The Roman way of looking at their neighbours has had a powerful effect on religious studies today. The cults who are responsible for these traditions are never part of the popular mythology we see in popular media today, but we're about to break that silence.
Emulation is adoration. While the Romans borrowed and adapted many of the gods in their pantheon from the Greeks, the Ancient Romans developed mythology over and above what the Greeks had. We'll peek at some of the stolen gods, but also explore what was native to the Italian Peninsula.
The old gods of Roman mythology have some great stories, but many of them were Etruscan gods, Italic gods, or even "Indo-European" gods. And half their stories were stolen in full from the Greeks. Is it cultural appropriation, plagiarism, or a genuine belief that the gods are universal, simply known by different names?
In this episode, we'll compare and contrast the two! All this and more...
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Katie Dooley 00:14
You can say that again because I'm an atheist. But like, just like two people who are so different can come together and make something beautiful.
Preston Meyer 00:26
Right? Like Rome and Greece.
Katie Dooley 00:29
Oh, what a segue. Yeah, so this episode might sound a little bit similar to last week.
Preston Meyer 00:40
Because it is very similar in a lot of ways, but also materially different.
Katie Dooley 00:45
Yes, on...
Both Hosts 00:46
The holy watermelon podcast!
Katie Dooley 00:53
We already have the music. I don't know why I'm singing.
Preston Meyer 00:56
Because you got to feel it.
Katie Dooley 00:58
Yeah, President and I are in a mood tonight. I don't know why. But uh...
Preston Meyer 01:03
We just had a great meal and way too much sugar.
Katie Dooley 01:05
So here we are. Mormon drunk.
Preston Meyer 01:10
I mean, sure, maybe.
Katie Dooley 01:13
This episode we are talking about ancient Roman religion, which is just the grand baby of Greek religion. So some of this is gonna be a review.
Preston Meyer 01:24
Right? In much the same way that English is a weird pile of languages in a trench coat that went and beat up other languages in dark alleys... That's exactly what Roman religious tradition is to the rest of South Eastern Europe.
Katie Dooley 01:44
And eventually to its detriment. Which we'll get to in a few weeks. So the pantheon of gods in the Roman religion is very similar to the Greek tradition. But as we go on with this little series, we'll see that there are similarities with the Celtic and Norse pantheon as well to the Greek and the Roman. It's interesting to me that all these pantheons are so similar.
Preston Meyer 02:14
Yeah, we're gonna highlight some of the differences too. It's some pretty interesting stuff. I thought.
Katie Dooley 02:19
Well, yeah, this would be a boring episode if we just talked about how it's the same.
Preston Meyer 02:22
Just rerecord the exact same episode with different names.
Katie Dooley 02:26
Zeus is Jupiter. Hera is Minerva, is she? No, I have that backwards. Athena is Minerva. Good night, everyone.
Preston Meyer 02:39
But that's not why you listen to the Holy Watermelon.
Katie Dooley 02:44
So again, many aspects of the Roman tradition are based on the Greek tradition, but there is about 1000 years difference between when we really started to see the Roman tradition take hold.
Preston Meyer 02:57
Yeah, it's interesting that Romans did change everything to fit themselves. They adopted a lot of things that they found elsewhere that they liked. And it's kind of funky. On the surface, it looks like it's the same gods with different names. And it's easy, really easy to just assume they all are just the exact same thing. But there's, there's some important differences.
Katie Dooley 03:24
I think it's a interesting, sociological anthropological concept that they changed it to fit their culture, because you could probably argue that every I mean, I'm thinking the big ones Christianity and Islam have done that.
Preston Meyer 03:38
American Jesus is a lot different than, say, the Jesus that people still believe in in the Middle East.
Katie Dooley 03:44
Or if you look at, you know, people say Islam such a violent religion really after looking at places like Saudi Arabia or Qatar, then yeah, but if you look at countries like Indonesia, it's not the same Islam. So anyway, interesting parallel.
Preston Meyer 04:03
Romans were really into their religion. Like the Greeks were pretty religious as a general statement. The Romans were really into it.
Katie Dooley 04:14
I think the difference between Greek and Roman is that like Greek, as we talked about, was kind of like Shinto. It's just the way you lived your life. Whereas Roman from our research to me, it really feels like there was this belief to it. Like, they recognize there was worship, whereas Greeks was like, this is how you do your day.
Preston Meyer 04:35
Pretty much it became more of a actual religion enrollment looks like. Which is a weird thing to say, when we have a hard time defining religion. Yeah, it was commonly believed in the life of Rome, that everything was really tightly tied to their piety. Any failure to satisfy the gods would ruin the nation. And I mean, the decline of Rome and the rise of Christianity does illustrate that in a weird kind of way.
Katie Dooley 05:09
It does. And part of that too, is that they were happy to add to their pantheon. Kinda like Hinduism, which is funny that to Rome, it was their ultimate downfall and Hinduism it's like, meh.
Preston Meyer 05:21
They're still doing great. So the, the source of a lot of confusion in all of the study of what is Roman, the Roman gods, but also what's going on with their neighbors, is the Roman preference to see all foreign gods as manifestations of their own gods. Which is really frustrating to somebody who wants to try and figure out okay, but who was Minerva? And because they saw Athena, and other neighboring similar gods as the same thing as Minerva. All of the stories get jumbled together. And you have to really dig to find out who was Minerva before this was happening.
Katie Dooley 06:13
It's funny that you talked about this. I'm reading a historical fiction novel, but the author's clearly like, big into history, like, it's only a few steps away from being a historical novel, as opposed to historical fiction. And it's about Salisbury, and Stonehenge and what used to be called Sarum in England, and I'm at the part where Rome has now made its way to the British Isles, and exactly that there's like passages that where they're like, oh, well, they call this thing, but it's clearly. So that's where we get into Celtic and Norse gods, we'll see similarities because of exactly that. They're like, oh, this is their son, God, well, it's clearly Apollo.
Preston Meyer 07:01
We only have one son above us. And Apollo was a specific issue that does confuse that a bit we talked about in our last episode. Apollo is the second sun god, who kind of took over the role from Helios.
Katie Dooley 07:18
But the one thing about absorbing gods is that it's a great way to make friends.
Preston Meyer 07:23
Yeah, I belong to an organization that's all about focusing on our similarities. And that helps us be peaceable to each other. It's great. We make good brothers that way. But it's really hard to properly understand what's going on in a person's theology when you have even this kind of prejudice.
Katie Dooley 07:46
Yeah, and I mean, who knows how they felt 2000/4000 years ago. But like, if you did that today that just be really insensitive to someone. That's a very fascinating story. That sounds like one of my stories that I actually think is better.
