Introduction

he Romans, it has been said, had no myths, only legends. The Oxford
English Dictionary describes myth as 'fictitious narrative usually involv
ing supernatural persons, actions, or events, and embodying some
popular idea concerning natural or historical phenomena'. Most Roman
mychs do not it this definition at all well. They are presented in ancient
writers not as fiction, but as the early history of the Roman people - even
though we can observe their content changing before our very eyes. Many
myths do not involve the gods at all, or only to a small extent, and these are
not myths about the Roman gods themselves.
In the first century BC a speaker in Cicero's philosophical dialogue On the
Nature of the Gods distinguishes between mythological stories about the gods,
which he regards as something Greck, and Roman expectations of religion;
Roman religion is made up of (1) ritual, (2) taking auspices, and (3) prophetic
warnings issued by interpreters of Sibylline oracles, or of the entrails of
sacrificed animals, on the basis of portents and omens. I am quite certain
that Romulus by instituting auspices, and Numa ritual, laid the foundations
of our state, which would never have been able to be so great had not the
immortal gods been placated to the utmost extent."
In other words, stories about the gods were unimportant; religion's func
tion was to maintain a stable relationship between the gods and the state, and
Rome's past success was its justification. A generation later a Greek writer,
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, spoke approvingly of Rome's lack of myths (especi
ally of the morally discreditable kind) about the gods. This he ascribes to the
foresight of Romulus, who sawthat what was paramount was maintaining the
favour of the gods, through suitable ritual practice, and the encouragement
of civiC Virtues.
Two other factors that certainly play a part in determining the character
of Roman myth are, firstly, the ancient view, common both to Greeks and to
Romans, of what history was for and how it should be written, and, secondly,
the fact that the earliest detailed accounts available to us come in writers
from the first centuries BC and AD. By that time Rome had already developed
into a highly sophisticated, urban society, whose culture, literature and
thought were deeply permeated by centuries of influence from Greek
literature and culture; the 'myths' are preserved in writings that are the
product of highly refined and self-conscious literary techniques. Authors felt
free to reshape and even make additions to the traditional stories.

