I studied mythology briefly in college and I've read some here and there over the years. I usually just get confused by it all because it's a bit complicated.
After our trip to Rome, I had a renewed interest in reading about the basics of not only Roman mythology, but Greek mythology too. It's still confusing to me, but . . . in a nutshell.
Mythology for the Greeks and Romans was story telling of both fiction and history and was used to explain their world - the "here and now" and the "afterlife". The stories were passed down through the years and often it is difficult to distinguish between what is true and what is made up because a lot of it is fact and a lot of it is fiction.
There is evidence that Egyptians also believed in some type of afterlife in the Neolithic period in 6000 BC and gods (like Isis and Osiris) were definitely present in their world around 3000 BC when Egypt was unified. This religion endured for over 3000 years, but that's a whole other story.
Both the Greeks and Romans practiced mythology as part of their religion. There's not a lot of difference, but they are definitely not one and the same. No one knows for sure when Greek mythology began, but it came way before Roman mythology and the Romans borrowed much from the Greeks.
The Greek myths are chronicled in Homer's Illiad and Odyssey and focus on the Trojan War while Roman myths are chronicled by Virgil's Aeneid.
Both Greek and Roman mythology have gods and goddesses and often they are the same god with a different name. This makes sense because both Greeks and Romans were trying to explain the same world around them.
Among the principal GREEK gods were the 12 Olympians:
Aphrodite - goddess of love
This is Apollo - god of music, healing, and later the sun
Ares - god of war and murder
Artemis - goddess of the hunt
Athena - goddess of wisdom
Demeter - goddess of life
Dionysus - god of wine
Haphaestus - god of fire
Hera - queen of the gods
This is Hermes - god of flight
Poseidon - god of the sea
Zeus -king of the gods
The equivalent ROMAN gods are:
Venus - goddess of love
Apollo - god of music, healing, and later the sun
Mars - god of war and fertility
Diana - goddess of the hunt
Minerva - goddess of wisdom
Ceres - goddess of life
This is Bacchus - god of wine
Vulcan - god of fire
Juno - queen of the gods
Mercury - god of flight
This is Neptune - god of the sea
Jupiter - king of the gods
There are many phrases and expressions that find their roots in mythology too.
Achilles' heel - Achilles was a hero of the Trojan War, but was killed with an arrow shot by Paris to his only unprotected body part - the heel.
Midas touch - Midas found the satyr Silenus, foster father of Dionysus (god of grape harvest and wine), drunk and passed out in his garden. Midas treated him hospitably and Dionysus granted Midas the choice of any reward and he asked to be able to turn anything he touched into gold. He later cursed his wish for wealth when everything he touched turned to gold including his daughter.
Pandora's box - Pandora was given a box with instructions never to open under any circumstances, but her curiosity got the best of her and she opened the box and all evil contained spread over the earth.
The story goes that the Olympian gods overthrew their ancestors, the Titans, and were then the main Greek gods who ruled the Cosmos. They lived on the highest mountain in Greece - Mount Olympus, built by the Cyclopes. Zeus was their leader. The gods didn't age or die, but other than that, they were like humans - they sometimes married, had children and faults, and had ichor instead of blood. There were many Olympian gods, but never more than 12 at one time.
The Roman gods were faceless and divine, but still powerful. The human form of Roman gods came later and was borrowed from the Greeks. There were also 12 main gods in Roman mythology called the Dii Consentes. Jupiter was their leader. Romans of this time wanted nothing more than favor from the divine for himself, his family and the state.
There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of mythological figures in addition to the main ones named above . . . like Atlas, Nike, Medusa, Nikon, Triton, Cupid, Hercules, to name a few.
And that's probably all I'll ever know about mythology.
List of Greek mythological figures
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