Info Thursday
Orcus and Vanth
Orcus and Vanth
A few weeks ago I posited on the question of Roman mythology before it was blended with the Greeks. In my readings I've been led to believe that the Romans were not particularly religious before. But this still baffles me as to why they would adopt a foreign religion.
In any event, I did find a God separate from the Greek pantheon, Orcus, an Italic god of the underworld thought to have originated with the Etruscans. While he was later equated to Hades and Pluto, it is notable that Orcus was initially a separate god and even later more related to the punishing side of Pluto.
Worship of Orcus even survived into the Middle Ages.
There was also a goddess of death by the name of Vanth who has no overlap in the Greek and later Roman pantheon.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orcus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanth
2 comments:
If I recall my classical history, prior to incorporating the Greek pantheon, the Romans had a primarily agricultural religion (Robigus the god of wheat rust, Pomona the goddess of fruit trees, Janus the god of doorways, etc.), coming out of Etruscan and early Roman history. Each household or family also had its own gods, the Lares and Penates. There's a handy breakdown of Roman gods and mythological figures here: http://www.dl.ket.org/cgi-pub/foxweb.exe/Gods@/db/pub/pub?by=romanname
I still like Eddie Izzard's explanation: the Romans needed to steal the Greek gods because theirs were so lame, like "Jeff the god of biscuits." Not too far off!
Interesting. I had read about Pomona (and Pomona Sprout in Harry Potter is named for her). I think I also heard about family gods once but hadn't known that was a big part of their religion. This has been bugging me for a while now, so thanks for the info, Brian!
I don't appreciate you taking Jeff the god of biscuit's name in vain, though. :-|
;-P
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