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Interpretatio graeca (Latin for 'Greek translation'), or "interpretation by means of Greek ", refers to the tendency of the ancient Greeks to identify foreign deities with their own gods. It is a discourse used to interpret or attempt to understand the mythology and religion of other cultures; a comparative methodology using ancient Greek religious concepts and practices, deities, and myths, equivalencies, and shared characteristics.

The phrase may describe Greek efforts to explain others' beliefs and myths, as when Herodotus describes Egyptian religion in terms of perceived Greek analogues, or when Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Plutarch document Roman cults, temples, and practices under the names of equivalent Greek deities. Interpretatio graeca may also describe non-Greeks' interpretation of their own belief systems by comparison or assimilation with Greek models, as when Romans adapt Greek myths and iconography under the names of their own gods.

Interpretatio romana is comparative discourse in reference to ancient Roman religion and myth, as in the formation of a distinctive Gallo-Roman religion. Both the Romans and the Gauls reinterpreted Gallic religious traditions in relation to Roman models, particularly Imperial cult.

Jan Assmann considers the polytheistic approach to internationalizing gods as a form of "intercultural translation":

The great achievement of polytheism is the articulation of a common semantic universe. ... The meaning of a deity is his or her specific character as it unfolded in myths, hymns, rites, and so on. This character makes a deity comparable to other deities with similar traits. The similarity of gods makes their names mutually translatable. ... The practice of translating the names of the gods created a concept of similarity and produced the idea or conviction that the gods are international.

Pliny the Elder expressed the "translatability" of deities as "different names to different peoples" (nomina alia aliis gentibus). This capacity made possible the religious syncretism of the Hellenistic era and the pre-Christian Roman Empire.

Examples

Herodotus was one of the earliest authors to engage in this form of interpretation. In his observations regarding the Egyptians, he establishes Greco-Egyptian equivalents that endured into the Hellenistic era, including Amon/Zeus, Osiris/Dionysus, and Ptah/Hephaestus. In his observations regarding the Scythians, he equates their queen of the gods, Tabiti, to Hestia, Papaios and Api to Zeus and Gaia respectively, and Argimpasa to Aphrodite Urania, while also claiming that the Scythians worshipped equivalents to Herakles and Ares, but which he does not name.

Some pairs of Greek and Roman gods, such as Zeus and Jupiter, are thought to derive from a common Indo-European archetype (Dyeus as the supreme sky god), and thus exhibit shared functions by nature. Others required more expansive theological and poetic efforts: though both Ares and Mars are war gods, Ares was a relatively minor figure in Greek religious practice and deprecated by the poets, while Mars was a father of the Roman people and a central figure of archaic Roman religion.

Some deities dating to Rome's oldest religious stratum, such as Janus and Terminus, had no Greek equivalent. Other Greek divine figures, most notably Apollo, were adopted directly into Roman culture, but underwent a distinctly Roman development, as when Augustus made Apollo one of his patron deities. In the early period, Etruscan culture played an intermediary role in transmitting Greek myth and religion to the Romans, as evidenced in the linguistic transformation of Greek Heracles to Etruscan Hercle to Roman Hercules.

Interpretatio romana

The phrase interpretatio romana was first used by the Imperial-era historian Tacitus in the Germania. Tacitus reports that in a sacred grove of the Nahanarvali, "a priest adorned as a woman presides, but they commemorate gods who in Roman terms (interpretatione romana) are Castor and Pollux" when identifying the divine Alcis. Elsewhere, he identifies the principal god of the Germans as Mercury, perhaps referring to Wotan.

Some information about the deities of the ancient Gauls (the continental Celts), who left no written literature other than inscriptions, is preserved by Greco-Roman sources under the names of Greek and Latin equivalents. A large number of Gaulish theonyms or cult titles are preserved, for instance, in association with Mars. As with some Greek and Roman divine counterparts, the perceived similarities between a Gallic and a Roman or Greek deity may reflect a common Indo-European origin. Lugus was identified with Mercury, Nodens with Mars as healer and protector, and Sulis with Minerva. In some cases, however, a Gallic deity is given an interpretatio romana by means of more than one god, varying among literary texts or inscriptions. Since the religions of the Greco-Roman world were not dogmatic, and polytheism lent itself to multiplicity, the concept of "deity" was often expansive, permitting multiple and even contradictory functions within a single divinity, and overlapping powers and functions among the diverse figures of each pantheon. These tendencies extended to cross-cultural identifications.

In the Eastern empire, the Anatolian storm god with his double-headed axe became Jupiter Dolichenus, a favorite cult figure among soldiers.

