Ancient pagans had no shortage of gods. In the first century, Varro categorized the Roman gods into three groups: the “certain,” the “uncertain,” and the “chosen.” The latter were the gods more specifically worshipped by Roman tradition. Yet Augustine mocks Varro’s categories with the fact that many of these so-called “chosen” gods performed such trifling functions, unable even to produce the birth of a child without the aid of several other “uncertain” or obscure gods. Augustine writes:
Yet it is Janus himself who appears first of all at the moment of conception, the moment when all the tasks begin which are minutely divided among minute deities—it is he who opens the way for receiving the seed. Saturn is there too, just because there is seed. Liber, who liberates the male from the seed he expels, is there, and Libera, whom they choose to identify with Venus, is there to confer the same benefit on the woman, that she also may be liberated by the emission of seed. … But the goddess Mena, who presides over the menstrual flow, is there too, and although she is a daughter of Jupiter, she is still without renown. And this office of governing menstrual flow is also assigned to Juno herself by the same writer, in his book on the select gods. She is even the queen among the chosen gods, yet here, as Juno Lucina, she presides over the same blood, along with Mena, her step-daughter. Also present are two extremely obscure gods, Vitumnus and Sentinus, of whom one bestows life and the other sensation on the foetus. And although they are most undistinguished, they surely bestow much more on the child than do those many noble and chosen gods. For actually, without life and sensation, what is all that burden carried in the mother’s womb except some very low substance, comparable to mud and dust?[mfn]Augustine, City of God, VII, 3. Loeb translation, slightly modified. doi: 10.4159/DLCL.augustine-city_god_pagans.1957[/mfn]
What mighty gods are these, who can’t even accomplish one childbirth without a throng of helpers? In reality, there are two reasons that pagans had so many gods.
In the first place, I believe that communities tended to begin with a focus on one or a few gods, but as political boundaries grew, the pagan tendency toward syncretism led them to adopt other communities’ gods as well. In some cases, they assumed that another god worshipped by another community was merely a different name for an established god, hence the proliferation of epithets such as Pallas and Athena. One city worshipped Pallas, another worshipped Athena, and over time they became convinced that their two goddesses were one and the same. Yet this syncretism was not always complete, and hence at times it remains vague as to whether two names represent two distinct gods or not. Hence it’s not always clear whether Helios (the sun) is Apollo or merely gets lugged around by Apollo’s chariot. At other times, two gods remained distinct and merely became part of an ever-growing pantheon. Since they would be attached to the family of gods at different times and in arbitrary ways, this led to the complex and confusing family tree.
In other words, a well-planned and intentionally contrived pantheon would look very different. It would be clear who was who, and most gods would have a clear genealogical relationship to Zeus. Yet in actuality, because the pantheon was not planned but instead thrown together as communities bonded via conquest, culture, and trade, the pantheon became overly complicated and somewhat unstable. Various writers do not always agree, and some gods are more well-developed than others.
It helps to realize that the Roman gods were never a mere photocopy or renaming of the Greek gods. Ancient Rome is actually relatively young. It arose and gained power at a time when the Greeks had long since colonized southern Italy. Accordingly, the Romans took in various Etruscan and other Italic gods, combined them into a framework borrowed from the Greeks, and identified themselves with certain gods that suited their own cultural values and inherited backgrounds. Thus the Romans considered themselves to have a special relationship to Mars and Zeus, among others, precisely because they signified war and dominion–two things close to the Roman heart. Thus, while the Roman pantheon is deeply influenced by the Greeks, it is also in its own way a patchwork of cultural borrowing and conquest from the Italian peninsula.
Tertullian, always the wit, has this to say about Rome’s “chosen” gods:
Such vanity! … Since they had “certain” gods, they ought to have been contented with them, without requiring “chosen” ones. … For if gods are chosen like onions, then those that are passed over are declared to be rotten.[mfn]Tertullian, Ad nationes II, 9, 5. My own translation.[/mfn]
Clearly the selection of certain gods implies that some gods are better than others. (Think Animal Farm‘s “All animals are equal. Some animals are more equal than others.”) If a god is less than a god, then what makes him a god in the first place? It’s this absurd comparability that undermines their very claim to divinity.
Secondly, the pagan gods proliferated precisely because they represented less the gifts of nature and more its terrors. In contrast to the worship of the Israelites, the pagans did not so much worship the gods in thanksgiving for an abundance of gifts as they sought to appease the gods in fear of impending wrath. If you actually read pagan texts and pay attention to their religion, the gods are nothing like the Israelite, Jewish, or Christian God.
The difference is clear in the way in which the pagans approached miracles. When Christians see something marvelous, when some Mexican sees Mary appear in an oil stain, we take it as a divine blessing, a condescension to show God’s compassion for us, as well as a reminder that we must repent and seek to live better lives. When the Romans saw something marvelous or unusual, they quaked with fear. Livy recounts an event where a the water level in a certain lake was higher than usual. This was deeply disconcerted. (Seriously, an abundance of water in a lake terrified them.) The Romans interpreted it as a threat of divine wrath, which must be appeased with sacrifice and action. To be clear, the Roman gods almost never encouraged the people to repent and become morally good. Instead, the Romans believed that the god demanded that they undertake a huge public works project to lower the water level of the lake in order to avoid divine wrath. You may be aware that the Romans had amazing skill in constructing aqueducts and drainage tunnels. Well, they practiced their art by draining a lake to prevent divine wrath.
It’s important to learn something about the pagan gods. My children are already well aware of them. For example, we’ve read parts of the Iliad, and my oldest daughter and I have read together a nice paraphrase of the Aeneid. I always remind my children of this fundamental message: The gods are evil. This sums it up quite well. Even the pagans did not necessarily believe that the gods were “good,” but only that they had the power to get away with anything they wanted. They did not love the gods. They feared them.
Today, in a world where Neo-Paganism is a thing, where self-proclaimed Wiccans mock Christians, and so-called intellectuals and theologians claim that all religions are really the same, people would benefit greatly from actually reading ancient texts and learning the most basic things about their pathetic gods. Roger Haight, an influential Catholic theologian, teaches that all religions are really just collections of symbols that point to the truth of God’s love.[mfn]Haight, Jesus Symbol of God, e.g. 413.[/mfn] That sounds wonderful Roger. Perhaps you should run that by a few other religions first, however. Does the Buddhist purist believe that Buddha mediates God’s love–the Buddhist who does not believe that there is any God at all? Does the adherent of Advaita Vedanta believe that God loves me, who does not believe that there even is a “me” to be loved? Is God’s love the primary message for the Ancient Roman who slaved to drain a lake because he thought some god would punish him if the waters continued to cover his favorite fishing spot? In fact, apart from the Judeo-Christian tradition, the only religion that may genuinely be about God’s love is Sufi Islam, a remarkably small and insignificant branch of Islamic tradition.
The gods are evil. Pagan religion was never about lifting people up, strengthening them, or improving their lives. It was always a cult of fear and oppression. Certainly they offered benefits to their believers, but only at a price. In short, the gods were the first mafiosos. In exchange for “protection” they demanded complete devotion and an abundance of sacrifices. If these demands are not met… well…
You’ve got a nice army base ‘ere, Colonel. We wouldn’t want anything to ‘appen to it.”