Life in Ancient Rome

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how the vitality of Roman religion, much like its Greek counterpart, can be found in its mythology. It looks at how the major myths, especially in the hands of the playwrights, served as a basis for creative re-interpretation, and old stories became a vehicle for new alleged truths. It explores how this steady flow of imagination has proved a continuous delight and inspiration to artists through the ages, but an embarrassment to scholars, for it is often quite difficult to disentangle the various motifs of a story and trace the myth back to its nuclear belief or ritual that started it on its long and varied course.

From the Paper:

"The official gods of the Roman state served much more important functions. Their chief deity was Jupiter who, like his Greek counterpart Zeus, was primarily associated with the sky and its phenomena. Zeus was regularly viewed as the "cloud gatherer," the god of thunder, lightning and weather and presided over the daylight in opposition to his brother Hades, the god of the underworld and darkness. Jupiter was worshiped on the Capitoline Hill together with the goddess Minerva and Juno, Jupiter's consort, who was primarily a fertility figure and in one of her functions as Juno Lucina presided over childbirth. Minerva was the goddess of handicrafts, but her most important temple was on the Aventine Hill which served as the headquarters of a guild of writers and actors during the second war with Carthage."

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