Preston Meyer 08:07
Yeah, so we've, more than a year ago, now, we talked about various theological models. And I, I think we even said that the Roman Pantheon is, and the Roman tradition is a pretty polytheistic situation. But for a lot of people, it was more henotheistic, where you would have people just worship one God rather than offer at several altars over the course of their life. But of course, you did have to recognize that there were other gods, but you just didn't worship them. It's complicated. It's always complicated.
Katie Dooley 08:48
It's amazing. And we might actually have to add an episode for this. But it's amazing between this research and then again, this that I just happen to be reading this historical fiction book that the concept of monotheism was like mind boggling to these people. To the point where it's like a joke that you would believe in, when all powerful God so it's an interesting, again, now we're like, at least in the West, the concept of polytheism and multiple gods is, I don't want to say laughable, but I'm pretty sure for some people it is. It's defninitely unfamiliar.
Preston Meyer 09:22
When Christianity was just forming, and or even before that, when the Romans were talking about the people of Israel, they saw the God of Israel as just another manifestation of Jupiter, or sometimes one of the other gods, depending on who was talking and what similarities they saw in their features, in their aspects. And when Israel came around and said, No, there's only one God and the Christians were like, really aggressively saying, No, there's only one God. Yeah, that didn't make any sense to them at all. That's fascinating stuff.
Katie Dooley 09:58
So let's chat about all of these gods. So we had the 12 Olympians. But there's even more than that here. And I know there's more than 12 Olympians but...
Preston Meyer 10:09
So the Roman system is really complicated. There is no Mount Olympus, which of course, was an amalgamation of a lot of traditions to begin with as well. In Rome, there's so many different systems of the favored gods. It's kind of complicated.
Katie Dooley 10:31
It's actually far more complicated than Greek. And part of that, I wonder if it isn't because the Roman Empire spreads so far. And there was so many different cultures. I mean, you asked me, we'll get to research the afterlife, and I was like, I don't get it. There's too much, but sorry, carry on.
Preston Meyer 10:49
So let's start with the gods that had cults that were officially state supported cults, like the Church of England kind of state supported cults. There were a handful of high priests, or their fancy name is actually the flamines maiores, the major priests, these three great priests would serve the three most important gods to the Roman state, like going back before the Empire, even before the Republic, to the kingdom of Rome. And then, of course, this did continue into the Republic, and actually not so much into the empire. So these three gods were Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus. Before, a year ago, I'd never even heard of Quirinus.
Katie Dooley 11:47
I heard of him this week.
Preston Meyer 11:51
There are a handful of people, rulers who have taken a name similar to this that are based on this name. There's one even in the Bible, but it's actually not a popular God. People don't talk about him a whole lot. But he's one of the big three with Jupiter and Mars. Quirinus was an early Sabine God, who became the patron of the Roman state, one of the seven hills of Rome is named in his honor. So it's kind of a big deal, and yet so easily forgotten. Then, of course, we have Jove. Which is the Latin god of the sky. This name evolved into Jupiter with the title father added, becoming a little bit more familiar. And so that's why you often actually hear this interchangeable name Jove, Jupiter. The moons of Jupiter are usually called the Jovian moons, that kind of thing. It's just where the name comes from. It works out well that way. And so of course, he was revered by military commanders, they would pay homage to Jupiter, as he was the God that protected the Roman state. Kind of similar to what Ares did in the Greek tradition, but not quite the same. And so when the Romans received the stories of Zeus, they're like, well, obviously, this is Jupiter. So they just slapped the Jupiter sticker over the name of Zeus in all the books.
Katie Dooley 13:14
Did they not..? They must not have read all the stories.
Preston Meyer 13:18
Right? As far as I know, before the adoption of all the Zeus stories, Jupiter wasn't super rape-y
Katie Dooley 13:29
And then he became super rape-y.
Preston Meyer 13:32
Yeah, I guess the Romans just didn't have a problem with Zeus. I don't know. That's weird. And then of course, we have Mars or Mardi, depending on the situation, linguistically speaking. He was an agricultural guardian. And so in this role, he was revered by the defenders of Rome, which of course, easily moved him into the position of God of War. So we have a month in the spring named after him because of his agricultural role. His transformation into a war god gave him something to do in winter, which, of course is important, you gotta have something to do year round.
Katie Dooley 14:08
I have a winter hobby and a summer hobby.
Preston Meyer 14:10
Exactly. Interestingly enough, Mars is actually said to be the father of the founder of Rome, which we'll get into a little bit later.
Katie Dooley 14:19
Yes, yeah, I did that.
Preston Meyer 14:24
And so we've got those three major gods served by the the major flamens, which is of course a weird weird word for priest that we've just kind of preserved sometimes flamens/flamens I think flamens is more correct.
Katie Dooley 14:39
Like the sports equipment and agricultural equipment store?
Preston Meyer 14:44
Close to similar spelling, but not identical.
Katie Dooley 14:49
That's pretty godly that store.
Preston Meyer 14:51
Right? And then there were 12 Which still super important gods but they were served by the minor flamens.
Katie Dooley 15:02
Well ueah, 'cause after the 12 then we literally have hundreds. We're not gonna get in today, kids. Ain't nobody got time for that.
Preston Meyer 15:11
Right? We can only focus on the really important ones.
Katie Dooley 15:16
We start with Ceres She's the Latin Goddess of a agriculture. I said that weird. Latin goddess of agriculture. And the Romans decided that this was Demeter. Demeter stories were actually all about her. But they murdered her daughter's name to Proserpina.
Preston Meyer 15:38
Persephone was done dirty.
Katie Dooley 15:41
Persephone is a much better name. If you are looking for baby names, please and like going back and forth go with Persephone, not Proserpina. It's the Pina that gets me. I'm gonna recommend that to a friend. I have a friend that's pregnant. I'm going to see if she wants to name her baby Proserpina.
Preston Meyer 15:58
I like it. Next on our list, we have Val Tunis. He was the Etruscan god of the Tiber River, who was later replaced by the Roman Tiberinus makes perfect sense. New culture taken over, gets to name the river the way they want became the Tiber River. God with an appropriate name. I went looking for it and I couldn't actually find the Etruscan name for the river, just the Etruscan equivalent of the name to Tiberinus. It was kind of annoying. I looked for a while. I was like fine, I can't get it.
Katie Dooley 16:36
Then we have Falacer? Falacer?? Falacer. Don't be a dick. He's an old Italian God. Go figure.
Preston Meyer 16:50
The italic people are a subset of what is now modern day Italy, like the Latins and the Romans subsets.
Katie Dooley 16:58
And that's actually where the name italic font comes from. Anyway. There's very little known about Falacer today, but he lost all his popularity during the rise of the Roman Empire, which with the name like that, it's ironic to me
Preston Meyer 17:15
Rght? Because even back then they were drawing phallus. on everything. I don't know if it's even a coincidence. Or if he's deliberately named the God of Phalluses. I don't know what the deal is. I could find almost nothing on this guy. Which is better than some of these 12 unfortunately. Next on our list, we have Flora. But you can guess what she's the goddess of flora. Flora was the old Sabine Italian Goddess of flowers and the spring. Nice and simple.
