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Before I delete a whole category, is there any cogent reason to keep the Roman Anglicization in the chart? Why not just have one Anglicized column with links to the deities? That way, users can see what the names of the deities are when they click on the article. As an analogy, we use "Natalie Portman" in articles, not "Natalie Hershlag". So why not just "Jupiter", and when they click on it, they'll be able to see "Jupiter (Lat. Iuppiter)" in the page. A similar problem exists with the Greek. Why is the Greek in Greek when it's not in other pages? Chris Weimer (talk) 14:20, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Although there may be problems with the chart, its purpose seems to be to show how theonyms were either adopted (and Latinized, then Anglicized) or interpreted as the corresponding deity. That is, it doesn't show just correspondence, but also something about naming. Would you mind not making the deletion yet? I'll try to look at it soon, and have others who work regularly with the subject matter look too. I agree that what I see as the underlying use may not be articulated. There are some other problems with the article too. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:19, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, please hold off for now. Cynwolfe's points are well made. I'll need a good chunk of reading-time before I can even begin to wrap my head around this - I've only a small corner on interpretatio romana as basis for judgment - but at first glance, I doubt that an Anglicised list format could accurately represent what might be going on in each case; I think investigation and elucidation are called for, rather than further simplification. Haploidavey (talk) 20:43, 13 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I looked at this a bit, and it isn't going to be quick to sort out. I don't have the patience for it at the moment. I'd leave the chart for now (with Haploidavey's point taken), because there's nothing terribly misleading about it, and it does point toward the issue of naming that's usually central to interpretatio. The "Meaning" column is problematic because it doesn't give the same kinds of info for each deity. The article just needs to be reworked with a few good sources. Cynwolfe (talk) 01:15, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps someone could clarify and indicate the color coding (blue vs. pink) in the table. There may be a standard somewhere which is not readily apparent. 174.20.80.10 (talk) 15:44, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Seconded. I have no clue what the colors are supposed to represent. It makes me worried about the reliability of the chart as a resource, since my initial instinct is that red represents some sort of citation problem or possibly a lesser tier of "canonical-ness", but I have no apparent way of confirming whether or not that's the correct reading. What yellow represents, I have no clue. BrokenEye3 (talk) 23:03, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think I just just figured the colors out. Of the deities I recognize, it looks like all the blue cells are male and all the pink cells are female. If that's what the colors represent, it would follow that yellow cells are gods that exist outside of that binary in some fashion or other (though I don't recognize any of them, so I'd have to check the articles). BrokenEye3 (talk) 23:46, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I had to navigate to this talk page to find the answer. (Most casual users like myself aren't aware these sections exist.) I think adding a clarification on the page would be helpful, obvious though it is once the wires touch. The suggestion is going on three years, seems like a simple fix. Emcarnahan (talk) 15:15, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Likewise; what's the significance of gender to Interpretatio graeca, why do we emphasise it? It was boldly added without any edit summary[1] and I think no discussion or explanation on this talk page, and may have stuck partly because such table editing may seem obscure or difficult. I've boldly removed it, which may at least help us see the alternatives. NebY (talk) 16:30, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that. Speaking of things which could probably be removed, I'm rather sceptical that the current "Functions" column is sourceable. The implicit claim seems to be that the deities in each row are identified due (or due in part) to these shared functions; there are typically going to be at least some shared functions in any identification, but in my experience scholars are generally reticent to speculate upon the reasons deities were identified, and I'm certainly not convinced that adequate sourcing could be found for rows with more than three or four deities. – Michael Aurel (talk) 01:58, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. After removing colours, I wondered briefly if I could find a better heading than "Functions" (for the Dioscuri we have "twins"!) but your question's the right one and you're right, we don't offer sourcing for the relevance of these functions to the ancient Greek interpretatio. It also worries me that it encourages the reader to think that deities with the same "functions" are "equivalent". I agree with removal. NebY (talk) 15:47, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for removing that. It's even clearer now that your earlier edit summary's right: using "scope = row" to provide row headers would make it clearer that these are (Greek) identifications with the Greek deity rather than each other. I suppose we'd keep the cell merging in rows like Apollo's, with row-header formatting stretching across both columns, but maybe that varies from one case to another e.g. keep Apollo merged, but unmerge Maia, perhaps repeating the name in the Roman column? NebY (talk) 17:27, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, surely connections were drawn in ancient times, yes? Interpretatio graeca refers to the view that Greece with its many regional cultures saw itself embedded in the wider region, and even before the age of Hellenism it must be supposed that connections existed. The Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean was not a monolithic cultural area anyways. So, if there are Phoenician and Zoroastrian connections, there were definitely ones covering the geographic territory between. I find it hard to believe that no sources exist to indicate as much. ♆ CUSH ♆13:04, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It can be surprising how little survived (and what survived is not always what we might have chosen) but if you have WP:RSs then do bring them! NebY (talk) 14:19, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Aisxulos has repeatedly added Banebdjedet as an equivalent of Pan without providing any source. Neither of those articles support this either. Aisxulos, can you provide a reliable source that indicates that the the Greeks or Romans identified (either explicitly in surviving works, or as supported by the analyses of modern scholars) Banebdjedet with Pan? Or can anyone else? NebY (talk) 10:49, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The best I can find from a modern source is this passage [2] from Geraldine Harris's Egyptian Mythology, in her entry on Banebdjedet: Greek writers reported that a male goat was honored as a fertility god at Mendes and identified with the Greek god Pan; it seems Herodotus [3] is her source here (he doesn't mention Banebdjedet by name). However, these sources would only be enough to say that the Egyptians identified this goat god from Mendes with Pan, which doesn't necessarily mean the Greeks themselves identified Pan with this figure. – Michael Aurel (talk) 22:54, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A new row I added to the cross-cultural equivalencies table documenting the equivalence between the Greek Hypnos and the Roman Somnus was reverted with the explanation "unsourced, and I don't think there are any sources for them being equated." by User:Michael Aurel but both the Hypnos and Somnus pages state that they are equivalent, and there are multiple reputable external web pages stating equivalence (Brittanica, Oxford Classical Dictionary, etc.). Surely it should not be necessary to add a formal reference to the article for this? (There are nearly 80 equivalence rows in the table with over 270 individual deities across the seven pantheons but only 32 references for the whole article, and only 15 relate to the equivalencies table). Iolar~enwiki (talk) 22:51, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Iolar~enwiki: Per WP:V, we need a source for any equations added to the table; all of the current entries should be sourced, and those for which no source can be found, removed. I think there may also be some misunderstanding here around what is meant by "equivalence" in this context: the table is exclusively for 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. The entries for Hypnos in Britannica and the OCD don't support this claim, and I'm not aware of any sources which do. I've also removed this claim from the infoboxes at Hypnos and Somnus, as I believe, per a recent discussion at Template talk:Infobox deity, that equivalencies in infoboxes should have a basis in equations in primary sources. – Michael Aurel (talk) 23:34, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, so there's a section in Collin Cornell's article "What happened to Kemosh?." published in Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 128.2 (2016) 284-299 that mentions Milcom and Chemosh equated with Herakles and Ares respectively. Was wondering where they should go on the table. I added the paper as a citation for Melqart, as Melqart is already in the table. Self-described Sophist (talk) 05:35, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
