Interpretatio graeca

[1][2] It is a discourse[3] used to interpret or attempt to understand the mythology and religion of other cultures; a comparative methodology using ancient Greek religious concepts and practices, deities, and myths, equivalencies, and shared characteristics.

Jan Assmann considers the polytheistic approach to internationalizing gods as a form of "intercultural translation": The great achievement of polytheism is the articulation of a common semantic universe. ...

[4]Pliny the Elder expressed the "translatability" of deities as "different names to different peoples" (nomina alia aliis gentibus).

[6] Tacitus reports that in a sacred grove of the Nahanarvali, "a priest adorned as a woman presides, but they commemorate gods who in Roman terms (interpretatione romana) are Castor and Pollux" when identifying the divine Alcis.

[9] Some information about the deities of the ancient Gauls (the continental Celts), who left no written literature other than inscriptions, is preserved by Greco-Roman sources under the names of Greek and Latin equivalents.

A large number of Gaulish theonyms or cult titles are preserved, for instance, in association with Mars.

[11] In the Eastern empire, the Anatolian storm god with his double-headed axe became Jupiter Dolichenus, a favorite cult figure among soldiers.

However, the Jews, unlike other peoples living under Roman rule, rejected any such attempt out of hand, regarding such an identification as the worst of sacrilege.

This complete divergence of views was one of the factors contributing to the frequent friction between the Jews and the Roman Empire; for example, the Emperor Hadrian's decision to rebuild Jerusalem under the name of Aelia Capitolina, a city dedicated to Jupiter, precipitated the bloodbath of the Bar Kokhba revolt.

[16] The following table is a list of Greek, Roman, Etruscan, Egyptian, Sumerian, Phoenician, Zoroastrian, and Celtic equivalencies via the interpretationes.