Roman

Roman mythology began as an indigenous Italic tradition of numina (divine forces) associated with specific places, actions, and moments. As Rome expanded, it absorbed and reinterpreted Greek mythology, identifying Zeus with Jupiter, Athena with Minerva, Aphrodite with Venus. But Roman religion retained its own character — more legalistic, more focused on ritual correctness (orthopraxy) than belief (orthodoxy). The genius loci, the spirit of a place, was a distinctly Roman concept. Rome itself was the ultimate sacred landscape: the Palatine Hill where Romulus traced the city's boundary, the Capitoline where Jupiter's temple stood, the Forum where the mundus connected the world of the living to the underworld. Roman mythology is inseparable from Roman topography.