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What are some examples of polytheism?
Religion in ancient Rome consisted of varying imperial and provincial religious practices, which were followed both by the people of Rome as well as those who were brought under its rule.
- Overview
- Greco-Roman religion
- Germanic, Scandinavian, Celtic, and Slavic mythologies
- Egypt and the Middle East
- Early Indo-Iranian religions
- Classical and modern Hinduism
By the time of the establishment of the Roman Empire, the Greek tradition was already exerting considerable influence on the Roman, to the extent that once relatively independent traditions became somewhat fused. Equations between gods were freely made: Zeus became Jupiter, Aphrodite became Venus, and so on. Originally, Roman pietas (sense of duty ...
By the time of the establishment of the Roman Empire, the Greek tradition was already exerting considerable influence on the Roman, to the extent that once relatively independent traditions became somewhat fused. Equations between gods were freely made: Zeus became Jupiter, Aphrodite became Venus, and so on. Originally, Roman pietas (sense of duty ...
The sources for a reconstruction of northern European religion are far better than those for the south Germanic peoples, but there were evidently similarities between the religions. The three main Scandinavian gods were Odin, Thor, and Freyr: Odin (or Wodan) had great magical power and wisdom and was called All-father; Thor (or Donar) was the warrior god; and Freyr was the god of fertility. It is possible that these gods are a reflection of the tripartite division of Indo-European society—priest, warrior, and cultivator. Among other deities, Balder, the dying god who was killed by a mistletoe branch, had a poignant charm. Nordic mythology also carries with it a sense of final doom of the gods, looking to the point when the world will be burned up, before its eventual re-creation.
The pattern of Celtic cults is not easy to decipher, because of lack of written records; but the stag-headed god Cernunnos was highly significant in iconography. There was also a variety of ancestral gods and goddesses, including a “great mother” of the type found in fertility cults of the ancient Middle East. Celtic religion had a special reverence for water in such forms as pools and rivers.
The Egyptian pantheon evolved into a complex form; many deities were theriomorphic but were presided over by such great gods as Re, the sun god, and Nut, the sky goddess. Re’s transformation as Horus, with a hawk’s head, was connected with the Osiris legend. The pharaoh was identified with him as the “living Horus.” Despite the attempt of Akhenaton, pharaoh in the 14th century bce, to exalt Aton as the single god, the Egyptian cult remained essentially polytheistic but highly articulated. With the domination of Egypt by the Ptolemies about 10 centuries later, the worship of Serapis, a hybrid Greco-Egyptian deity, was instituted as a means of binding together the two groups.
Though in Egypt the cause of the rise and fall of gods was partially the political struggles between the major city-states, the Sumerian religion was much less affected by such “earthly” considerations. An, the god of heaven, remained supreme, and such deities as the water god Enki and the air god Enlil were prominent. In Babylon, partly the successor state of Sumer, the most vital god was Marduk, creator of the world and of humankind, and victor over the primeval Tiamat, or chaos, who all but absorbed the older surrounding gods. His story is recounted in the epic Enuma elish (“When on High”). In Assyrian religion, Marduk was in effect replaced by Ashur; Ishtar, the mother goddess, was also important. In general, it can be said that Middle Eastern religion stemmed from early Sumerian and Egyptian sources and that the latter eventually had some effect on Hellenistic religion.
For almost a millennium close relations existed between the Vedic and ancient Iranian religions—from before the time of the Iranian prophet Zarathustra, who reformed the ancient religion sometime before the early 6th century bce, back to the time of the Vedic religion of the people who migrated to India about 1500 bce. Zarathustra, in his reforms, ...
Certain gods of no great importance in the Vedic tradition came to dominate classical Hinduism, above all Shiva and Vishnu. The latter was associated with belief in avatar, or incarnation. Most male gods in the Hindu pantheon also came to be represented with a female consort, symbolizing the shakti, or creative power of the deity. The increasing el...
Jan 22, 2020 · While the 19th century scholars saw polytheism as an inferior form of religion, early monotheists regarded polytheism as false religions. For instance, Jews and Christians held the view that the gods of ancient Greece and Rome were in fact fallen angels , which served as a perfect explanation for the cruelty and oppression inflicted on them by ...
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Sep 20, 2018 · The Roman Empire represents something special and distinct, which had an influence on the Roman religion and set it on a course very different from that of the Greeks, despite the superficial correspondence of their gods.
Well-known historical polytheistic pantheons include the Sumerian gods, the Egyptian gods, the pantheon attested in Classical Antiquity (in ancient Greek and Roman religion), the Norse Æsir and Vanir, the Yoruba Orisha, and the Aztec gods.
Polytheism characterizes virtually all religions other than Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which share a common tradition of monotheism, the belief in one god. Learn more about polytheism, including such religions as Hinduism.
This article sketches the main lines of change in the religious life of the region ruled by the Romans, including much of Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa, from the later Republic ( c. 200 bce–c. 31 bce) into the earlier centuries of the Roman Empire (down to the 4th century ce ).
