Info Thursday
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

Info Thursday
Can You Take the Greek Out of the Roman?

So far I've only done some light Wikipedia research just to see if I can find a time BEFORE the Romans worshiped Greek gods. But I can't seem to. Even in the founding myth of Rome, Romulus and Remus are said to be related to Aeneas, who was the son of Venus (a.k.a the Greek goddess Aphrodite). My sister pointed out that this means the Romans think of their greatest hero as a really hot dude. Julius Caesar also claimed to be descendant from Venus, so I guess, even more than their warrior status, it was important to the Romans that people know how pretty they were.

Legend has the founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus as April 21st 753 BC. Pretty specific for a legend. This time period also coincides with a vast immigration of Greek peoples to the Italian peninsula which did lead to an influx of Hellenic culture (or Greek stuff). But while I know a few gods specific only to the Romans, I still cannot find any mention of their religion before the Greek's arrival. I know they were there, because in actuality, Rome developed from a federation of villages which were there long before the city and before the arrival of the Greeks. But on Wikipedia, at least, I am unable to find any mention of the religion of the original Latin tribe.