No problem. 
I thank you for giving me the opportunity to wax melodramatic on Roman literature, a subject for which I don’t usually have such a captive audience.
Regards,
MR
It is a little known fact that the founders of Rome survived as infants by being suckled by a wolf and eating Reese’s pieces.
Maeglin, I like your spirited defense of the Roman contribution to the “Mediterranean” mythos (to choose a somewhat neutral term), but I do wish to raise one objection. To my mind, and to the minds of others (including that Atticzing bitch Hamilton ;)), it is clear that many of the Roman writers, particularly Ovid, didn’t believe what they were writing. They were telling stories, not recording their beliefs about the actions of their gods. So I would say that, at least for the Greco-Roman integrated myths, many of the major Roman writers were novelists or short-story authors, rather than “myth makers”, for want of a better term.
I don’t mean to denigrate their works; indeed, from a literary standpoint, I enjoy them more. However, from a historical/anthropological POV, I would rate them secondary to most of the Greek authors.
Sua
This is a very hard claim to evaluate. I agree with your first contention, that authors like Ovid certainly were purely literary figures. He was entirely too cosmpolitan to believe much of what he wrote.
However, the jury is still out on exactly how much the Greeks themselves believed. There is an interesting book on this subject by Paul Veyne, not surprisingly called Did the Greeks Believe Their Own Myths?.
Furthermore, it also depends on which Greek authors you are talking about. The ones who retold most of the stories, the hyper-cosmopolitan Alexandrians, certainly did not believe a word of their own mythology. The classical tragedians, who used mythology to illustrate their political ideology (as in Aeschylus) or their views of human psychology (like Euripedes), to my mind did not believe in their own myths either. Plato certainly didn’t, which he says quite clearly in the Republic.
So did the people believe these myths? Well, maybe. A lot of Roman citizens did as well.
MR
Namita impregnated herself with her big toe?! Damn, that’s one talented goddess.
Just looking at it from a standpoint of “human nature”, I would guess that many Greeks/Romans probably did believe their own mythology. Look at Judeo-Christian mythology in Genesis, for instance. A lot of people take the story of creation as a literal truth; others, like myself, see it as a metaphor, a story cast in terms understandable to humans because the “reality” is beyond ordinary human comprehension. I think it is understandably difficult for some people to step back from their own religious writings, and examine them as a literature containing a metaphorical/religious, rather than an absolute, truth.
[And just to be clear: my intention here is not to start an argument about whether Genesis is or is not a literal truth, or to offend anyone’s particular beliefs. I am simply using a modern-day parallel in relation to this discussion on ancient mythology, and expressing my own perspective. Other may hold different perspectives and I do respect that.]
As far as I remember, that’s pretty much what Veyne concludes. He talks about how each society has its own “program of truth,” and individuals are inclined to believe whatever mythology reinforces these truths. It’s a crude summary if a rather good book.
MR