Greek or Roman?

Ready for Mythology guys? I hope so...

First thing we need to know is the history. Why did people think of Mythology? Who were the first writers? How did the people come up with such bizarre stories and how did mythology evolve through time?

All these were answered by Edith Hamilton's Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes book.  Ms. Hamilton is a classical writer born on August 12, 1867(1867-08-12) and died on May 31, 1963 (aged 95). She published  that book in 1942. (See, even this book is a classic.) She retold the stories in a more comprehensive manner with brilliant clarity. This is one of a kind! We'll be using this book as an over-all-source for this entire odyssey.

So, here we go!

There were a lot of Mythology writers, lyricists and poets who lived to tell the stories from words of mouth to poems, songs, short stories, even novels whose works were compiled by Ms. Hamilton. Some of them, Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Ovid, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Plato, Apolodorus, Catullus, Horace and a lot more. I'm sure You've heard some of those names. I'm not going to mention them anymore in the succeeding discussions because we might get confused with these names and the characters in Mythology. (Somehow, they sound alike, don't they?) But thanks to them, we now have the most marvelous of all the stories ever created. Agree?

Back then, Romans thought of their gods and goddesses as fearsome mighty and unexplainable. Something than no one had set eyes upon yet. Something different than what they usually saw with their naked eye. "Until then, gods had no resemblance of reality. They were unlike all living things. A representation of human shape deliberately made unhuman." Like a woman with cat's head, men with bird's head, lion with bull's head and eagle wings. These were created to produce something never seen and to connote great power and fearsome imagery. They we're never seen, touched, heard or mingled with by mortals.

Then Greek Mythology evolved. "With it's coming, the universe became rational. The invisible must be understood by visible." They humanized the world and freed men from "paralyzing fear and omnipotent unknown." They created the gods in their own image. (Sort of the opposite, right?) Only mightier, powerful, huge and most lovely than any human being or mortals ever known. (supernatural powers, included). Unlike the Roman gods, they can be seen, touched, heard or mingled with by mortals.

Characters in each and every story were also different. They have exact opposites. (e.g.: Zeus-Jupiter; Hera-Juno; Poseidon-Neptune; Athena-Minerva; Aphrodite-Venus; Hermes-Mercury and so on...)

People created and told these stories to explain their mere existence, the way of nature and all the things around them. To give meaning and sort of an origin of everything. Like how the universe and the human beings were created, why volcano erupts, why is there lightning, why do we have the seasons in a year and all that. Mythology was their science back then, when people have yet to grasp knowledge on everything.

There, origin all set!