Author Topic: Greeks vs Romans  (Read 4309 times)

Offline Con

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Greeks vs Romans
« on: June 28, 2022, 07:31:12 AM »
Rome conquered the Meditteranean and then some and arguably laster longer than classical Greece ever did. It would be a massive plot and narrative hole for the pantheon that ruled the Mediterranean to be ignored.

So I imagine we'll get some of these answered during the wrestling book, but how does Zeus vs Jupiter work out.

Is it like Vadderungs identities switching back and forth between Kringle and Odin?

Or did some of the ROmans take out Greek gods and assumed their mantles.

Now the latter might be a bit out there but here me out.

Ares vs Mars are two completely different Gods. Ares is a brutish thug the worst aspects of war. Athena was for strategies, wisdom, honour, valor etc. (Also the protogod before Bonea)

Mars however is a general, a soldier and patron of Rome. I could totally see a story where Mars killed the God of War one halloween and assumed his Mantle. As long as his name isn't Kratos copy right should be fine.

Offline Mira

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Re: Greeks vs Romans
« Reply #1 on: June 28, 2022, 09:47:49 AM »

  Except that Zeus and Jupiter are the same god, the Romans adopted most of the Greek gods along with their mythology with name changes.

Offline Conspiracy Theorist

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Re: Greeks vs Romans
« Reply #2 on: June 28, 2022, 08:33:30 PM »
Same with the Etruscans, which is likely the White Courts origins.

They generally added the entire pantheon under new names to their existing gods.

Offline Arjan

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Re: Greeks vs Romans
« Reply #3 on: June 28, 2022, 08:48:25 PM »
It is more complicated than that. Sometimes a god was imported but often a local god was identified as a Roman god. That happened everywhere in the Roman Empire. That way you got a multitude of local varieties of the same god with different rituals and stories.
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Offline Mira

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Re: Greeks vs Romans
« Reply #4 on: June 28, 2022, 09:02:58 PM »
It is more complicated than that. Sometimes a god was imported but often a local god was identified as a Roman god. That happened everywhere in the Roman Empire. That way you got a multitude of local varieties of the same god with different rituals and stories.

True, but in the case of the Greek verses Roman, the names get changed but the myths remain almost the same.

Offline g33k

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Re: Greeks vs Romans
« Reply #5 on: June 29, 2022, 07:05:12 AM »
True, but in the case of the Greek verses Roman, the names get changed but the myths remain almost the same.

Except -- as-noted in the OP -- Mars is much more a "war god" in the model of Athena, than of Ares.

I'm voting for Jim to make this being transgender, or other non-binary!   ;D

Offline Arjan

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Re: Greeks vs Romans
« Reply #6 on: June 29, 2022, 10:10:23 AM »
True, but in the case of the Greek verses Roman, the names get changed but the myths remain almost the same.
Even within Greece local gods were identified with the dominant one but local traditions were kept. Artemis of Ephesus was a totally different person than Artemis of Sparta.
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Offline Mira

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Re: Greeks vs Romans
« Reply #7 on: June 29, 2022, 10:24:09 AM »
Even within Greece local gods were identified with the dominant one but local traditions were kept. Artemis of Ephesus was a totally different person than Artemis of Sparta.
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Artemis Orthia is most likely a merge of Artemis and Orthia, a Spartan winged animal goddess of women and fertility (National Museums Liverpool, ...




Offline Conspiracy Theorist

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Re: Greeks vs Romans
« Reply #8 on: June 29, 2022, 03:47:10 PM »
Except -- as-noted in the OP -- Mars is much more a "war god" in the model of Athena, than of Ares.

I'm voting for Jim to make this being transgender, or other non-binary!   ;D

Tough, Jim  already did this, the Etruscan God of War is Laran. The White Court uses Etruscan and therefore most likely has its roots in that culture. Eros child of Aphrodite and Ares is the Etruscan deity Erus, whom the Romans called Amor (where has that popped up). Likely therefore the Whites are a corruption of the line of Erus, and Lara is named for her grandfather or Great-grandfather Laran. Lord Raith didn’t allow his sons to live that long, so he wasn’t going to give them a name of significance. Raith was so powerful perhaps because he was the offspring of Erus, if his siblings died then their descendants would be a tier less powerful and likely the heads of the other Houses.

