Greek and Roman Gods: Names, Domains and Equivalences

Two names, one slot

When the Romans met Greek religion, they did not throw out their own gods. They **matched** them up: the Roman god who governed the sea was lined up with the Greek god who governed the sea, and so on down the list. That is why this paper keeps asking you to move between the two sets of names. You need the pairs cold. You also need to know **where the match stops working**, because a Roman god who has been lined up with a Greek one does not automatically behave like them.

The fourteen, in pairs

The complete set this paper names, Greek first, Roman second.

Match each Greek god to the Roman one

The one that does not change

One god on this list keeps the same name in Greek and in Roman religion. Which?

• Apollo
• Artemis
• Hermes
• Hestia

Ares is not Mars

These two are paired because both govern war. Read what each one meant to the people worshipping him and the pairing starts to look thin.

Reading the difference

Select the TWO statements that a strong answer about Ares and Mars could make.

• The pairing matches their domain, but not their standing: Mars was central to Roman civic religion in a way Ares never was in Greek
• Mars is tied into Rome's own founding story, which gives him a role in Roman identity that Ares has no equivalent of
• The Romans simply renamed Ares and worshipped him in the same way
• Mars had nothing to do with war, only with farming

Match each god to what they govern

The one who is not on the mountain

**Hades**, whose Roman name is **Pluto**, rules the dead. He is on your list of fourteen, but he does not live on Olympus with the others - his realm is the underworld, and he stays in it. That matters for the Underworld material later in this topic. When Persephone is taken below, or when Orpheus goes down after Eurydice, they are entering **his** territory, not visiting another Olympian at home.

Name the Roman

Five Greek gods. Give the Roman name for each. Three lives.

Say it back

The Romans matched their own gods to the Greek ones by what each governed. The Greek god of the sea, Poseidon, was paired with _____. The goddess of grain and the harvest, Demeter, was paired with _____. One name did not change at all: _____. But a shared domain does not mean a shared standing, which is why _____ mattered far more to Roman civic religion than _____ ever did to the Greeks.

What a comparison answer does

**"Compare the importance of Ares in Greek religion with that of Mars in Roman religion."** "Both govern war, which is why the Romans paired them. Their importance is very different. Ares is presented in Greek poetry as disliked even by the other gods, and received little civic worship. Mars stands second only to Jupiter in the Roman state, is honoured with a month of the calendar, and in Livy's account of Rome's founding he is the father of Romulus and Remus, so his standing is tied to Rome's own origins." Notice the shape: the shared ground first, then the difference, then evidence for the difference. A list of two gods with no comparison in it scores badly however much detail it has.

Whose names are these?

Tap the THREE ROMAN gods named in this passage. Leave the Greek names alone.

• Before the fleet sailed, the admiral made an offering to
• Neptune
• , who governs the sea. At home his wife prayed at the hearth to
• Vesta
• , while their son, leaving for his first campaign, sacrificed to
• Mars
• . A Greek merchant in the same harbour poured his libation to
• Poseidon

Build the comparison

Build a sentence that states the pairing and the limit on it accurately.

Before the voyage

A Roman merchant is about to sail with a cargo he needs to arrive safely and sell well. Which TWO gods has he most reason to honour, and why?

• Neptune and Mercury, because one governs the sea he must cross and the other governs trade and travellers
• Vulcan and Ceres, because one governs the forge and the other the harvest
• Juno and Vesta, because one governs marriage and the other the hearth
• Mars and Pluto, because one governs war and the other the dead

Your turn: how far does the pairing hold?

A student writes: "The Roman gods are just the Greek gods with different names." Explain what is right about that, and what it misses.

• Explain what the Romans actually matched the gods on
• Give two Greek gods with their Roman names as examples
• Use Ares and Mars to show where the match stops holding
• Say why that difference matters when you answer a "compare" question