Funny, I had heard just the reverse, that the Romans prior to Greek influence didn’t have a sea-god (or at least, didn’t pay much heed to the notion; if they’d thought about it they would have acknowledged the existence of a hypothetical sea-god), and that Neptune was a general-purpose water-god who ended up as a sea-god by analogy with Poseidon.
This wasn’t limited to the Greek pantheon either. When the Romans encountered Celtic deities they never used the native names for them. Instead they figured out which Roman gods they were most like and called them that.
From Wikipedia:
Thanks everyone - here’s what I wrote:
(No Zombie jokes please). The above is all good. But the Romans also worshipped Isis, who was certainly not Greek.
I don’t think Isis was ever part of the traditional Roman pantheon, was she? Sure she was worshiped in the Roman Empire, and no doubt by some actual Roman citizens, but so were lots and lots of other gods, even that guy … whats his name? … Yeah Jesus, thats it. He had quite a following amongst Romans, and one of his earliest, most influential followers was a Citizen. That does not mean anyone ever thought Jesus (or Mithras, or whoever) ran in the same circles as Jupiter and Neptune and Vulcan. I do not think Isis did either (unless you have a cite to the contrary). If you worshiped Jesus, or Mithras/Ahura Mazda, or Isis and other Egyptian gods and goddesses, you probably did not take Jupiter etc. very seriously any more. It is a quite different (and later) sort of thing to the merger that occurred between the Roman and Greek pantheons.
I note that, according to Wikipedia, the “those” in question are Henry M. Morris, young Earth creationist and “the father of modern creation science” (and his followers, presumably).
This is not a source to which I myself would give any credence.
Bear in mind, the Romans had a very pragmatic approach to religion - they cared less about abstract philosophical and theological issues, and more about what the gods could do for them. If they heard that the gods of a people they conquered gave people blessings in return for offerings, then why not slaughter a couple of bulls for them? They adopted foreign gods the way a corporation acquires another company’s contact list.
I really enjoyed that article. Thanks!
Well there was a Temple of Isis in Pomepii and worship of Isis was pretty mainstream, far more than it being a fringe cult at the frontiers of the Empire.
I suppose it might have been a result of Alexandria being one of the main cities of the Empire.
Certainly there was a lot of mixing and foreign importation – there’s a Pompeiian wall fresco depicting The Judgement of Solomon, for instance. But that doesn’t mean that the people of Pompeii were Jewish, or that Isis was a traditional Roman goddess.
^
I never said that it was was, only saying that it seems to have been much more mainstream, with prominent and influential persons following it, to be simply classifed as another exotic oddity.
In the US today, you have muslims, Shinitos, Hindus and even the odd traditional religion worshippers, that does not make any of the aforementioned religions a mainstream religion in the US.
Well, if you want to get technical like that, they also worshiped Yahweh at some point.
Precisely the point I was making.
There was worship if Isis (and a bunch of other Eastern gods and goddesses: Cybele, Mithras, etc) in Rome, but those were all later imports.
Thread win!
It’s my understanding that, by the time of the mystery cults, nobody took Jupiter et al very seriously. You had the religious folks who worshiped Mithras or Ahura Mazda or Jesus or whomever, and then you had a bunch of folks who just weren’t particularly religious at all. Ovid, for instance, certainly didn’t think much more of the old myths than that they were good stories.
Maybe Dawkins should add Ovid to his list (Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama…) 
It’s not so much a question of not taking the traditional gods seriously. It’s more that the traditional gods weren’t the kind of gods you had relationships with. They were the gods of the State and proper worship of them was necessary to keep the State functioning, but they didn’t really care about you as a person. It was strictly a contractual type of deal, and that was unsatisfying to a lot of people. So when these mystery cults come along and promise personal relationships, personal inspiration, and so on with the gods, that’s inspiring to people.