A lot of Roman and Ancient Greek deities and mythological figures seem to overlap. How widespread was this practice? e.g. Did Jupiter have a similar "origin story" to Zeus? Did Roman religion/mythology have an equivalent to the Titanomachy?

by lerdnir

I was quite into Greek mythology as a kid, and remember reading that Zeus and the Olympian gods were the children of Chronos and Rhea. Chronos, scared of being usurped, ate his children, but Zeus fought back, freeing his siblings, and this led to the titans being overthrown.

I also remember that Zeus was equivalent to Jupiter, Hermes to Mercury, Poseidon to Neptune, etc. Given how Roman religion absorbed and adapted a lot of culture from around the empire, how much detail did they keep? Did Roman mythology/religion have an equivalent of the Titanomachy, or did they just pick and choose the best bits?

kaffeestrasse

It should be noted that Jupiter and Zeus are etymologically related, Jupiter and Zeus Pater are direct cognates of each other, meaning "Sky Father". Proto Indo-European Religion, thought to be the source of Ancient Greek and Roman religions, had a pantheon of gods, which evolved into the various Greek and Roman gods, so they were already linked together in the distant past.