In contrast to that of the Greeks, Roman mythology seems arid and impoverished. As a rule the Romans were, not myth-makers, and the myths they had were usually imported. The Roman gods were utilitarian, like the practical and unimaginative Romans themselves. These gods were expected to serve and protect men, and when they failed to be useful their worship was curtailed. This does not mean the Romans lacked religious sentiment. They had a pantheistic sense of the divinities present in nature. But their deepest religious feelings centered on the family and the state. When the Romans adopted the Greek gods from the third century B.C. on, these deities were simplified to conform to the Roman religion. Mars was the chief god of the imperial age, more honored than Jupiter, since he aided and symbolized the Roman conquests.
The writers who handled mythological subjects typically dealt with patriotic legends that glorified the Roman past, or in love tales. Thus they paid tribute to the state or to love, the basis of the family, in terms derived from Greek mythology. Sometimes in their borrowings they achieved true originality, as Vergil did in his epic poem, The Aeneid, or as Ovid did in his poetic compilation, The Metamorphoses.