Application to the Jewish religion

Roman scholars such as Varro interpreted the monotheistic god of the Jews into Roman terms as Caelus or Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Some Greco-Roman authors seem to have understood the Jewish invocation of Yahweh Sabaoth as Sabazius. In a similar vein, Plutarch gave an example of a symposium question "Who is the god of the Jews?", by which he meant: "What is his Greek name?" as we can deduce from the first speaker at the symposium, who maintained that the Jews worshiped Dionysus, and that the day of Sabbath was a festival of Sabazius. Lacunae prevent modern scholars from knowing the other speakers' thoughts. Tacitus, on the topic of the Sabbath, claims that "others say that it is an observance in honour of Saturn, either from the primitive elements of their faith having been transmitted from the Idæi, who are said to have shared the flight of that God, and to have founded the race", implying Saturn was the god of the Jews.

From the Roman point of view, it was natural to apply the above principle to the Jewish God. However, the Jews, unlike other peoples living under Roman rule, rejected any such attempt out of hand, regarding such an identification as the worst of sacrilege. This complete divergence of views was one of the factors contributing to the frequent friction between the Jews and the Roman Empire; for example, the Emperor Hadrian's decision to rebuild Jerusalem under the name of Aelia Capitolina, a city dedicated to Jupiter, precipitated the bloodbath of the Bar Kokhba revolt.

Emperor Julian, the 4th century pagan emperor, remarked that "these Jews are in part god-fearing, seeing that they revere a god who is truly most powerful and most good and governs this world of sense, and, as I well know, is worshipped by us also under other names". However, Julian specifies no "other names" under which the Jewish god was worshiped.

In late-antiquity mysticism, the sun god Helios is sometimes equated to the Judeo-Christian God.

Cross-cultural equivalencies

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The following table is a list of Greek, Roman, Etruscan, Egyptian, Sumerian, Phoenician, Zoroastrian, and Celtic equivalencies via the interpretationes. These are not necessarily gods who share similar traits (as viewed by modern scholarship or readers, at least), and rarely do they share a common origin (for that, see comparative Indo-European pantheons); they are simply gods of various cultures whom the Greeks or Romans identified (either explicitly in surviving works, or as supported by the analyses of modern scholars) with their own gods and heroes. This system is easily seen in the names of the days of the week, which were frequently translated according to the interpretatio.

In art

Examples of deities depicted in syncretic compositions by means of interpretatio graeca or romana:

• Jupiter Ammon (terracotta of Hellenistic style, 1st century AD)
• Syncretized figure from the Eastern provinces, perhaps a Genius (1st century BC – 1st century AD)
• Isis holding sistrum and oinochoe (Roman marble, reign of Hadrian)
• Isis, Serapis, the child Harpocrates and Dionysos (relief from Roman Africa, late 2nd century AD)
• Worshipper before Zeus–Serapis–Ohrmazd (Bactria, 3rd century AD)
• Votive relief to Isis-Demeter from Dion, Hellenistic period.

See also

• Aion (deity)
• Mystery religions
• Honji suijaku, in Japan
• Interpretatio germanica
• Interpretatio Christiana
• Celtic deities
• Proto-Indo-European religion, a reconstructed religion that relates Greek deities to other Indo-European deities
• Shinbutsu-shūgō, a Japanese amalgamation of Buddhist and Shinto deities
• Syncretism
• Three teachings, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism as harmonious aggregate in Chinese philosophy.
• Unknown god

