I mean, for almost every Greek God or Goddess there is a Roman counterpart! For example, the Roman equivalent of the Greek God Zeus is Jupiter. Now my question is: Are Zeus and Jupiter the same entity with two different names, OR are they two different Gods, in different mythologies, with different names, but similar powers and personalities? I mean, are they both based on the same entity or different ones?
JASON
Favorite Answer
As the Romans conquered different cultures, they assimilated their gods in order to not upset those they had conquered.
dybydx
Why are all the stories about divine beings so much the same? Like the story about Jesus there are many religions about a guy born to a virgin mother, a guy who walked on water, a guy who rose from the dead. All ancient belief systems have similar threads.
Anonymous
Great question. Their languages are not even close. Greek is Indo Hellenic and Italian is Proto European Italic.
?
Because the Romans conquered the Greeks, which entitled them to steal the Greek religion and make it their own. That's literally why.
It wasn't personal, in fact religions have been doing that for thousands of years. Some emperor / warlord / king / pope / whatever would hear a series of stories from another culture, say "well that's pretty cool", and then assimilate that cool stuff into their own religious belief. All the religions do it.
Gray Bold
Proto-Indo-European mythology is the body of myths and deities associated with the Proto-Indo-Europeans, the hypothetical speakers of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language. Although the mythological motifs are not directly attested – since Proto-Indo-European speakers lived in prehistoric societies – scholars of comparative mythology have reconstructed details from inherited similarities found among Indo-European languages, based on the assumption that parts of the Proto-Indo-Europeans' original belief systems survived in the daughter traditions. The Proto-Indo-European pantheon includes a number of securely reconstructed deities such as *Dyḗws Ph₂tḗr, the daylight-sky god; his consort *Dʰéǵʰōm, the earth mother; his daughter *H₂éwsōs, the dawn goddess; his sons the Divine Twins; and *Seh₂ul, a solar goddess.