History Main / AncientGrome

* ''VideoGame/AlteredBeast'' has Zeus ordering the protagonist to rescue his daughter Athena, in a landscape resembling Greek temples... and yet the protagonist is described as a Centurion, a rank of the Roman Legion.

[[folder:Film-Animation]]

[[folder:Film-Live Action]]

* One of the first sets of rare cards released in VideoGame/PuzzleAndDragons were the "Greco-Roman Gods" ("Western Gods" in Japanese) Minerva, Neptune, Ceres, Venus, and... Hades. The sequel set of Ares, Hermes, Artemis, Apollo ("Apollon" in Japanese), and Persephone were at least consistently Greek. There's also (multiple versions of) Zeus, Hera, and Athena (who is completely different from Minerva).

%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1624732776086962400&page=1

Though this trope is due in large part to research failures, the Romans themselves are not blameless, causing a healthy amount of TruthInTelevision. They were heavily influenced, and totally transformed, by the Greeks, who they had contact with for centuries before finally conquering Greece fully in 146 BCE. One of the most blatant examples is Myth/ClassicalMythology, but other examples can be found in politics, science, the hyper-realistic statues, ''et cetera'' (in fact, most of the statues of Classical Greece come down to us via Roman copies). Although they did regard some aspects of Greek culture with disapproval,[[note]]especially regarding their homoerotic penchants, their perceived lack of pragmatism in certain topics and their opinion about non-Greek cultures, like the Romans themselves[[/note]] Romans generally were quite open about their love and debt to Greek civilization in general, and borrowed their ideas, concepts, and motifs from their neighbors with endless gusto. Many of Rome's greatest historians, including the first one (Polybius), were Greek (e.g. Plutarch, Appian), not to mention all the Greek thinkers and school of thought that spread and evolved in Rome. And of course, Romans thought of UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat as the ultimate conqueror-civilizator, with many of them devoting their lives and careers to imitate him as much as possible.

Roman authors had a habit of inserting Greek quotations into their works, and even one of the few Romans who made a fuss about Greek culture, Cato the Elder, secretly learnt Greek and sent his children to study it. Greece was regarded as the source of culture, philosophy, science and learning in general, and Greek was seen as a symbol of cultivation and intelligence (and no doubt the Romans also thought it was downright awesome) hence why science, mathematics, philosophy and the like have a massively bad tendency to do this, reinforcing the idea that [[SmartPeopleKnowLatin intellectuals, scientists, mathematicians and such know Latin and/or Greek]]. Romans of the late Republic and early Imperial era tended to use quite a lot of Greek in their speech (to the point where the letters Y and Z, not ordinarily used in Latin, had to be appended to the alphabet due to their frequent use in Greek loanwords), and UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar is said to have quoted a play by Menander, a Hellenistic Greek, when crossing the Rubicon.

* The word "Greek" comes from latin ("Graecus"), the "Greeks" called themselves (and still do today) "Hellenes". The mere popularity of the word "Greek" above the more historically correct "Hellen" is an example of this trope. To make matters more confusing, the Greeks from the time of the UsefulNotes/ByzantineEmpire (when Greece really was all that was left of the Roman Empire) to independence in the 1820s called themselves "Romans".