References

1. Tomasz, Giaro; Graf, Fritz (2004). "Interpretatio". In Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth (eds.). Brill's New Pauly. Vol. 5 (Equ-Has). Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-12268-0.
2. Gordon, Richard L. (2003). "syncretism". In Hornblower, Simon; Spawforth, Antony (eds.). Oxford Classical Dictionary (revised 3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-860641-9.
3. Characterized as "discourse" by Mark S. Smith, God in Translation: Deities in Cross-Cultural Discourse in the Biblical World (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2008, 2010), p. 246.
4. Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 44–54 (quotation p. 45), as cited by Smith, God in Translation, p. 39.
5. Pliny, Natural History 2.5.15.
6. Tacitus, Germania 43.
7. "Praesidet sacerdos muliebri ornatu, sed deos interpretatione romana Castorem Pollucemque memorant. Ea vis numini, nomen Alcis."
8. Tacitus, Germania 9.
9. Odom, Robert Leo (2003-01-01). Robert Leo Odom, Sunday in Roman Paganism (TEACH 2003 ISBN 978-1-57258242-2), pp. 251-252. TEACH Services. ISBN 9781572582422. Retrieved 2013-01-24.
10. John T. Koch, "Interpretatio romana," in Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia (ABC-Clio, 2006), p. 974.
11. Koch, "Interpretatio romana," in Celtic Culture, pp. 974–975; Assmann, Moses the Egyptian, p. 45.
12. (Valerius Maximus), epitome of Nine Books of Memorable Deeds and Sayings, i. 3, 2, see EXEMPLUM 3.
13. Plutarch. Symposiacs, iv, 6.
14. Tacitus, Histories 5.4
15. Julian, Letter XX to Theodorus, translated by Wilmer Cave Wright (1913)
16. Eleni Pachoumi, The Religious and Philosophical Assimilation of Helios in the Greek Papyri
17. Witt, R. E. (1997). Isis in the Ancient World. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 126. ISBN 9780801856426.
18. von Lieven, Alexandra (2016). "Translating Gods, Interpreting Gods: On the Mechanisms behind the Interpretatio Graeca of Egyptian Gods". In Rutherford, Ian (ed.). Greco-Egyptian Interactions: Literature, Translation, and Culture, 500 BC-AD 300. Oxford University Press. p. 64. ISBN 9780191630118.
19. Hard, Robin (2004). The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology". London: Routledge. p. 181. ISBN 978-0-415-18636-0.
20. von Lieven, Alexandra (2016). "Translating Gods, Interpreting Gods: On the Mechanisms behind the Interpretatio Graeca of Egyptian Gods". In Rutherford, Ian (ed.). Greco-Egyptian Interactions: Literature, Translation, and Culture, 500 BC-AD 300. Oxford University Press. p. 67. ISBN 9780191630118.
21. Remler, Pat (2010). Egyptian Mythology, A to Z. Infobase Publishing. p. 24. ISBN 9781438131801. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
22. Graf, Fritz; Johnston, Sarah Iles (2007). Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets. Routledge. p. 76. ISBN 978-0-415-41550-7.
23. von Lieven, Alexandra (2016). "Translating Gods, Interpreting Gods: On the Mechanisms behind the Interpretatio Graeca of Egyptian Gods". In Rutherford, Ian (ed.). Greco-Egyptian Interactions: Literature, Translation, and Culture, 500 BC-AD 300. Oxford University Press. p. 67. ISBN 9780191630118.
24. "Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, ἕκα^τος". Perseus.tufts.edu. Retrieved 2013-01-24.
25. von Lieven, Alexandra (2016). "Translating Gods, Interpreting Gods: On the Mechanisms behind the Interpretatio Graeca of Egyptian Gods". In Rutherford, Ian (ed.). Greco-Egyptian Interactions: Literature, Translation, and Culture, 500 BC-AD 300. Oxford University Press. p. 62. ISBN 9780191630118.
26. "Kothar – Semitic Deity". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2021. Retrieved 5 May 2021.
27. Herodotus (2004). Herodotus. 1: Books I - II. The Loeb classical library (Repr ed.). Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Univ. Press. pp. 327 n. ISBN 978-0-674-99130-9.
28. Collins Latin Dictionary plus Grammar, p. 231. ISBN 0-06-053690-X
29. Graf, Fritz (2004). "Faunus". In Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth (eds.). Brill's New Pauly. Vol. 5 (Equ-Has). Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-12268-0.
30. Sarischouli, Panagiota (2024). Decoding the Osirian Myth: A Transcultural Reading of Plutarch’s Narrative. De Gruyter. p. 115. ISBN 9783111435138.
31. Graf, Fritz; Ley, Anne (2005). "Iuppiter". In Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth (eds.). Brill's New Pauly. Vol. 6 (Has-Jus). Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-12269-7.
32. von Lieven, Alexandra (2016). "Translating Gods, Interpreting Gods: On the Mechanisms behind the Interpretatio Graeca of Egyptian Gods". In Rutherford, Ian (ed.). Greco-Egyptian Interactions: Literature, Translation, and Culture, 500 BC-AD 300. Oxford University Press. p. 62. ISBN 9780191630118.

Further reading

• Assmann, Jan (2008). "Translating Gods: Religion as a Factor of Cultural (Un)Translatability". In de Vries, Hent (ed.). Religion: Beyond a Concept. Fordham University Press. ISBN 9780823227242.
• Bergmann, Jan (1969). "Beitrag zur Interpretatio Graeca. Ägyptische Götter in griechischer Übertragung." In: Sven S. Hartman (ed.), Syncretism. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, pp. 207–227.
• Kaspers, Wilhelm. "Germanische Götternamen." Zeitschrift Für Deutsches Altertum Und Deutsche Literatur 83, no. 2 (1951): 79–91. www.jstor.org/stable/20654522.
• Pakkanen, Petra (1996). Interpreting Early Hellenistic Religion: A Study Based on the Mystery Cult of Demeter and the Cult of Isis. Foundation of the Finnish Institute at Athens. ISBN 978-951-95295-4-7.
• Pfeiffer, Stefan (2015). "Interpretatio Graeca. Der „übersetzte Gott“ in der multikulturellen Gesellschaft des hellenistischen Ägypten." In: Lange, Melanie; Rösel, Martin (ed.), Der übersetzte Gott. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, pp. 37–53.

• Deities in classical mythology
• Etruscan mythology
• Foreign relations of ancient Rome
• Gallo-Roman religion
• Greek mythology
• Hellenistic religion
• Jews and Judaism in the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire
• Latin religious words and phrases
• Religion in the Roman Empire
• Religious pluralism
• Religious syncretism
• Roman mythology
• Phoenician mythology
• Religious interpretation