7
 ROMAN

mainsOurcCs
Our history of Rome in L42 books, from :the
CADI7) wrote a the CVents foundation
Livy (c. s
Book I, afrer briefly outlining
Troy to the birth of
Romulus and from Aeneas'
RemuS, cOntains
deparuurc Iron
of Rome and the reigns of its seven kings. the story
with thctoundarion
of the establishent Book deak,
of the Roman Republic and its earliest struggles.2
Virgil (70-19 BC) was the Aeneid, an
The grc.test work of epic poem in
the adventures of Aeneas after his
(wclve books, rcounting
Trov until his arrival in
Italy and thc union of Trojans and departure
Italians. from
are several prophetic looks
ahead to the future greatness of Rome, There
ating in the destined
appearance of the emperor Augustus
(whose culmin
claimed descent from Aeneas' divine mothcr, Venus).
Roman
family
Ovid (43 BC-AD I7/18) makes occasional use of myth in
his published poetical works. One, the Fasti, was an account of the several of
calendar, month by month, including descriptions and purported Roman
of the origins of the sacred rites and festivals
of
the Roman explanations
religious year.
Unfortunately only the first six books, January to June, survive.
pboses includes some Roman tales, culminating in the deification of 1
Caesar, and ends with an encomium of Augustus.
Metamor-
Dionysius of Halicarnassus came to Rome as a teacher of rhetoric at abe
the time of Augustus Cacsar's achieving sole leadership (3o/29 BC) and staved
there for twenty-two years. He wrote Roman Antiquities, a
romantic and
rhetorical history of Rome from earliest times to the beginning of the fre
Punic War (264 BC). It was a panegyric of early Rome,
Grecks to being ruled by Romans. aimed at reconciling
Ancient Latin scholarship also preserved some
although in abbreviated and often scrappy form. information, even
(u6-27 BC) devoted twenty years after his retirement Marcus Terentius Varro
search and writing, and he had a prodigious from public life to re
with having edited 490 books by the output. A later writer credited him
works was Divine and Human time he was seventy-seven. Among his lost
on agriculture, all of his work Antiquities, in forty-one books. Besides a treatise
that survives is about a quarter of
Language, which contains many antiquarian The Latin
epitome by Sextus Pompeius Festus (second snippets. We also have part of the
a learned freedman,
Verrius Flaccus, the teachercentury AD) of a similar work by
Plutarch (c. AD 46-after I20), a Greek who of Augustus' grandsons.
world on public business, was also
prolifc.
travelled widely in the Roman
His best known work is the
Lives of Greeks and Parallel
Romans, of which
graphies survive. For early Rome, we have twenty-two pairs and four separate bio-
Numa, of Publius Valerius his Lives of the kings Romulus and
His Roman Publicola,
Questions discusses Roman one of the first consuls, and of Coriolanus.
None of these works customs and religious rituals.
centuries is earlier than the first century BC, that is seven
after the
did these traditional
writers have? date of the foundation of Rome. What sources
 NEVS
etue.dry the Roman neyer I.. Marc sPhil1ppus tn s; : n ne ssde, biny Ancus
. . . leendry bmller of Rme's first aqued4ct, in the sther the Aqua Marcia (tA4 l
builder O. MarcilMs kex
th the cqestrtam statte of its
Manly they relied on carlier writers. The first known Ronan historian (of
whom only a few tragments survive) was Quintus Fabius Pictor, who wrote, at
the end of the third century Bc, a history of Rome from the origins to the middle
Greek:
of the third century. Like Rome's carliest known poets, he wrote ina century
the ffrst to write a historical account in atin was the elder Cato, half
research
later. Later writers, such as Livy, based their accounts, not on original
predecessors,
(for which there were virtually no materials) but on those of their
conflicting versions, but
sometimes consciously trying to assess the value of
story or the most suitable
more often than not picking the one that made the best
were of main importance for
for their particular purposes. The two things that
quality of the work, and its
most ancient writers of history were the literary beneficial and
didactic value. What makes the study of history particularly manner of experience
profitable,' wrote Livy, 'is that you have lessons from all
out in full view as if on a memorial, and from there you may choose both for
set
to imitate and what things (bad
yourself and for your country examples of what meant, amongst other things, that
begun and worse ended) to avoid. This
would interpret the past in terms of the issues of their own time.
writers Rome down to the end of the
from the supposed origins of
The period (traditionally so9 BC) cannot be
monarchy and establishment of the Republic
neither can much of what appears in
called 'historical' in our sense of the word;
the hrst generation or two of the Republic. Modern scholars
Iiterary accounts of can be said to exist at all in the stories
historical truth
argue about whether any is, how to identify it), and the
kings (and if there
about the period of the Republic are also agreed to be full of
the early days of the
traditional accounts of sources. For anyone interested in myth
later
invention and contamination from them, and in the
making, however, these traditions are a treasure-house, for in
down through the historical period, we see

way they change and develop right the stories they tell about their
through
past -
the Romans defining themselves usea variety of materials, such as ideas and
that is, through their 'myths'. They a traditional 'folk
mythology and history, motifs of
motifs copied from Greek traditions of some of the great Roman
the family
tale' type, and stories from coin types referring to their supposed
issued
families. Republican moneyers Historians disseminated the family traditions:
ancestors in the legendary past.
 ROMAN MYTHS

and the
Fabii, the Valerii Claudii in the
the
promninence of
carlk Republic
the
probably owes
something to Fabius
Pictor, and
who wrote their own histotory of the
Antias and Claudius
round about 8o
BC.
Quadrigarius,
histories of ValRomeerius
appealed particularly to
These family legendsthough historical writers
they might and also to
sometimes express scepticism
orators like Cicero (evenvalue as what the Romans
their
because ofmoral called exempla,
to avoid').about
rhem)
of a particular

of these patriotic legends

truth ('what to imitate and what things
early books of Livy, like the historical
exemplitying
'flash-forwards in
the 'Roman' virtues Virgil,
ilhaaveustratimanyons
The

The Romans, like the Greeks, were also particularly

aetiology, i.e. accounting for beginnings, the beginning of
names, of institutions, of cities, of the whole Roman
int
rituals,e
people and its
rest
of epldace-
in
This does not mean that they wanted actually to find out
simply to tell a satisfactory story about them.
how they hibegan,
story.
So, for instance, the beginnings of the main political
institutions historical Rome are allocated among the sevenreligious and civic
of
mainly imaginary): Romulus - the senate, the 'curiate' kings (themselves
'centuries' of cavalry; Numa - the calendar and the assembly and the
Hostilius - treason trials, and religious procedures tor major priesthoods;
Marcius - procedures for making peace; Ancus
declaring war,
duct: Tarquinius Priscus (the First') - theRome's first prison, bridge and ague
annual Roman games; Servius Tullius - thehrst stone wall round the city. the
hierarchical 'centuriate' assembly. Even the census, the tribal system and the
king, Tarquinius Superbus ("the Proud'), main sewer was attributed to a
back no earlier than the fourth though the parts of it that survive go
century BC.

