apparently, the Roman Serapeum was an impressive building!💜

[karanjohari]

In India, we still have temples dedicated to Brihaspati (Jupiter).
Every 12 years, In India we also celebrate Jupiters rotation around the Sun, thru the Maha Kumbh Mela.

[fm-gamer]

The Greeks are indeed the most iconic culture on earth. Love your videos about Greece, keep it up !

[thefisherking]

This is good but somehow misses that some of these conflated gods were literally the same god to begin with. Both Greece and Rome inherited much of their mythology from older Indo-European myths, as did many of the PIE daughter cultures, and Rome was heavily influenced by Greece not just later in history but from its absolute very beginnings, with Alba Longa almost definitely drawing settlers from Greece or Grecian colonies and later providing much of the original Roman colonial stock in turn. Zeus and Jupiter didn't get conflated, they were just different names for the same guy (Zeus-Pater[father]->Jupiter) with enough generations of separate mythological evolution to differentiate the two states' popular image thereof. That's why they could be mashed back together with great ease.

[JohnDoe-lwnq]

Fustel de Coulanges (Ancient City)

Concerning the origin of the divinities:
"Still the elements which could be deified were not very numerous. The sun which gives fecundity, the earth which nourishes, the clouds, by turns beneficent and destructive — such were the different powers of which they could make gods. But from each one of these elements thousands of gods were created; because the same physical agent, viewed under different aspects, received from men different names. The sun, for example, was called in one place Hercules (the glorious); in another, Phoebus (the shining); and still again Apollo (he who drives away night or evil); one called him Hyperion (the elevated Being); another, Alexicacos (the beneficent); and in the course of time groups of men, who had given these various names to the brilliant luminary, no longer saw that they had the same god.
Indeed, each man adored but a very small number of divinities; but the gods of one were not those of another. The names, it is true, might resemble each other; many men might separately have given their god the name of Apollo, or of Hercules; these words belonged to the common language, and were merely adjectives, and designated the divine Being by one or another of his most prominent attributes”

The repetition of names to different divinities:
“The same name often conceals very different divinities. Poseidon Hippius, Poseidon Phytalmius, the Erechthean Poseidon, the Ægean Poseidon, the Heliconian Poseidon, were different gods, who had neither the same attributes nor the same worshippers.”

The lack of universality of protecting divinities:
"We may recall the saying of a certain Greek, whose city adored the hero Alabandos; he was speaking to an inhabitant of another city, that worshipped Hercules. 'Alabandos, ' said he, 'is a god, and Hercules is not one.' With such ideas it was important, in a treaty of peace, that each city called its own gods to bear witness to its oaths. 'We made a treaty, and poured out the libations, ' said the Plataeans to the Spartans; 'we called to witness, you the gods of your fathers, we the gods who occupy our country.' Both parties tried, indeed, if it was possible, to invoke divinities that were common to both cities. They swore by those gods that were visible everywhere — the sun, which shines upon all, and the nourishing earth. But the gods of each city, and its protecting heroes, touched men much more, and it was necessary to call them to witness, if men wished to have oaths really confirmed by religion."

"In the legend of the Trojan war we see a Pallas who fights for the Greeks, and there is among the Trojans another Pallas, who receives their worship and protects her worshippers. Would any one say that it was the same divinity who figured in both armies? Certainly not; for the ancients did not attribute the gift of ubiquity to their gods. The cities of Argos and Samos had each a Here Polias, but it was not the same goddess, for she was represented in the two cities with very different attributes. There was at Rome a Juno; at a distance of five leagues, the city of Veii had another. So little were they the same divinity that we see the dictator Camillus, while besieging Veii, address himself to the Juno of the enemy, to induce her to abandon the Etruscan city and pass into his camp. When he is master of the city, he takes the statue, well persuaded that he gains possession of the goddess at the same time, and devoutly transports it to Rome. From that time Rome had two protecting Junos. There is a similar history, a few years later, of a Jupiter that another dictator took from Praeneste, though at that time Rome already had three or four of them at home."

The exclusivity of divinities:
"The city which possessed a divinity of its own did not wish strangers to be protected by it, or to adore it. More commonly a temple was accessible only to citizens. The Argives alone had the right to enter the temple of Hera at Argos. To enter that of Athene at Athens, one had to be an Athenian. The Romans who adored two Junos at home could not enter the temple of a third Juno, who was in the little city of Lanuvium."

That universal and external cults were secondary to personal religion:
"A man had no chance to choose his belief. He must believe and submit to the
religion of the city. He could hate and despise the gods of the neighboring city. As to the divinities of a general and universal character, like Jupiter, or Cybele, or Juno, he was free to believe or not to believe in them, but it would not do to entertain doubts about Athene Polias, or Erechtheus, or Cecrops. That would have been grave impiety, which would have endangered religion and the state at the same time, and which the state would have severely punished. Socrates was put to death for this crime."

[lerneanlion]

So what's next? The views of the Romans toward the Ancient Egyptian Gods? I would love to see. Really, I mean it.

[yaralikatil]

Christian Orthodox people belonged to the millet-i Rum, and progressively, Greek became the dominant means of communication amongst the members of the millet, who were called by others and were calling themselves. Romioi. Interestingly, the term 'Hellene' still signified for most people the pagan classical tradition, and it was a term that especially the clergy was keen to eliminate. Certain evocations of the term 'Hellene' by Byzantine scholars (e.g. in the twelfth century) contained some elements of contemporary ethnic identification, but it never acquired widespread currency, it never really "caught" on' (Beaton 2007: 93).

Boys-Stones, G., Graziosi, B. and Vasunia, P., n.d. The Oxford handbook of Hellenic studies. p.21

A second way that Robert establishes the moral superiority of the French over and against the Greeks is by framing the French, rather than the Byzantines, as the true Romans. On this score, it is important to note that the very naming of the Byzantines as "Greek" was an explicit rejection of the Byzantine claim that they were "Roman"-as noted in the introduc tion, the people we call Byzantines never employed the term Byzantine (it is a modern categorization), never used the Latin Graecus, and only began to employ the Greek word "Hellene" around the time of the Fourth Cru sade. Rather, they almost always self-identified as Romans." Robert not only rejects their Roman identity by referring to them as Graeci, he re peatedly asserts that it is the French, not the Byzantines, who adhere to the "law of Rome."

Demacopoulos., 2019. Colonizing Christianity: Greek and Latin Religious Identity in the Era of the Fourth Crusade (Orthodox Christianity and Contemporary Thought) 1st Edition.. New York, N.Y.: Fordham University Press, p.18.

[aristosbywater]

Many times in the video, they refer to the "expected benefits" from a sacrifice. A common misconception of polytheistic faiths is that if you give a sacrifice, the Gods would be forced to give you whatever you want. The Romans and Greeks thought it would be an act of great hubris to demand a reward.
Instead, look at it like a gifting cycle of reciprocity. Practitioners would give offerings out of love, like a tithe, and should not expect anything in return (to demand something in return would be impure). The Gods help with rain, harvest, the State, personal matters because they believed the Gods loved them too. Thus, you have gifts and blessings back and forth, establishing "Kharis".

Source: The Republic by Plato, The Iliad & the Odyssey by Homer, the Homeric Hymns, and Orphic Theogony

[buffwhiner]

Another amazingly interesting video.. Kings and Generals, you're rocking it!

[jtgd]

I like how HBO’s Rome also featured some of this, like mentioning Dis, or making a prayer and burying the sacrifice