Katie Dooley 17:52
Farina was an old Roman goddess of water.
Preston Meyer 17:58
Nice, broad category there.
Katie Dooley 18:00
What a great name too.
Preston Meyer 18:02
It's like the fury of bubbling water of rain, raging rapids and whatnot. That's kind of cool. Palatua was the patron god of Palatine Hill, who's cult did not survive the end of the Republic.
Katie Dooley 18:17
Never heard of him.
Preston Meyer 18:18
Right? And these were major gods in the Republic time, or at least at the beginning of the Republic. And nobody talks about them
Katie Dooley 18:25
As we get on, we'll hear more names that people are more familiar with. But yeah, these are not... these feel obscure.
Preston Meyer 18:31
But they were super important at one time.
Katie Dooley 18:34
Pomona was the goddess of fruit and may have originally been Umbrian.
Preston Meyer 18:42
Yeah, it's kind of kind of fuzzy there. But one of the regional neighbors brought over into the Roman idea. And I like the name Pomona. It's where we get the word pomme, which is the French word for apple. It used to be just the generic word for fruit but languages evolve now it's apple. Weird stuff.
Katie Dooley 19:04
Pomme de Terre. Apple of the earth
Preston Meyer 19:06
Exactly or fruit of the earth, depending on your preference for how you use the word..
Katie Dooley 19:11
Interesting I actually like fruit of the earth better for a potato. .
Preston Meyer 19:18
We got Portunus was the old Latin god of doors and keys
Katie Dooley 19:23
What an obscure thing to be a god of but...
Preston Meyer 19:25
It does sound kind of funky based on the way we feel needs for things that doesn't fit. But back then it was his role was important and people talked about it and used him. Of course, by the Imperial era, he had been almost completely replaced with the Roman Janus. And they both had two heads one facing either way. Gotta have doors and ports and all that fun
Katie Dooley 19:49
Comings and goings. Vulcan is the Sabine Roman god of fire.
Preston Meyer 19:55
Finally we get somebody that people were might likely be more familiar with.
Katie Dooley 20:00
If only because of Star Trek. Because its aspects are mirrored in the Greek Hephaestus? Hephaestus? Are mirrored in the Greek Hephaestus, they share a ton of stories with each other. But there are still a few stories that are unique to Vulcan, including a role in the foundation of Rome.
Preston Meyer 20:21
And next on this, we have Carmentis, the goddess of childbirth, prophecy and charms, which is how that name is built, was actually the adoption of the Greek Nicostrati. And she is also credited with inventing the Latin alphabet. So we managed to get through all this list without hitting any outright theft from Greece. Until Carmentis. And then, so that's only 10 of these 12. Church supported cults below the top, big, big three. And the other two, we actually just don't know who they are. They're fully lost to history.
Katie Dooley 21:09
That's kind of cool, sad, but kind of cool. There's not much that's a mystery anymore.
Preston Meyer 21:16
The tradition of having these church sanctioned deals, these priests who are basically on government payroll, did last into the Empire. And the Emperor did fill one of those slots. But that only fills one of the two slots that we don't know who they were.
Katie Dooley 21:37
Interesting. Cool.Now we have another round of gods.
Preston Meyer 21:43
There's so many. But there's, I still think they're interesting.
Katie Dooley 21:46
Oh, well, then let's talk about them. So let's talk about the era first.
Preston Meyer 21:53
All right, so these other guides that we're talking about are other important, pre-Imperial gods. And a lot of them did last into the Empire. Some of them not necessarily in the same form. Because of course, things kept evolving as they kept stealing stories from people.
Katie Dooley 22:13
I was gonna say, now we start getting into the Greek stealing. Yeah. Stealing from the Greeks or not stealing Greeks, plagiarizing.
Preston Meyer 22:22
That kind of language is why people confuse, who owned the Trojan horse before it was a gift. So let's start with the really primitive primal gods that they had, we had Sol the primitive male personification of the sun, and sacrifices, of course ensured his return. He was acquainted pretty fairly with the Greek Helios, just, that's the sun personified. A lot of the gods being counted as equal, really easy to argue. But I mean, the sun is the sun. That's the deal. Just like Luna, the female personification of the moon. Of course, her identity got really complicated as Roman traditions incorporated more gods and gave Moon duties to other people as well. Kind of like when Apollo took over some duties.
Katie Dooley 23:21
She is the one Sailor Moon!
Preston Meyer 23:30
So if you remember your Greek gods, Celine was the equivalent to Luna the sun goddess.
Katie Dooley 23:37
Then Artemis gets in there to eventually
Preston Meyer 23:41
Because of Apollo.
Katie Dooley 23:44
So Tellus or also known as Tara was the female and personification of the earth. And her Greek... counterpart was Caelus, the personification of the heavens. So in Greece, this would be Gaia and Ouranos.
Preston Meyer 24:03
Or if you like, butts, Uranus.
Katie Dooley 24:07
I love butts!
Preston Meyer 24:11
I went so long in my life before somebody told me no, no, it's pronounced Uranus. I'm like, that makes sense.
Katie Dooley 24:19
I feel like that's more appropriate.
Preston Meyer 24:25
And next we have Saturn, who was the god of the land that was later called Rome. He was the giver of all good gifts and actually the closest thing the Romans had to a monotheistic God, which is kind of interesting. Not that they were monotheistic but that he really did...
Katie Dooley 24:43
Close to all powerful.
Preston Meyer 24:45
More or less like he looked a lot like the way that the Israelites saw Jehovah.
Katie Dooley 24:52
I heard Jahweh recently and I was like, no...
Preston Meyer 24:55
No, no, that's not okay.
Katie Dooley 24:58
Don't like that. Jahweh? Excuse me, excuse yourself.
Preston Meyer 25:05
There there are a couple of pronunciations that I find perfectly acceptable. Jahweh is not one of them. I think it's really interesting that Saturn's day matches on the weekly calendar, where the Jewish Sabbath falls, Saturday. And that's just nifty to me. Course, his character changed completely when he was mapped onto the Greek Kronus. And he became just terrible, terrible, just kind of gross. Oddly enough, there was a near approximation to the Christian holy spirit in Genius. Oh, of course, Genius has actually evolved a lot over the course of Roman history, and barely survived into the Imperial era, during which time the word was simply applied to the soul of every man, or sometimes family or household. But not women. They were sent out of the spirit of Juno, which is kind of cool, because Juno is figure that actually survived.
Katie Dooley 26:18
I mean, yeah, that was good. Now Juno is the mother goddess. So Greek Hera would be the equivalent. She also I mean, filled a lot of roles as Rome evolved.
