How come Greek and Roman mythology are so much alike?
by 
wickedwillie
ANSWERS: 3
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Its basically because the Romans admired Greek history and culture. Many boys were sent to Greece to get a good education and Greek was a useful language to know. Along with this, when the Romans went around conquering places, they picked up things along the way. They constructed a belief system from bits and pieces of various other pantheons, not only the Greek one. Many other countries/cultures have done the same thing- adopting bits of other peoples' religions, myths and ways of life. Just to add- if you look around at any ancient culture's gods- they are all a little alike. A god is always 'needed' to represent, for example, the earth and agriculture- you need someone to pray to when the crops fail- so there has been Demeter in Greece, Ceres in Rome, Bris for the Irish Celts...the list goes on. I think Ive strayed from the point so Ill leave it here.
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The Romans started off with the own gods, then introduced/adopted some Greek gods and made them their own. We refer to these as to the Greeks their 'Roman counterparts.'
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In addition to what others here have said, there were Greek settlements in southern Italy.
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