Greek v. Roman/Latin Gods & Heroes

Sometimes the podcast uses the Roman names for the gods. This is typically during the “Liv Reads…” series of episodes where Liv has read Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey translated by Samuel Butler. These translations are in the Public Domain and therefore copyright free and able to be read aloud, but they’re also so old that it was common practice to use Roman/Latin names for the gods, often because these translations were made from Latin translations of the original ancient Greek works. Below is a list of the Greek names and their Roman/Latin equivalents (it’s not comprehensive, just the names commonly referred to in Homer). Additionally, in Homer, there are multiple names for the two sides of the war: Achaeans/Danaans = Greeks; Argives = from Argos, Ilius = Troy; Dardanian = ally of Troy; Alexandrus = Paris.

Olympians:

• Aphrodite = Venus (also called the Cyprian goddess)

• Apollo (both Greek & Roman; Apollon = transliterated Greek)

• Ares = Mars

• Artemis = Diana

• Athena/Pallas Athena = Minerva/Pallas Minerva

• Demeter = Ceres

• Dionysus = Bacchus (both names are Greek & Roman)

• Hades / Pluto = Pluto / Dis (Pluto is Greek & Roman)

• Hephaestus = Vulcan

• Hera = Juno

• Hermes = Mercury

• Hestia = Vesta

• Poseidon = Neptune

• Zeus = Jove/Jupiter

Titans & other Gods:

• Kronos = Saturn

• Leto = Latona

• Proserpine/Proserpina = Persephone

Heroes & Mortals:

• Heracles = Hercules

• Jocasta = Epicaste (this is a different, older name)

• Odysseus = Ulysses (I think he's the only mortal with a name change, the Romans were weird)