Thus, if I am right, the same ancient pair of deities was variously
known among the Greek and Italian peoples as Zeus and Dione, Jupiter
and Juno, or Dianus (Janus) and Diana (Jana), the names of the
divinities being identical in substance, though varying in form with
the dialect of the particular tribe which worshipped them. At first,
when the peoples dwelt near each other, the difference between the
deities would be hardly more than one of name; in other words, it
would be almost purely dialectical. But the gradual dispersion of
the tribes, and their consequent isolation from each other, would
favour the growth of divergent modes of conceiving and worshipping
the gods whom they had carried with them from their old home, so
that in time discrepancies of myth and ritual would tend to spring
up and thereby to convert a nominal into a real distinction between
the divinities. Accordingly when, with the slow progress of culture,
the long period of barbarism and separation was passing away, and
the rising political power of a single strong community had begun to
draw or hammer its weaker neighbours into a nation, the confluent
peoples would throw their gods, like their dialects, into a common
stock; and thus it might come about that the same ancient deities,
which their forefathers had worshipped together before the
dispersion, would now be so disguised by the accumulated effect of
dialectical and religious divergencies that their original identity
might fail to be recognised, and they would take their places side
by side as independent divinities in the national pantheon.
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