Roman gods and Greek myths

The Romans, it seems, had a native god, or
object or activity. For instance, gods, for almost every
important
name came from 'counsel'), PalesConsus ('storage' - though Varro thought the
(blight) were agricultural; Janus (goddess of flocks and herds) and Robigo /-us
wild things, Silvanus the god of looked after doorways,Faunus was
the god of
woodlands and untilled land; and there were

An early
(C. 220 BC)Roman coin
with the god
Janus,
ways, asshown facing tu
the god ot
doorways, and al:
beginnings.
 INIRODUC|ION

Md to Roms ot the clssal pen0d, they are only naes. hcy have nmen
yie powe) but to ndivdual pervOnal1ies. Though Romn rebgous obscr
Llwe was claorate and detailed, and the calendar, all through the year, was
tull ot slitives ld rituals, adninistered by boards of priests, tew have stories
Lhel to thet, and tew ot these, even when they purport to eNplain the
Dutivular cult or tunctional title ot a god, involve the gods theselves, It there
Cver was a Roman mythology about their gods, it has vanished irretrievably.
Rouan gods lck personal adventures, and family relatioIships: for the great
Bs, these were simply taken over trom the (irecks,(Olympian and Roman
deities bcing matched up in a very rough and ready way.
The principal Greck gods were Kronos, tather of Zeus, who overthrew
him; Zeus, king and weather god: his brother Poscidon, god of waters and
carthquakes; Hera, queen goddess, wite (and sister) of Zeus, deity of
marriage and women; and Zeus' other sisters Demeter (grain and erops) and
Hestia (the household hearth). To these must be added the children of Hera,
Ares (war), and Hephaistos (sith-eraftsman), who was married to Aphrodite.
She was the goddess of love, and variously said to be 'foam-born' Irom Krons
father Uranos, or Zeus' daughter bya Titaness. Athena, goddess of wisdom,
was daughter of Zeus and Metis (a personitication of counsel). Other chil
dren of Zeus, by various lovers, were the twins Apollo (music - also medicine,
archery, flocks and herds) and Artemis, associated with wild animals, hunting
and virginity; and also Hermes, messenger of the gods, and patron of
merchants and thieves, and a late-comer to Olvmpus, Dionysos (also called
Bacchus), god of wine.
Some of these, though not all, the Romans simply identified with gods of
(also known as Jove'), Nep
their own, not always very appropriately. Jupitergood fits for Zeus, Poseidon,
tune, Mars, Venus and Vesta are more or less
fire-god, is cquated with
Ares, Aphrodite and Hestia. Vulcan, the Roman of woodlands, but
Hephaistos. Artemis was identified with Diana, a goddess though appearing
also probably of the moon, women and child birth. Juno,
and especially as a goddess
historically in functions very like those of Hera,associated
originally have been adeity with the vigour of
women, may
of with the Roman Saturnus, originally
young warriors. Kronos is ill-matched became associated, like Kronos, with a
perhaps a god of sown crops, who
necessary.
primitive Golden Age, before agriculture awas for Athena. Minerva was an
Minerva is also rather surprising as match was one of their chief triad
Romans, she
Italian goddess of handicrafts. For the a temple on the Capitol. The temple
and Minerva, with
of gods, Jupiter, Junosymbolise being Roman, and were reduplicated all over the
and its triad came to themselves believed that it had been instituted,
Roman empire. The Romans His father had come from
last king, Tarquin the Proud.
C. so9 Bc, by Rome's something about Minerva's origins, while her eleva
Etruria, which may tell us Greek
position, like Athena, perhaps reflects the influence of
tion to a senior that period.
culture on the Etruscans already at
 ROMAN MYIS