Preston Meyer 26:34
Yeah, we can't really say a whole lot more about Juno without contradicting some scholars. She was a complex figure that yeah, kind of a mess.... She wore a lot of hats.
Katie Dooley 26:51
Don't all women?
Preston Meyer 26:54
I mean, definitely an awful lot. I can't speak for all of any group.
Katie Dooley 27:00
Okay. Most women...
Preston Meyer 27:04
Sure. I'll accept.
Katie Dooley 27:06
Thank you.
Preston Meyer 27:09
lucre AI is kind of interesting. The god of money and trickery in ancient Rome,
Katie Dooley 27:16
Loki-i?
Preston Meyer 27:18
It does kind of sound like that. And it helps that they actually do match up on the trickery business. lucre i is kind of well it is where we get the word lucre which is just dirty money. And so, lucre I was fully replaced by Mercury, who was the Roman response to Hermes.
Katie Dooley 27:42
Who's the messenger. If you'll remember the messenger god.
Preston Meyer 27:47
Yeah. And his cult was actually mostly adopted from the Etruscan cult of Turms, who also shared several aspects.
Katie Dooley 27:55
There's like a lot of Gods happening in this one.
Preston Meyer 27:58
Remember when he talked about Hermeticism and HermesTrismegistus? Every character attached to Hermes/Mercury is basically a composite of what everybody in the neighborhood could think to say about this guy. It's really messy.
Katie Dooley 28:24
Just like they put up a whiteboard one day, and were like, let's brainstorm and not eliminate anything.
Preston Meyer 28:29
Yeah, it really feels like.
Katie Dooley 28:33
That's not how you brainstorm kids.
Preston Meyer 28:35
No, you do need to eliminate the bad ideas.
Katie Dooley 28:38
At the end of course.
Preston Meyer 28:40
Sure. I mean, yeah, if bad ideas too soon,
Katie Dooley 28:44
You might miss out on some good ideas but at the end... you definitely need to... Do you know what this podcast would be called iff we did not eliminate bad ideas?
Preston Meyer 28:52
Not something as good as the Holy Watermelon.
Katie Dooley 28:56
I think it's gonna be Katie and Preston Talk Religion.
Preston Meyer 29:00
I'm glad we settled on Holy Watermelon.
Katie Dooley 29:07
Orcus was worshipped by both the Romans and the Etruscans as the god of the underworld, until Greek influence turned him into Pluto.
Preston Meyer 29:18
Well fully replaced him with Pluto.
Katie Dooley 29:21
But the Greeks had Hades in the underworld.
Preston Meyer 29:25
If you remember last episode, we talked about how Pluto was the nickname given so you didn't accidentally gather his attention. What they usually said Pluton, depending on how it was used in a sentence, of course, funny business Pluto was a fully Greek name that the Romans just adopted. Weird business. Liber or Liber? Liber? Definitely Liber, no Liber. Liber was the god of wine and plebian freedom, which of course made him really easy to replace with a drunken Greek God. And we'll get into the details of that replacement later too
Katie Dooley 30:11
Neptune is one that you would probably be familiar with is the Roman adoption of Greek Poseidon
Preston Meyer 30:18
Fully adopted.
Katie Dooley 30:21
Who's Raymond Bloch?
Preston Meyer 30:23
Raymond Bloch is just one of a whole bunch of scholars who are really into this stuff. When I was trying to figure out where Neptune came from, I was actually really disappointed to see was just a straight across adoption. And so Raymond Bloch found an etymology for this name. Because there needs to be a reason why you rename something that you fully ripped off of somebody else. And Poseidon was perfectly reasonable name. Neptune means he who is moist. They could have called him the Wet Boy. They could have called him...
Katie Dooley 31:09
Aquaman!
Preston Meyer 31:10
They could have called them a lot of different things. They call them, He Who is Moist. According to Raymond Bloch.
Katie Dooley 31:19
I mean, who is He Who is Moist worse than He Who is Drippy?
Preston Meyer 31:25
Oh, I mean, we could have had a lot of fun. I know that out there in internet land. There are people who make constructed religions for all kinds of fictional universes. And I want to hear of one where the gods don't have good names. They're just the DrippyBoy. The the Gassy Boy, that kind of thing. It would be fantastic.
Katie Dooley 31:51
Tell everyone what you call Jesus.
Preston Meyer 31:54
Oily Josh. Josh perfectly reasonable interpretation of his given name. And Christ or Messiah means oily.
Katie Dooley 32:06
Oily Josh
Preston Meyer 32:09
Or one who has been anointed with oil
Katie Dooley 32:11
One who has been oilied. He who is Oily. Josh who is Oily Wow, we digress so quickly. Minerva, Minerva McGonigal? Kidding. Minerva was the personification of intelligence and the plan of the cosmos. And she was treated as a strategist and domestic protector. So very similar to Athena.
Preston Meyer 32:42
There's there's a reason Athena got mapped on to Minerva.
Katie Dooley 32:49
That's my mapping sound
Preston Meyer 32:50
Well, done. The hesitated clap. All right. Next on our list, we have Diana, again, reasonably well known, very complex Italian goddess. Her cult saw her as the perfect role model being a guardian of the wild while also a hunter. She was also associated with the moon a little later on, as well as a keeper of the dead and of crossroads. Also indistinct persons of Luna or Celine and Hecate. Diana was also part of a minor triad with Virbius and Egeria personifications of the woods and waters respectively.
Katie Dooley 33:33
Cool. Yeah. And that's with Artemis.
Preston Meyer 33:37
Exactly.
Katie Dooley 33:40
Vesta is the goddess of the hearth. And I even think their name sounds similar in Greek Hestia.
Preston Meyer 33:47
Well, especially if Vesta was ever pronounced "Westa". That's awfully close to Hestia.
Katie Dooley 33:54
She doesn't have a ton of stories about her, but it was called a virgin, which is also weird because there are ancient tales of her fire producing a penis to impregnate women. Fire penis!
Preston Meyer 34:09
Right? What a dramatic story to contradict the label of virgin.
Katie Dooley 34:17
She could teach Mary a thing or two.
Preston Meyer 34:24
Yeah, some interesting gods. Like I mentioned before, there's a little bit of an issue with Greek/Roman equivalents. Many Roman gods were effectively replaced by Greek gods, though they did keep the Roman names. Some Greek gods were just straight up adopted into the Roman tradition and were Romanized and blended with pre-existing gods, known among the Romans and their closer neighbors. And most Roman gods were distinct characters who happen to share a patronage. Some are lost forever, others are buried under Greek stories, which helps build a false analogy. Even in the fifth century, before the Common Era, scholars like Herodotus preferred to study the gods as though they all existed across cultures, known by different names. And unfortunately, this philosophy influenced the way Roman cult leaders and storytellers adapted Greek stories to their local gods, became common for writers to use the names of gods with similar aspects fully interchangeably. So that in the Christian Bible, for example, Mars Hill in Rome, is identified as Ares hill in the Greek text.
