Editing Interpretatio graeca (section)

==Examples==
[[File:Hall of the Augustals.jpg|thumb|A Roman fresco from [[Herculaneum]] depicting [[Hercules]] (from Etruscan ''[[Hercle]]'' and ultimately Greek ''[[Heracles]]'') and [[Achelous]] (patron deity of the [[Achelous River]] in Greece) from [[Greek mythology|Greco]]-[[Roman mythology]], 1st century AD]]
[[Herodotus]] was one of the earliest authors to engage in this form of interpretation. In his observations regarding the Egyptians, he establishes Greco-Egyptian equivalents that endured into the [[Hellenistic era]], including [[Amun|Amon]]/[[Zeus]], [[Osiris]]/[[Dionysus]], and [[Ptah]]/[[Hephaestus]]. In his observations regarding the [[Scythians]], he equates their queen of the gods, [[Tabiti]], to [[Hestia]], [[Papaios]] and [[Scythian religion#Pantheon|Api]] to [[Zeus]] and [[Gaia]] respectively, and [[Argimpasa]] to [[Aphrodite Urania]], while also claiming that the Scythians worshipped equivalents to [[Herakles]] and [[Ares]], but which he does not name.

Some pairs of Greek and Roman gods, such as Zeus and [[Jupiter (mythology)|Jupiter]], are thought to derive from a common [[Proto-Indo-European religion|Indo-European]] archetype ([[Dyeus]] as the supreme sky god), and thus exhibit shared functions by nature. Others required more expansive theological and poetic efforts: though both [[Ares]] and [[Mars (mythology)|Mars]] are war gods, Ares was a relatively minor figure in Greek religious practice and deprecated by the poets, while Mars was a father of the Roman people and a central figure of archaic Roman religion.

Some deities dating to Rome's oldest religious stratum, such as [[Janus (mythology)|Janus]] and [[Terminus (mythology)|Terminus]], had no Greek equivalent. Other Greek divine figures, most notably [[Apollo]], were adopted directly into Roman culture, but underwent a distinctly Roman development, as when [[Augustus]] made Apollo one of his [[tutelary deity|patron deities]]. In the early period, [[Etruscan civilization|Etruscan culture]] played an intermediary role in transmitting Greek myth and religion to the Romans, as evidenced in the linguistic transformation of Greek ''[[Heracles]]'' to Etruscan ''[[Hercle|Her[e]cle]]'' to Roman ''[[Hercules]]''.