this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2024
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Rough Roman Memes
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Explanation: Roman and Greek religion are commonly confused, or else Roman religion accused of 'stealing' the gods wholesale from the Greeks. The truth is much more complex - while the Romans saw Greek gods, like any other nation's gods, as their own gods under a different name (Mercury is Hermes, just like Mercury is Odin), and there was a great deal of cultural exchange between the Greeks and Romans, Roman religion was Italic in origin and had significant qualities that set it apart from the Greek worship of the gods.
There is only a little native Roman mythology about the gods, however - in very typical Roman fashion, it seems that that the gods existed and that it was important to keep contracts with the gods was enough for them - why bother with pretty little details with that practical concept settled? In that, the Romans took a great deal of Greek mythology about the great deeds and histories of the gods and accepted it without further questioning.
How the hell is Mercury both Hermes and Odin ? I'm no theologist and I don't know that much about the specificities of the Roman pantheon, but I thought that Hermes would be much closer to Loki than Odin
It's recorded by Tacitus, himself somewhat pro-Germanic, that the Germanics worshipped Mercury as their chief god, who, he said, they called Wodan (itself the Low German word for Odin).
The Romans were not known for their cultural sensitivity, lmao.
The thinking is probably either "Mercury is a traveling god, Odin is a traveling god - obviously they are the same" or that both Odin and Mercury are the gods associated with leading souls to the afterlife.