When and how did the Greek mythos transfer to the Romans?

Question

It seems that there are a great many similarities between Roman and Greek Mythology. In fact, many people consider them synonymous and only really differ in the names. For example: * Greek ⇄ Roman * Zeus ⇄ Jupiter * Poseidon ⇄ Neptune * Hades ⇄ Pluto * Hermes ⇄ Mercury And many others. My impression is that they are nearly identical, so I want to know when, why and how did the Roman people adopt the Greek Mythos? Did they bring it with them? Is there evidence that they believed something else first that evolved into a Greek-like mythos? If this belief is false, please point out where the Roman mythology differs from the Greek and why that is significant enough to say they are different religions.

Answer 1

Classical mythology refers to the culture of Ancient Greek and Rome which actually were separated by each other in terms of language, time (in terms of their height-Athens , 5th century BCE ; Roman culture reached it's high point- 1st BCE and 1st C. CE) Professor E. Vandiver- (Great Courses) offers working definition of myth as:

"Traditional stories a society tells itself that encode or represent the world view, belief, principals and often the fears of a society."

The Romans without a strong literary tradition of their own when the subjugated Greece-and embraced the Greek ones. literature, specifically mythology and art.

Roman culture adapted it's culture in toto which were developed in Ancient Greek therefore the myths that developed in Ancient Greek were taken over by the Romans.

The Blending of the two cultural traditions allows us to discuss Greco-Roman culture, literature and art- while, in fact, each of these cultures was it's own and the overlapping of the two has something to do with the extant (existing) literature and artifacts of the ancient world that remains for us.

Since the Romans wanted to align their own less literate tradition with the Classical Athens culture so they borrowed. Think of a Gucci knockoff.

The Romans themselves were aware of the re-purposing of myth:

As the poet Horace shares: Book II, epistle 1, lines 156-157.

Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit et artes intulit agresti Latio.

Graecia capta - Captured Greece

cepit - seized

ferum victorem -(her) savage conqueror

et -and

intulit - brought

artes (her) arts

agresti Latio - to savage Latium (the province of Rome)