Katie Dooley 35:40
Even working on the Roman afterlife. Like, as I dug deeper, I'm like, but this is the Greek afterlife, I was like, am I wrong? Or is it just so similar? I can't see the forest for the trees.
Preston Meyer 35:54
It's messy and complicated to find the difference a little bit.There are a good handful of scholars. And it's kind of hard to contradict some of these ideas, who believe that these gods are evolved from proto-indo European prototypes. The problem with the hypothesis is that this denies the ability of cultures to create gods independently, like Sol and Helios could have just come from the same story from further east. But it also makes perfect sense they both looked up and said, "Hey, that sun's super important to us. Let's offer sacrifices."
Katie Dooley 36:36
Well, I mean, especially when you get into island nations, like, you know, like I've alluded to, we have the British Isles and Ireland, and they came up with their own sun God, and they were literally cut off from the rest of the world.
Preston Meyer 36:55
Yeah, so it's, it's a tricky position that in a lot of cases, it does look like this hypothesis does hold true. In a lot of other cases, this hypothesis doesn't look valid. And so it is, it's very much a case by case basis that we have to judge these on.
Katie Dooley 37:13
Rome doesn't have a Mount Olympus that's in Greece.
Preston Meyer 37:19
Right. But it does have seven hills.
Katie Dooley 37:22
That sounds boring. I got seven hills down the street, do you? I mean, there's definitely at least three in the park.
Preston Meyer 37:34
That's fair.
Katie Dooley 37:35
So I wouldn't have to go much further to find four more.
Preston Meyer 37:39
I think you're probably right. Of course, Rome has grown. This statement was even valid, but that's okay. But the seven hills of Rome figure very prominently into the Revelation of John at the end of the Christian Bible. And the seven horns, the crowns on the seven horns. Those are the hills of Rome. So instead of 12 Olympians, there is a triad enshrined as the hill gods, and this triad is Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. There's a tribute to Mount Olympus found in the Roman Forum, where the 12 Olympians are represented by their Roman counterparts, or straight up just themselves.
Katie Dooley 38:29
Juno and Minerva are under a hill.
Preston Meyer 38:31
No, no, no, no. They're on the hill.
Katie Dooley 38:35
On the Hill! Under Hill. This Mr. Underhill.
Preston Meyer 38:43
So looking at a few more of these gods that are definitely influenced and sometimes butchered because of Greek influence. There's some interesting stuff. Let's get Apollo out of the way first. He's an interesting case because his cult had actually spread from further east, to the Italian peninsula long before the Romans even started spreading their aggressive influence. He's one of the few Gods who's actually truly the same in the Roman and Greek traditions without even a different name.
Katie Dooley 39:17
What a guy!
Preston Meyer 39:18
Right? One thing I found was really interesting, though, I went, I went looking into this Pluton nonsense. So, Dis Pater, the father of riches was the god of mineral wealth. And due to the similar meaning in the Greek name, Pluton, they were really easy to combine. And the association with the underworld because of who Pluton was in the Greek tradition, just kind of forced its way into that synchronisation, which just straight up pushed Orcus out of the picture.
Katie Dooley 39:52
Poor Orcus.
Preston Meyer 39:55
So, sometimes, you know, let's see that There's no a different version of this god. Pluto is Hades. He's not the Roman version of Hades. He just is the Greek Hades living under Rome.
Katie Dooley 40:14
I mean, the underworld is probably pretty big so...
Preston Meyer 40:16
It would have to be there's been a lot of dead people in the course of history.
Katie Dooley 40:21
Then, of course, we have Mars, who is similar to Ares in the Greek tradition. So he was a force of agriculture, stability, military support and peace but he was later hopped on to Ares the God of brutal warfare. Therefore, Mars adopted Ares' stories and traditions.
Preston Meyer 40:45
Thanks to the Greek influence yeah.
Katie Dooley 40:47
Good ol' Greeks. Bacchus!
Preston Meyer 40:50
Bacchus is cool.
Katie Dooley 40:52
I swear to you that the Portuguese name for Bert is Bacchus in Sesame Street.
Preston Meyer 41:00
We got lots of benign figers named Dennis too.
Katie Dooley 41:03
I know but it's great watching it redubbed and I'm going Bacchus.
Preston Meyer 41:09
Sure. Bacchus was the Greek god who replaced the earlier Roman god Liber. He is also known as Dionysus. The name Bacchus was apparently more popular in Rome than Dionysus. And it's connected to the Greek word baccheia, which means a drunken frenzy, there's a little bit of argument back and forth on what which came first, that whether the mania was named after the figure, or vice versa. I'm leaning towards this new name for Dionysus coming from the drunken frenzy, but I'm sure there's loads of people happy to disagree with me. That's, that's what scholarship is. It's just like we found with Hades and Pluto, Bacchus is Dionysus. He just kind of stabbed Liber enough that Liber stopped being around. More or less.
Katie Dooley 42:12
And you know, who else suffered the same fate? Minerva. So Athena replaced an awful lot of local domestic goddesses. So the name Minerva still kicks around, but it's basically Athena.
Preston Meyer 42:31
Venus is kind of cool. Lots of reasons people would like her. The Roman Goddess of desire, love, sex and fertility, almost never illustrated with clothing.
Katie Dooley 42:43
Only hair.
Preston Meyer 42:46
So she was the one you would call on when you needed help seducing somebody. This is early on her major function. And because of that, she's fairly equal to the Greek Aphrodite apart from her older stories that would obviously distinguish them. And one of those is that she is said to be an ancestor of the Roman people after fleeing the Battle of Troy, from from Greek legend. Yeah. It's kind of an interesting connection there.
Katie Dooley 43:19
I mean, we talked about Hestia and Diana and Artemis.
Preston Meyer 43:23
Yeah, pretty much. They're just kind of replacing names for those fellows as well. And so the Roman Pantheon, of course, expanded to include way more Gods than I could even actually bother to count. Let's be real, it was a long way.
Katie Dooley 43:40
It goes on forever. If you want to hear more obscure gods, send us an email. Holywatermelonpod@gmail.com.
Preston Meyer 43:48
The list of Gods actually gets even longer when you just add all of the different names that individual gods can be known by. It's such a mess, because you know, a culture so rich and poetry and storytelling, very often you would see 10 different names used for a God in one body of work.
Katie Dooley 44:12
Like pet names, but...
Preston Meyer 44:14
Kind of, but sometimes they would be kind of mean. Sometimes they would just describe
Katie Dooley 44:21
Tubsy is still a pet name. It's not a nice pet name, but...
