I never thought to question these things until now:
a1) The Roman god, Uranus, must has the strangest legend of them all. From what I make of it, he was the god of the sky until Jupiter (Zeus) took that role away from him??? And, then it gets even weirder…did he father the Titans? Say, is there a Greek equivalent for Uranus?
a2) I understand one Titan was named Chronus. Isn’t that the Greek name for Saturn, god of time (IIRC)? Or, is that spelled “Chronos”? If the former is correct, you mean to say Saturn was a Titan? (What’s the real scoop?)
b) Also, was Mercury considered a god? Known as a messenger to the gods, was he considered immortal? Even if immortal, did he have any god-like traits…or did he just work for them?
c) Last, Does Pluto have a Greek equivalent name? The best I could find in books is Hades, but isn’t that the (old) Greek name for hell? Or, is it both the god of the underworld and the place?
Uranus is the Greek name. I don’t know if there was a Roman equivalent.
Yes, yes sometimes, and yes.
Yes and yes. Mercury (Hermes) was also the god of medicine, and the caduceus he carried still symbolizes the medical profession. You know, the winged snake-staff thingie.
Hades was both the dude and the place, kind of like Disneyland.
I should clarify this a little: some say that Hermes and the caduceus’ association with medicine came about through confusion with the staff of Asclepius. Hermes was also the god of diplomacy and mercantile, being a messenger and all, but was ironically a trickster god and the god of thievery, too.
Hermes also got the fun of being put on statues around town (Athens, anyway) with huge phalluses on them. IIRC (which I may not), Socrates was accused (with no basis) of inciting an incident in which the statues were desecrated, which was part of the reason for his trial. I can’t remember the name of the statues now.
Cronus (Latinized from Kronos) the Titan is different from Chronos, the Greek god of time. The Romans linked Cronus and their Saturn, but the two gods were not really that close.
Saturn shared with Cronus the task of being father to the chief god (Cronus->Zeus, Saturn->Jupiter), but the Romans did not have the same tale of Saturn eating his children and being overthrown.
The Encyclopedia Mythica says that Pluto and Hades are the same. (This is possibly true as the name given to each of their wives is quite closeL The wife of Hades was Persephone, while Pluto’s wife was Proserpina, which, while they appear to have different etymologies, at least resemble each other enough that one may have been borrowed from the other culture with a “folk etymology” to reconcile them with their new language.
The way I heard it, Uranus/Ouranus/Ouranos (there may be other spellings of the name) was the grandfather figure, and he was not overthrown by Jupiter/Zeus but by Cronus/Saturn, the eldest of his sons, the elder pantheon, the titans. (correction based on googling… Cronus was perhaps the youngest and cleverest son of Ouranus?)
Generally the romans didn’t come up with a brand new name or identifying him with a pre-existing deity of their own when stealing Ouranos for their mythology.
For sheer mythology geek bonus points - Uranus’ wife was Gaea – sky and earth paired together.
Another thing to remember is that the Romans anthropomorphized their gods a lot less than the Greeks did. Almost all of the classical myths were Greek in origin, and applied retroactively by the Romans to the gods of theirs that they identified with their closest Greek counterpart. Although some of the gods may have had a common mythological origin or developed in parallel in various places around the mediterranean, the Romans like most polytheists weren’t shy about adopting foreign gods wholesale.