Offline Arjan

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Re: Greeks vs Romans
« Reply #9 on: June 29, 2022, 04:05:55 PM »
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That happened all the time with most gods in Greece. That is why these gods have different second names depending on the local tradition.
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Offline g33k

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Re: Greeks vs Romans
« Reply #10 on: June 29, 2022, 05:34:24 PM »
Tough, Jim  already did this, the Etruscan God of War is Laran. The White Court uses Etruscan and therefore most likely has its roots in that culture. Eros child of Aphrodite and Ares is the Etruscan deity Erus, whom the Romans called Amor (where has that popped up). Likely therefore the Whites are a corruption of the line of Erus, and Lara is named for her grandfather or Great-grandfather Laran. Lord Raith didn’t allow his sons to live that long, so he wasn’t going to give them a name of significance. Raith was so powerful perhaps because he was the offspring of Erus, if his siblings died then their descendants would be a tier less powerful and likely the heads of the other Houses.

I don't think the Etruscan Laran (& the Whamps) really impacts what Jim might write about Mars/Ares/Athena as the "same" god/dess (or not-the-same).  The Etruscans appear to be rather different, without the numerous Greco=Roman identities.

Also, barring info from WoJ's, I think we're inching out onto very-thin branches of speculation, based on no more than the Whamps' use of the Etruscan language.  Mind you... I suspect you're right (or at least, speculating in the right directions).

I don't think individual Whamps live as long as that (i.e. centuries, not millenia); but again, I'm not sure we have solid info on this, neither DV canonical story nor WoJ.

Offline Mira

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Re: Greeks vs Romans
« Reply #11 on: June 29, 2022, 05:38:15 PM »
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The Etruscan appear to be rather different, without the numerous Greco=Roman identities.

They would be different, they predate both the Roman and Greek civilizations. If anything the Romans borrowed some stuff from them.

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Re: Greeks vs Romans
« Reply #12 on: June 29, 2022, 09:58:44 PM »
Jim has been keeping away deliberately from the origins of the White Court, whereas we have been given those of both the Red and Black Courts.

I find that suspicious.

Offline Con

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Re: Greeks vs Romans
« Reply #13 on: June 30, 2022, 05:27:56 AM »
Jim has been keeping away deliberately from the origins of the White Court, whereas we have been given those of both the Red and Black Courts.

I find that suspicious.

Well we might get more in 12 months or in the courtship of Lara.

But yes the various different local gods bordering on spirits is another example of interpretations of the Olympians.

Romans converted a bunch of Gallic Sun Gods and named them 'Local Apollo' or Apollo and the region of Gaul.

In Iron Druid both Roman and Greek gods are Seperate Pantheons both inhabiting different planes of Mt Olympus.

But yes. Greek Gods get a lot more play in mythological retelling than their Roman counterparts but the Roman counterparts ruled the Mediteranean for 700 years or so.

Personally I think they're just putting on different hats the way Vadderung does.

Offline g33k

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Re: Greeks vs Romans
« Reply #14 on: July 04, 2022, 05:11:08 AM »
... they predate both the Roman and Greek civilizations. If anything the Romans borrowed some stuff from them.

Not so (for the first bit).

The Etruscans were essentially contemporaneous with the ancient (pre-Republic) Kingdom of Rome; the Republic stage of Rome saw the end of the Etruscans as rivals of theirs.   The Romans definitely borrowed from the Etruscans (several loan-words have been documented, for example).  It may well have gone both ways, but we know a LOT more about the Romans.  Etruscan "borrowings" from Rome -- if any (I assert the extreme likelihood thereof) -- are AFAIK lost to the ravages of time and Empire.

Mycenean Greece predates both; then Greece had a fragmented "Dark Age" for some centuries.  The "Archaic Greek" era and the rise of the "Polis" city-state model in Greece was, again, roughly contemporaneous with the early Etruscans & Romans.

(I am unclear how much of this historical trivia is relevant to the Dresdenverse; but, see below!)

Jim has been keeping away deliberately from the origins of the White Court, whereas we have been given those of both the Red and Black Courts.

I find that suspicious.

This is... an excellent point.

Given that we learned relatively long-ago that the Whamp "court language" was Etruscan, the lack of further info is indeed "suspicious" (OTOH, I wouldn't put it past Jim to simply be holding this back in order to provoke speculation, as a red-herring sort of thing).