Demeter is best known as a fertility goddess associated with the harvest and agriculture. However, she was also a Mother Earth goddess associated with childbirth, and linked to the underworld and the secret rites of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Demeter’s Olympian Mythology Demeter was one of the six gods born to the Titans Rhea and Cronus.... Continue Reading →

Cybele was originally a mother goddess from Anatolia, who was adopted by the Greeks and Romans. The Greeks equated her with various fertility deities, including Gaia, Rhea, and Demeter. In Rome, she became known as Magna Mater and was considered an ancestral goddess of the Roman people. Through the Romans, her cult was spread throughout... Continue Reading →

Persephone is one of the most fascinating goddesses from Greek mythology because she straddles the world of the living and the dead. The daughter of the fertility goddess Demeter, she was also a bringer of life. However, she was kidnapped by Hades and taken to the underworld as his bride and the queen of the... Continue Reading →

Mars, the Roman god of war, is often conflated with Ares, the Greek god of war. But while Mars absorbed Greek mythology surrounding Ares, he was a unique and very different type of god. While Ares was sidelined in Greek religion as a force of violence and devastation, Mars was one of the most important... Continue Reading →

Elagabal – also known as Elagabalus, Aelagabalus, or Heliogabalus – was an Arab sun god imported into Rome. The god resigned supreme there during the short reign of the emperor Elagabalus (218-222 CE) but was then reportedly returned to Syria. However, there is evidence that the god was more popular around the Empire than the... Continue Reading →

Asclepius, or Aesculapius among the Romans, was a Greek healing god sometimes called Paean meaning “the healer.” Birth of Asclepius: Son of Apollo In the most common version of his birth myth, Asclepius was the son of Apollo with a mortal, in some cases Coronis princess of Tricca in Thessaly. Apollo got upset when his... Continue Reading →

Hestia was the goddess of the hearth in ancient Greece, and Vesta served the same purpose among the Romans. These ancient societies were focused on the hearth. The household hearth was the heart of the home. The public hearth was the center of the city, and the hearth in Rome was the center of the... Continue Reading →

Dis Pater was a Roman god of both the riches of the soil - both fertile soil and minerals – and a god of the underworld. His name specifically means “father of riches” and was often shortened to just Dis in inscription. Greek Mythology 18th-century painting in the Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Spinola, Genoa, showing... Continue Reading →