Preston Meyer 44:25
A lot of these names would describe their aspect and their relation to other things in the world or other gods in the cosmos. All kinds of things.
Katie Dooley 44:35
Tubsy.
Preston Meyer 44:35
Yeah. And so we did end up with a lot of gods that don't have a Greek equivalent as well, like, Janus, or the guy with two faces spirit of doorways and gates doesn't really have a Greek equivalent that that I'm aware of.
Katie Dooley 44:48
No. I mean, none with two faces. That's a very almost Hindu thing.
Preston Meyer 44:55
Yeah, it kind of is, isn't it?
Katie Dooley 45:00
So I don't even think the Greek tradition really has I meana little bit of an origin story with the Titans and Olympus but...
Preston Meyer 45:08
Yeah, you'd have some local stories about local things but I don't remember coming across a world origin story apart from Gaia, which is the world is the child of... what was it? Oh, no, I forgot.
Katie Dooley 45:28
It's fine. It's complicated. It's on the family bush. But Rome has a godly origin story, which I'm sure some of you are familiar with. So, Mars, the god of war, conceived a two twin boys Romulus and Remus with a Vestal virgin. Rhea Silvia. Obviously, she was not a virgin. I mean, it caused some problems. This conception.
Preston Meyer 45:58
So the trick here, so a virgin would be somebody who was never married. And it is usually culturally appropriate that they would also be a virgin the way we know the word. So probably up until this point, she was a virgin the way we know it.
Katie Dooley 46:16
Good ol' Mars what a scamp.
Preston Meyer 46:18
Vestal, of course, meaning that she was a servant of Vesta, who attend the fires.
Katie Dooley 46:25
Oh, she got a pen-- fire penis!
Preston Meyer 46:27
Not this time it was Mars.
Katie Dooley 46:29
Mars's real penis. So Rhea's dad was King Amulius, and didn't like that there were now total boys that might want the throne. So he chucked these kids into the river Tiber to die.
Preston Meyer 46:45
Better than eating them like Kronus
Katie Dooley 46:47
I guess so. They were saved by Tiberinus the God of the Tiber River in an area of what is that Rome. And Romulus and Remus were raised by a wolf so that's often why you know Remus Lupin is his name it's associated with wolves.
Preston Meyer 47:07
Wolfie McWolferson. If you weren't paying attention to the third book of Harry Potter that the Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers name is Wolfie McWolferson.
Katie Dooley 47:19
And he's a werewolf?! Who would've saw that coming?! So one of the brothers ends up in jail the other one rescues him then they fight over where to put the I think it's a temple on which one of the seven hills and then they have a fight and Romulus kills Remus, some Cain and Abel vibes going on here. I don't know which one came first actually quite curious. And Romulus went on to found Rome-ulus. So, Rome was founded by a demigod.
Preston Meyer 48:01
That's kind of cool story.
Katie Dooley 48:03
I like all right, but seriously, which one came first Cain and Abel. Like the story. I mean, obviously, chronologically, Cain and Abel would come first. But when was the story?
Preston Meyer 48:18
When was the story told as we know it in Genesis today is really hard to pin. Alright, so similar to the Greek tradition, the Romans built shrines and temples to their gods. As you would expect, if you paid any attention to the cool architecture in the worlds, this probably would have come up in your Googling, or your real genuine studies. They're different. Usually. Prayer appears to have been more common in the Roman tradition and Greek tradition. I believe that sacrifices wouldn't work without an accompanying prayer. Makes perfect sense. That's the tradition I grew up with too
Katie Dooley 49:02
Just 'cause anything without a purchase to barbecue. Of course, part of sacrifice was like we said, animal sacrifice, a barbecue. The holy barbecue. Human sacrifice was rare, but it definitely happened. Romans believed that human sacrifice was barbaric and inappropriate, except on the rare occasions when it was meaningful to have a ritualized execution of your enemies.
Preston Meyer 49:33
Yeah, I found one account of a couple of Celts being ritually buried under a statue, which is not the best way to go.
Katie Dooley 49:45
No, that's terrible. And I think I mean, I'd say like across the board all of these religions are groups that people think sacrifice humans do not sacrifice humans. I think it happens, but not nearly to the volume that people think it happens or happened.
Preston Meyer 50:02
Yeah. Even the people who would throw people into volcanoes the story and you know, throw a virgin and or volcano. Probably not. It was more likely throw your political enemies and criminals into a volcano, because why build a prison when you an throw them in a volcano?
Katie Dooley 50:22
Yeah, none of these overcrowded prisons, right?
Preston Meyer 50:27
Generally wild animals were considered to already belong to the gods so they could not be offered to the gods. Most of your offerings would have been your own livestock, or you also had the opportunity to buy livestock. Because sacrifice of money is pretty much equivalent to the things that if you would have if you didn't have money.
Katie Dooley 50:49
I was just reading about all this. It feels all so relevant.
Preston Meyer 50:54
Sure. What were you reading?
Katie Dooley 50:57
In Zealot they were talking you about buying... You have to buy a domesticated animal when you go to the temple?
Preston Meyer 51:03
Yeah because it was way cheaper to buy one at the temple, then take one with you from far away and feed it the whole trip. Yeah, it makes, it just makes good sense.
Katie Dooley 51:16
What a business! Right? Anyway.
Preston Meyer 51:20
Most offerings were eaten in a great feast. Sometimes it would be just the priests, but usually it would be a whole bunch of people would share in this animal, because an animal feeds a lot of people, and you want to eat it before it goes bad. Because refrigerators, not common. So of course, after the entrails were given to the gods, that's when you could eat. Just as we have seen in the cult of the Israelite tradition.
Katie Dooley 51:49
Like I just said!
Preston Meyer 51:51
Exactly. I thought was really cool that the flamens had great civil authority, like kind of a problem. They could pardon anybody convicted of a crime. Unless, of course, they were thrown into a volcano. If that was happening, then it was too late. But they were never permitted to hold political office. And they were also effectively banned from military leadership, sending a not an irritating son of a ruler to go off and become a flamen kept him from fighting for what he would have thought was his due as a son of a leader. So it's kind of nifty. And apparently this happened a lot. And if you pay any attention to say The Borgias, or just broadly speaking, Christian history, in the first 1000 years in Rome, you can see that this tradition has a strong influence on Christian Imperial power. And, like in any reasonable religious tradition, the priests had to be married. I think it would solve a lot of problem.
Katie Dooley 53:10
Didn't... haven't we talked about this? Where like, the Catholic Church had like a third party inquiry on how to stop sexual abuse. And the solution was like, let them have wives. And the Catholic like, "ya no, what's the next option?" They were like, "Let them have wives!" And they're like, "yeah, no"
Preston Meyer 53:33
Right. What a mess.
