How Greek Gods Become Roman
Ovid’s Mythic Biographies: Aesculapius
Interpretatio Romana
Over time, gods shift pantheons, countries and religions. A prime example of this is something called interpretatio graeca (literally, ‘Greek translation’ in Latin), which refers to the tendency of the ancient Greeks to identify foreign gods as other incarnations of their own, such as the belief that Osiris was another version of Dionysus (both gods are ‘born twice’, hence the link). Later we see interpretatio romana (‘Roman translation’), with Rome adopting Greek gods into their pantheon, like Athena becoming Minerva (and changing from a major war goddess to a less-respected goddess associated more with crafts and weaving than battle), Heracles becoming Hercules and Odysseus becoming Ulysses.
Many of these changes are explained through mythology and one such tale in Graeco-Roman mythology is that of Aesculapius (Asclepios in Greek), the son of Apollo and Coronis who later goes on to become the god of medicine. It is his symbol, the staff with a singular snake, that we associate with medicine even to this day (not to be confused with the Hermes’ caduceus, which has two snakes and wings).
But how did this Greek god become a Roman god?