Hermes, was probably not originally

Mercury, the malogue of
l all, hbut merely
a renaming of a
others,
along with agroup ofDemeter
in
Greek god taken
the
over by the
first decade of the Roman
Romans,
ffth century BC.
About the same time, and Dionysus were introduced to Rome as
done on the advice of the
Ceres and Liber. This was so-called
Books, a collection of oracles kept in the temple of
consulted in times of crisis (particularly natural
Jupiter Capitolinus Sibylline
disaster, such as plague and
Lamine) to discover how to make peace with the gods; the response was
Usually the introduction of a new god, or a new religious rite. Dionysius
tollowing. he says, Varro) how the Romans came to possess them: tells
woman who was not a native of the country came to the
A certann
tyrant |Tarquin the
I'roud] wanting to scll him nine books full of Sibvlline oracles. When Tarquin
buy them at the price asked, she went away and burned three of them;
then refusedafterto
soon
she came back and asked the same price for the remaining six. She was thought
was laughed at for asking the same pricefor the smaller number of books
fatled to get even for the larger number, and she went away again and burnedas bals
she mad,had
remaining books. Then she came back and asked the sane price for the three that . e
left. Surprised at her determination, Tarquin sent for the augurs and asked them wh
do, CGertain signs told them that he had rejected a blessing sent by the gods.
They declared
that it was a great misfortune that he had not bought all the books. and told him to give
the old woman as much money as she wanted, and take the
remaining oracles.
He did, and the woman disappeared. Tarquin appointed
a post, says Dionysius, which existed to his day. When keepers of the oracles
the oracles were do
stroyed by fire in 83 BC, a fresh collection was made by
from various parts of the known world; some of these weretranscribing oracles
found be fakes
to
Rome was generally receptive to new gods and
to be admitted to Rome were Apollo (for goddesses. Among the first
whom
found), as healing god, and the deified hero Heracles
no Roman equivalent was
Hercules). One of the most famous introductions was(whom the Romans called
the Great Mother God
dess, Cybele, or Mater Magna, brought, in the
in 204 BC during the war against form of a black stone, to Rome
Hannibal; her temple was inaugurated in 191
BC, and an annual festival of theatrical
established. The cult came from the Greek'performances and games, the Megalesia,
Phrygia in Asia Minor. The festival, at least, end was
of the
Mediterranean, from
Romans, though no Romans were allowed to highly popular among the
not conform to their ideas of participate in her cult, which did
decorum. It involved noisy street
ecstatic priests who leapt and danced,
bals, and begged from the accompanied processions of
by horns, drums and cym
was disapproved of passers-by. Abandoned dancing, specially in public,
anyway
their eyes by the fact that the by the Romans, and matters were made worse in
priests were
What the Romans really thought eunuchs.
morc difficult for us to about their Hellenised gods is all the
become little more thanperceive
literary
because in surviving writings the stories have
simply took over from Homer themotifs or devices. Ovid in The Art of Love
his wife Venus ad Mars story of how Vulcan
(Hephaistos) caught
(Aphrodite and Ares) in bed together, trapped them
 INTRODUCTION

with an invisible net and fetehed the other gods to laugh at them. Ovid uses
it to illustrate some tongue-in-cheek advice to suspicious lovers: if you suspect
she's cheating, don't try to catch her out - youll lose in the long run. He
hastily adds, Of course, this isn't about real married ladies.' This was
cautious: Augustus had introduced a law with stern penalties for adultery. He
exiled Ovid in AD 8, for reasons which are unknown, but the erotic amorality
of much of his poctry cannot have helped.
However, Virgil found convenient in the Aeneid to ignore Venus'
infidelity. She persuades Vulcan to make weapons for Aeneas (her son by a
mortal, Anchises) by the simple use of marital seduction:
He hesitated, but she put her snowy arms about him and clasped hinm in a warm and
tender embrace. And he suddenly took flame - as usual and the familiar hcat entered
his marrow and raced through his trembling bones, just as when thunder cracks apart
the storm-clouds and the fiery flash darts out, sparkling. The goddess was aware of it,
pleased with her cunning and conscious of her beauty. The old god answered, bound in
the toils of undying love.
He consents, conjugal relations (it is hinted) follow, and he falls asleep.
The seduction scene is almost a parody of one in the lliad, in which Hera
diverts Zeus' attention from what is happening on the Trojan battlefield. Virgil
uses it for the purpose of introducing a description of the arms, particularly of
the shield. This also is an idea lifted from Homer's Iliad, in which Hephaistos
makes a shield for Achilles. Virgil wants to use the decoration on the shield for
a sort of picture-show of famous events in Roman history, culminating, in the
middle, with a splendid set-piece in which the future Emperor Augustus,
Virgil's patron, and (as his publicity kept reminding Romans) descendant of
Venus and Aeneas, is shown defeating Antony and Cleopatra at the battle of
Actium (3I BC), with Apollo helping him - another myth in the making - and
holding a triumph in Rome over conquered peoples from all ends of the world.
This terracotta architectural
ornament represents Augustus'
triun1ph. Victory carries a
tropby of weapons, and stands
on aglobe flanked by
Capricorns, Augustus'
lucky sign.