Katie Dooley 53:37
While some cults were devoutly pious priesthoods. Many were more similar to modern Freemasonry, Preston. Yeah. And I know, you don't know much about modern Freemason. But people generally believed in a divine power, but built rituals around stories that they didn't necessarily accept as historical fact, but instead has moral guidelines. So it's all very much a metaphor.
Preston Meyer 54:00
A lot of it really is.
Katie Dooley 54:01
I mean, I know you wouldn't understand. So I'm just trying to explain it to you in really simple terms.
Preston Meyer 54:07
Thank you. Yeah. I'm glad that we're on the same page now. Pretty much every cult, and nearly every god and goddess had a festival, which meant that Roman life was full of celebrations. Rome was a poppin place to be.
Katie Dooley 54:27
And Herculaneum and Pompeii were two party cities.
Preston Meyer 54:31
I mean, let's be real if you had any real commitment to the Roman life. City life was awesome. Apparently, if you go the runes of Herculaneum like they're literally dicks on walls. That doesn't surprise me at all. Yeah, I mean, we still do.
Katie Dooley 54:49
Humans haven't changed much in 2000 years.
Preston Meyer 54:52
Why do guys draw dicks? I don't know.
Katie Dooley 54:56
I draw dicks do not just say guys. Okay, I draw a lot of decks.
Preston Meyer 54:59
More men draw dicks than women do. I've, from a perfectly reasonable bout of research that I've done on this subject.
Katie Dooley 55:12
I feel like social media poll's gonna... happen.
Preston Meyer 55:17
We can poll our audience we do have actually really close to an even split between people who identify as male and people who identify as female.
Katie Dooley 55:27
Ladies, let me know if you draw dicks because I draw a lot of dicks. I think a lot of women draw a lot of dicks.
Preston Meyer 55:35
Please let us know.
Katie Dooley 55:36
Oh my goodness, there was a site. I don't even know if I could find it again. And it was like a drawing website and you'd like draw something. And it would morph into a penis, like no matter what you drew, it would turn into a penis. And then if you're on your phone, if you shook your phone, the penises would wiggle. It was the best thing ever.
Preston Meyer 55:56
That's fantastic.
Katie Dooley 55:58
And like, when I'd have to Google to find it again is not okay. But I might try... my friend sent to me and I was like, "Oh, that's cool." I like drew a smiley face and then all of a sudden I had three wiggling penises on my screen. It was great.
Preston Meyer 56:13
The God that you've already forgotten Falacer, would be proud.
Katie Dooley 56:22
So now the Roman afterlife is often a religious experience. And this was really hard to research. Preston, you gave me a hard section. Because it's so vast, like, every article I read, said something different.
Preston Meyer 56:40
That's frustrating. I did come across a similar kind of issue when looking it up for the last episode about the Greek perspective. But a lot of different writers would say a lot of different things.
Katie Dooley 56:51
So if you hear something that feels wrong, feel free to jump on in. So one of the reports I read said that Romans believe in something similar heaven if you're good, you go to a better place with the gods. And then I read another source that says yes, I believe in heaven, but it's only for God's. So a god would be in heaven, come down, do his business, and then go back up to heaven. So not meant for people at all.
Preston Meyer 57:21
That's pretty familiar. If we look back at the way the Shintos looked at heaven.
Katie Dooley 57:29
Again, we spoke a little bit about the underworld, and Ares. Yep, but what's the Roman equivalent? Pluto. Yeah. So he's heard a little bit about the underworld and Pluto. And I literally did all this research. And then when I like cross checked it, it all came up as Greek. Like, okay, I don't know if I'm correct in any of this. But Virgil added in, he was one of the writers where some of this is documented. He's like, the equivalent of Homer. So he added sections of the underworld or talked about sections of the underworld that were specific to infants, those who were falsely accused for crimes and people who had committed suicide. So different sections of the underworld, where, you know, you might be treated a little bit better based off of the circumstances of your death. And, and to that point, the Greek or, excuse me, the Romans also believed in a, essentially an equivalent to purgatory, which we'll get to in a second. So, immediately after you die, you're met by Mercury, who takes you across the River Styx, where you're delivered to Cheron. And this is all again I cross checked is all Greek so I was like, I don't know if I'm right or not. And then there are three gods that judge you entering the underworld. They are Minos, Aeacus and Rhadamanthus. And these are all kings of Crete.
Preston Meyer 59:12
What a weird place to pull all of the gods who judge the dead.
Katie Dooley 59:20
I think they were judgy kings. So when they died, they were like okay. Yeah, if you're a good noble, good and noble you go the field of Elysium. And if you're just a regular person, but good you go to the plane of Asphidel. Now if you're bad, you go to Tartarus for punishment, where you are tortured by furies, and a hydra guards Tartarus. Which is pretty badass.
Preston Meyer 59:50
That sounds like slightly better defense than a three headed dog named spot.
Katie Dooley 59:57
It was Fluffy.
Preston Meyer 1:00:00
I'm actually not talking about Harry Potter this time. Kerberos means spotted. Oh, so Hades named his dog spot.
Katie Dooley 1:00:11
That's adorable.
Preston Meyer 1:00:17
But a hydra a traditionally when you cut off on head and two take its place, which means the guard of Tartarus is a lot harder to beat and a lot more terrifying.
Katie Dooley 1:00:29
But Tartarus is like the Catholic purgatory, so you don't actually stay in Tartarus forever. You stay until your punishment is up. And then you move on to where you're supposed to go.
Preston Meyer 1:00:40
Interesting twist. I like it.
Katie Dooley 1:00:41
You know what? There's obviously like a lot of things I don't agree with in Catholicism, but I, you know, if we were trying to like correct people's behavior through religion, I like the ideas of purgatory or Tartarus. Where, like, we scare people, and traumatize them. But yeah, absolutely. Do I want to see Hitler get some comeupance? Yeah, that doesn't seem fair that we both get the same free pass. But, you know, I also don't think scaring kids into religious trauma syndrome is okay either. And then another aspect of the afterlife, I found are the demands, or demonds.
Preston Meyer 1:01:32
Demanes does map over onto the word demons pretty effectively.
Katie Dooley 1:01:38
And they're spirits of the underworld. And so again, I found two parts to this. So it is your spirit is a demanes when you pass and you join them when you die. And these spirits were worshipped at the Parentalia Festival, which was a nine day festival meant to honor your ancestors. So another Roman version.
Preston Meyer 1:02:02
Makes all of us who do the Day of the Dead thing for a day or two look like..
Katie Dooley 1:02:07
Pussies. But then I found sources that said that these demanes don't reside in the underworld, they reside on Earth.
Preston Meyer 1:02:21
All of the haunting stories that we've had throughout literally all of history. I mean, that makes sense.
