Final Draft - Preview Matter - Florida State University

Given the importance of the cult of Apollo at Delphi, one cannot simply dismiss animal worship
in the classical world out of hand.
The perception that the ancients abhorred animal worship is no doubt one contributing
factor to the scant treatment these theriomorphic and therianthropic deities received in major
works on Etruscan and Roman religion. In Archaic Roman Religion, G. Dumézil attempted to
prove that Roman religion was founded upon Indo-European roots, conspicuously demonstrated
by an archaic triad formed by the gods Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus. 54 Dumézil’s argument,
which is not convincing, does not discuss the possible worship of animals in ancient Rome, nor
does he address this topic in his appendix dedicated to Etruscan religion. A recent work, M.
Beard, S. Price, and J. North’s Religions of Rome, which has become a basic textbook for
students of Roman religion, also pays little attention to theriomorphic and therianthropic
divinities.
In fact, the topic that is most commonly addressed in the study of Etruscan and early
Roman religion is the influence of the Greeks upon the people of Italy. 55 (This is indeed a topic
worthy of discussion, and it is addressed several times in the present work in relation to
theriomorphic and therianthropic gods.) One misconception which must be addressed deals with
the nature of Etruscan and Roman myth. In the past, scholars such as H.J. Rose and R.M.
Ogilvie were both guilty of reducing Roman myth to a mere derivation of Greek models. 56 The
influence of Greek myth on the Romans and Etruscans should not be dismissed, but it should
also not be overemphasized. D. Feeney has recently spoken out in favor of the Roman utilization
of Greek myths as a dynamic process and a creative strategy of appropriation, and N. de
54 Dumézil 1970, 141-282.
55 Altheim (1938, 124) poses the question of Roman adoption of Greek gods as one of time and comprehension of
the divine but yet comes to the conclusion that “When the Greeks came, it was discovered that on them too the
divine reality had shone, but that both in picture and cult, it had been incomparably more plainly seen and worked
out in more convincing and appealing forms.” Richardson (1976, 128) implies that the proper way to makes sense
of Etruscan myth and cult is to fit it into a “Greek pattern.” North (2000, 4) summarizes the derisive view of Roman
myth as follows: “It has sometimes been said that the Romans simply had no mythology of their own and that it was
for that reason that they later borrowed the mythology of the Greeks… In so far as they [Romans] tell such stories
they always seem to reflect Greek myths in Roman guise.”
56 Rose (1929, 305-334) offers the title “Italian Pseudo-Mythology” for what is commonly thought of as Roman
myth. In this section of his text, Rose (1929, 306) states, “Italian gods were vague personalities, with definite and
limited functions, and are not thought of as marrying, having children, forming connexions of love or friendship
with mortals, or doing any of the things which Greek imagination ascribed to the Olympians.”
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