** It's important to note that Rome eventually conquered Greece and most of the area they were settled in (such as the Levant and much of Italy) which resulted in Greeks becoming well assimilated into the Roman Empire. Greek, not Latin, was the lingua franca for much of the Empire and was the language of the educated classes in Rome proper (just like Latin would be in later eras). UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar was known to have preferred speaking Greek and of his three most famous sayings, only one of it was muttered originally in Latin ("Veni, vidi, vici" in a letter where he incidentally gloated about the defeat of a Hellenistic King as it happens). The others "Alea iacta est" and "Et tu, Brute?" (which is Shakespearean Latin, and not the real kind), were originally in Greek. And in the case of "Alea iacta est", the Latin transcription conveys a significantly different meaning and intent than the Greek original, and is often invoked as an example of BlindIdiotTranslation[[note]]Alea iacta est is popularly translated as "The die is cast". The Greek original, whose transliteration is "anerriphtho kybos" however is usually understood to translate as "Let's roll the dice". The more proverbial and famous "The die is cast" presents Caesar as decisive, commanding, authoritative, and fully aware that NothingIsTheSameAnymore. The latter phrase, "Let's roll the dice" presents Caesar as cautious, hopeful, uncertain as to what might happen, and see it as an acknowledgment that [[IndyPloy he's acting as and when the situation advances and develops]]. More recent historians favour "Let's roll the dice" because they see it as more consistent and typical of Caesar's moderate bridging factions approach, emphasizes the contingent element, and removes the idea of inevitability that was more appealing to Suetonius (whose ''12 Caesars'' is obviously favorable to a direct continuity from Caesar onwards) but which modern historians don't agree with.[[/note]]
* American college fraternities use Greek letters as names, and fraternity culture is called "Greek". A famous part of "Greek" college life is "toga parties", but togas were actually a Roman article of clothing. The Greeks wore chitons, not togas. On the other hand, the bedsheet-togas of "toga parties" is actually nothing like the Roman toga (which was a complexly draped semicircular piece of woolen cloth, typically worn over a tunic, and covering both shoulders anyway, it was the Roman equivalent of a three-piece suit and not good for parties) and a lot like... the Greek chiton (which were made of a rectangular piece of linen, and were often worn as a tunic with other garments like the chlamys--a rectangular woolen cloak--on top, often not covering one shoulder, they were the Greek equivalent of a white T-shirt and quite excellent for parties). Also, unlike at toga parties, women did not usually wear togas or chitons. Instead, they wore dresses or long tunics, and if they were married, they wore a garment called a ''stola'' over that.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Histeria}}'' had a sketch where Socrates and Julius Caesar discussing how the Greek and Roman civilizations had different names for the same gods via a parody of the song "Let's call the whole thing off",.

The Romans would also continue placing plays in UsefulNotes/{{Athens}} or other Greek cities, to avoid slandering the state, but leave everything else Roman-like. The epics of Creator/{{Homer}} inspired the Literature/TheAeneid of Virgil (even though it was actually an attempt to connect Rome's distant past with Greece's enemies, by making Romans the descendants of Trojans), and authors such as Seneca the Younger wrote using Greek styles albeit adding more imitations and innovations (chiefly [[{{Gorn}} incredibly graphic descriptions of violence]] for which he became proverbial). The Roman Emperor UsefulNotes/{{Nero}} visited Greece in 66 AD and performed at the Ancient Olympic Games, despite the rules against non-Greek participation. Also, due to massive Greek colonization (mainly before the rise of Rome), part of southern Italy was known as ''Magna Græcia'' (''Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς, Megálē Hellás'') -- "Great Greece."

While Latin was the official language in Rome, Greek was the ''Lingua Franca'' of the eastern half of the Roman Empire, still fresh from Alexander's legacy.[[note]]In the western half of the Empire, the ''lingua franca'' really was (Vulgar) Latin, which, in those countries that were not conquered by Germans or Arabs (and even [[UsefulNotes/{{France}} some]] [[UsefulNotes/{{Spain}} that]] [[UsefulNotes/{{Portugal}} were]]) became the Romance languages and Latin was the language of the military and administration everywhere.[[/note]] The vast majority of the [[Literature/TheBible New Testament]] was originally in Greek as a result, as it was written for a audience living in the eastern half. This is also why when the Roman Empire was formally split into the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, the Eastern Roman Empire (what would later come to be known to historians as the UsefulNotes/ByzantineEmpire) had Greek as its official language from 7th century onwards.