Katie Dooley 1:02:30
Right, so I'd like find something and be like, Oh, cool. So they're underworld spirits. And then I google it and it'd be like, no, there earth spirits. I was like, Okay, I give up. They're around... somewhere. And then when Caesar was high priest, he said that there was no life after death.
Preston Meyer 1:02:48
Which Caesar?
Katie Dooley 1:02:49
I don't know. It just said Caesar.
Preston Meyer 1:02:52
Okay.
Katie Dooley 1:02:53
I assumed Julio.
Preston Meyer 1:02:54
Okay. I guess that's the way it goes. If they didn't tell you, I feel like that's a safe assumption. I could be very wrong.
Katie Dooley 1:03:03
But basically that life was suffering and death was release, so that there was nothing after it.
Preston Meyer 1:03:09
Was he secretly a Buddhist? Who knows? I mean, he clearly didn't believe that there was a Hades to go and visit if you said that there is no life after death.
Katie Dooley 1:03:23
So I mean, very broad scope of this everything from heaven to the underworld, to purgatory to nothing. So I hope none of you are confused.
Preston Meyer 1:03:34
Like we really tried to nail down in the previous episode about the Greek tradition. There isn't any monolithic thing in Roman religious tradition, though it is a better fit for the word religion than the Greek tradition was. It's still a lot of different cults and a lot of different beliefs existing and coexisting in the same place. It's not homogenous, it's a mess. It's like it's almost like Christianity, when you look at, say, the Baptists versus the Catholics versus the Latter Day Saints versus literally every other group. There's a fair bit of difference, but it's not actually a fair analogue either, because they all really highlight a specific god as this is the one that really earns our devoted worship. It's all funky stuff.
Katie Dooley 1:04:42
And I'll comes back to Katie's religious analogy of ice cream. It's all vanilla ice cream.
Preston Meyer 1:04:58
I'm gonna need you to...
Katie Dooley 1:04:59
Am I explained my... finally on air... my ice cream analogy of religion.
Preston Meyer 1:05:05
I think that would help now that you've brought it up.
Katie Dooley 1:05:06
Okay, Katie's ice cream analogy of religion. It's all ice cream. All of it. And some people don't like ice cream. Some people don't like okay, some people don't like ice cream. It's all okay. But then you get Christianity. Let's say Christianity isvanilla ice cream. And Latter Day Saints is vanilla with chocolate chips. And Jehovah's Witness is vanilla with Caramel Swirl and pick another an Anabaptist. They're vanilla with m&ms and right, it's all vanilla ice cream. Sure, at the end of the day. And then you got Islam, which is like chocolate ice cream, and you have your Sunnis and Shiites. And you got some rocky road in there and whatever. And then got Buddhism, which is strawberry, and maybe you throw somesomething in there. Anyway, it's all ice cream, and have all your flavors and you have your base layer, and then you have your mixings. And then this is where it's a great analogy is my problem. And why I do this is that some people only try vanilla ice cream and they say vanilla ice cream is the best. It's the best flavor period and I go but have you tried chocolate? And then why would I ever try chocolate? That's stupid. And that's why I have sampled every flavor and then decided I don't like ice cream.
Preston Meyer 1:06:41
But have you really sampled the flavors?
Katie Dooley 1:06:43
I mean, I think I've sampled more than the average bear.
Preston Meyer 1:06:46
I think you have read the ingredients list. And haven't tasted them.
Katie Dooley 1:06:55
Oh elaborate.
Preston Meyer 1:06:58
To really experience the ice cream is to taste it. And I can't say with confidence you've gone and experienced any one religion.
Katie Dooley 1:07:11
Wow. What would I have to do to experience an ice cream cone?
Preston Meyer 1:07:18
It's a little bit more than visiting a church. That's a trick.
Katie Dooley 1:07:21
But I still think I've had more dabblings and ice cream than the average person.
Preston Meyer 1:07:28
I think that you are far more familiar with the ingredients list than the average ice cream eater
Katie Dooley 1:07:37
Even though I don't eat ice cream. Wow.
Preston Meyer 1:07:43
I like this analogy. I just don't think that is
Katie Dooley 1:07:47
Some people get upset about chocolate and they haven't even read the ingredients list. And that bothers me.
Preston Meyer 1:07:52
Yeah. That is absolutely the reality and that does suck. Hopefully as we share this understanding of what is in the ice cream with the world. People stop being dicks about it.
Katie Dooley 1:08:06
See, I feel like you know when they give you that like little spoon to see if you like, like, I feel like that is like going to a church service of something that's not yours. I'm not saying I've had a whole bowl or a call. I'm just saying I've had like a little
Preston Meyer 1:08:21
You've had a little taste without the full experience. Not even enough to fill your mouth. No, just that little wooden scoop that you still remember the way the scoop tastes.
Katie Dooley 1:08:33
Literally my mouth tastes like wood now. Right because I mean, you're right. Like I definitely do not have a full experience of a lot of religions. But I think to anyone to step out of their comfort zone and to go to a place of worship that is not their own is a pretty bold move. And I'd like to do more of it. But if anyone's out there wanting to try ice cream. I think they need to know that that's a bold move and to be proud of yourself for taking that little sample stick and going. So give me at least a sample stay. Okay, okay. And lots of ingredients list, a handful of sample sticks, no bowls of ice cream for me.
Preston Meyer 1:09:20
I'm on board. Okay.
Katie Dooley 1:09:22
I feel like that's a mini episode. I'm Katie's ice cream analogy of religion. So I guess we should like quickly summarize the Roman religion
Preston Meyer 1:09:36
Roman religious traditions, hella-complicated a whole lot of cults, a whole lot of Gods basically, more or less peacefully coexisting, that you've gotten neighborhoods of people who are happy to celebrate the feasts of multiple gods and maybe they don't necessarily actually believe that there is a personified sun that's not a problem. You still go on living the life and offering your sacrifices to really need the sun to keep coming back every spring and every morning.
Katie Dooley 1:10:12
Don't we al. Alright, well, you can follow us on our social media: Facebook, Instagram, Discord.
Preston Meyer 1:10:26
We've got Patreon, where we've got a good handful of exclusive content. We've got a stop a stop, we've got a shop where you can buy merch and, and
Katie Dooley 1:10:41
I'm just gonna put on there if you can give us a review on iTunes, leave us five stars. Follow us on Spotify. Subscribe to us on iTunes that helps the algorithm so much to get us found. So that would be huge. If you're listening get us some growth this year. One of our resolutions for 2022 is to grow this puppy so any little bit you can do is huge for us.
Preston Meyer 1:11:06
Share us with your friends.
Katie Dooley 1:11:07
Yes that's give it to your bigoted ol' grandma.
Preston Meyer 1:11:16
I mean, maybe she needs it.
Katie Dooley 1:11:18
She probably does
Both Hosts 1:11:21
Peace be with you
