Paleo-Balkan mythology. The cult of the "Thracian horseman" spread over much of the Balkans during the Roman period.
Paleo-Balkan mythology includes the religious practices of the Dacians, Thracians, and Illyrians. Little is known about the rituals and mythology of the Iron Age Balkans, but some of their gods are depicted in statuary or described in Greek sources. One notable cult, attested from Thrace to Moesia and Scythia Minor, is that of the "Thracian horseman", also known as the "Thracian Heros", at Odessos (Varna) attested by a Thracian name as Heros Karabazmos, a god of the underworld usually depicted on funeral statues as a horseman slaying a beast with a spear.[1][2][3] Daco-Thracian[edit] A hound attacking a boar, a scene depicted on the lower half of many "Thracian horseman" reliefs.
Known Thracian deities include: Sabazios, the Thracian reflex of Indo-European Dyeus, identified with Heros Karabazmos, the "Thracian horseman". Known Dacian theonyms include: Illyrian[edit] See also[edit] Notes[edit] Etruscan mythology. The Etruscans were a people with a distinct language and culture during the period of earliest European writing, in the Mediterranean Iron Age in the second half of the first millennium B.C.
They ranged over the Po Valley and some of its alpine slopes, southward along the west coast of Italy, most intensely in Etruria with enclaves as far south as Campania, and inland into the Appennine mountains. Their prehistory can be traced with certainty to about 1000 BC. At their height about 500 BC, they were a significant maritime power with a presence in Sardinia and the Aegean Sea. Greek mythology.
Greek mythology is explicitly embodied in a large collection of narratives, and implicitly in Greek representational arts, such as vase-paintings and votive gifts.
Greek myth attempts to explain the origins of the world, and details the lives and adventures of a wide variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines, and mythological creatures. These accounts initially were disseminated in an oral-poetic tradition; today the Greek myths are known primarily from Greek literature. Archaeological findings provide a principal source of detail about Greek mythology, with gods and heroes featured prominently in the decoration of many artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles. Sources Literary sources The poetry of the Hellenistic and Roman ages was primarily composed as a literary rather than cultic exercise.
Archaeological sources Survey of mythic history. Lusitanian mythology. Lusitanian mythology is the mythology of the Lusitanians, the Indo-European people of western Iberia, in the territory comprising most of modern Portugal, Extremadura and a small part of Salamanca.
Lusitanian deities heavily influenced all of the religious practices in western Iberia, namely also in Gallaecia. They mingled with Roman deities after Lusitania was conquered.[1] Main pantheon[edit] Nabia had double invocation, one male and one female. The supreme Nabia is related to Jupiter and another incarnation of the deity, identified with Diana, Juno or Victoria or others from the Roman pantheon, linked to the protection and defense of the community or health, wealth and fertility. Roman mythology. Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans.
"Roman mythology" may also refer to the modern study of these representations, and to the subject matter as represented in the literature and art of other cultures in any period. The Romans usually treated their traditional narratives as historical, even when these have miraculous or supernatural elements. The stories are often concerned with politics and morality, and how an individual's personal integrity relates to his or her responsibility to the community or Roman state. Heroism is an important theme. When the stories illuminate Roman religious practices, they are more concerned with ritual, augury, and institutions than with theology or cosmogony.[1] The nature of Roman myth[edit] Founding myths[edit] Other myths[edit] Mucius Scaevola in the Presence of Lars Porsenna (early 1640s) by Matthias Stom.