​The most recent class dealt with the ‘A’ team of the Graeco-Roman gods.  These are the twelve larger-than-life anthropomorphic gods who lived on Mt. Olympus.  Their Latin names are familiar to most people – Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Apollo and Diana, Mars, Venus, Vulcan, Bacchus, Neptune, Ceres and Mercury.  However, their conduct was nothing to be imitated by humans.
 
Jupiter was always seducing human women; Juno was forever trying to kill the women that her husband Jupiter had seduced.  Diana often played cruel pranks on humans while Apollo and Minerva brought disease and sickness to them.  Mars and Minerva brought brutal war.  Neptune caused earthquakes and Mercury was a thief who stole from both the gods and humans.  Venus was the promiscuous goddess of sexual desire but in Roman eyes she was also the goddess of agreements.  Perhaps these are much the same thing really.  Bacchus was the god of abandoned intoxication.  Only Ceres, the goddess of cereal crops, was unreservedly good. 
 
Vesta, the other good goddess, she who ruled the hearth, the family and domestic life, left Olympus so that Bacchus could take her place.
 
The only Olympian god who did not live on Mt. Olympus was the chthonic god of death, riches and the underworld.  No-one liked to mention him.  Who knows?  He might take into his head to appear.  Euphemistically, the Greeks called him Pluton, the god of riches; the Romans called him Dis Pater, the father of spirits, or Pluto, the god of riches.  We, who do not believe in such superstitions, know him as Hades or Thanatos, the god of death.

​John Barry

​Our first class focussed on the little gods, the archaic peasant gods of Rome who were so central to everyday family worship.  These originated from the Etruscans.  The Etruscans gave Rome many of its early traditions. Few of these little gods had a face or even a body but sacrifices were made to them at every meal.  Every god of Greece and Rome, big or little, was transactional.  They expected sacrifices and prayers in order that they might give their favour. 
 
The Lares were gods who were family ancestors or eponyms who gave their name to the family. The Penates were the little gods who protected a family’s goods and stores. Rome had public Lares and Penates too.  The worship of the public Lares and Penates was overseen by the Vestal Virgins under the supervision of the Chief Priest, the Pontifex Maximus.  Most priests in Rome were not full time.  Instead, they were members of the elite who governed, made war or ascertained the will of the gods, all as part of a day’s work.  For example, Julius Caesar was appointed as Pontifex Maximus when just a young man.
 
The ancient world was crammed full of these little gods.  Every action or place had a Numen or Daemon, all needing propitiation.  For example, Janus and five little gods watched over every household entrance. 
 
Next time, we will deal with the big gods.  These were the twelve or so anthropomorphic gods who lived on Mt Olympus in northern Greece.


John Barry

This course in Graeco Roman Religion and Mythology will explain Graeco Roman mythology in the context of religion as a whole and differentiate it clearly from modern religions. 

​Convenor John Barry is keen to “infuse those attending with the same sense of joy that I had when I read my first book on Graeco-Roman mythology at the age of ten.”