** It's important to note that Rome eventually conquered Greece and most of the area they were settled in (such as the Levant and much of Italy) which resulted in Greeks becoming well assimilated into the Roman Empire. Greek, not Latin, was the lingua franca for much of the Empire and was the language of the educated classes in Rome proper (just like Latin would be in later eras). UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar was known to have preferred speaking Greek and of his three most famous sayings, only one of it was muttered originally in Latin ("Veni, vidi, vici" in a letter where he incidentally gloated about the defeat of a Hellenistic King as it happens). The others "Alea iacta est" and "Et tu, Brute?"(which is Shakespearean Latin, and not the real kind), were originally in Greek. And in the case of "Alea iacta est", the Latin transcription conveys a significantly different meaning and intent than the Greek original, and is often invoked as an example of BlindIdiotTranslation[[note]]Alea iacta est is popularly translated as "The die is cast". The Greek original, whose transliteration is "anerriphtho kybos" however is usually understood to translate as "Let's roll the dice". The more proverbial and famous "The die is cast" presents Caesar as decisive, commanding, authoritative, and fully aware that NothingIsTheSameAnymore. The latter phrase, "Let's roll the dice" presents Caesar as cautious, hopeful, uncertain as to what might happen, and see it as an acknowledgment that [[IndyPloy he's acting as and when the situation advances and develops]]. More recent historians favour "Let's roll the dice" because they see it as more consistent and typical of Caesar's moderate bridging factions approach, emphasizes the contingent element, and removes the idea of inevitability that was more appealing to Suetonius (whose 12 Caesars is obviously favorable to a direct continuity from Caesar onwards) but which modern historians don't agree with.[[/note]]
* American college fraternities use Greek letters as names, and fraternity culture is called "Greek." A famous part of "Greek" college life is "toga parties," but togas were actually a Roman article of clothing. The Greeks wore chitons, not togas. On the other hand, the bedsheet-togas of "toga parties" is actually nothing like the Roman toga (which was a complexly draped semicircular piece of woolen cloth, typically worn over a tunic, and covering both shoulders anyway, it was the Roman equivalent of a three-piece suit and not good for parties) and a lot like... the Greek chiton (which were made of a rectangular piece of linen, and were often worn as a tunic with other garments like the chlamys--a rectangular woolen cloak--on top, often not covering one shoulder, they were the Greek equivalent of a white T-shirt and quite excellent for parties). Also, unlike at toga parties, women did not usually wear togas or chitons. Instead, they wore dresses or long tunics, and if they were married, they wore a garment called a ''stola'' over that.

[[folder:Film]]

Though this trope is due in large part to research failures, the Romans themselves are not blameless, causing a healthy amount of TruthInTelevision. They were heavily influenced, and totally transformed, by the Greeks, who they had contact with for centuries before finally conquering Greece fully in 146 BCE. One of the most blatant examples is Myth/ClassicalMythology, but other examples can be found in politics, science, the hyper-realistic statues, ''et cetera'' (in fact, most of the statues of Classical Greece come down to us via Roman copies). Although they did regard some aspects of Greek culture with disapproval,[[note]]especially regarding their homoerotic penchants, their perceived lack of pragmatism in certain topics and their opinion about non-Greek cultures, like the Romans themselves[[/note]] Romans generally were quite open about their love and debt to Greek civilization in general, and borrowed their ideas, concepts, and motifs from their neighbors with endless gusto. Many of Rome's greatest historians, including the first one (Polybius), were Greek (e.g. Plutarch, Appian), not to mention all the Greek thinkers and school of thought that spread and evolved in Rome. And of course, Romans thought of UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat as the ultimate conqueror-civilizator, with many of them devoting their lifes and careers to imitate him as much as possible.

** It is played straight, however, in the series falls into the common trap of treating the Roman and Greek gods as being two sides of the same coin. The schism between each god’s Greek and Roman personalities is a major plot point, despite that in real life the Roman gods were conceptualized before Rome had even been founded, and it wasn’t until much later that they were fleshed out by adopting the mythologies of their Greek “counterparts”.

** The series does fall into the common trap of treating the Roman and Greek gods as being two sides of the same coin. The schism between each god’s Greek and Roman personalities is a major plot point, despite that in real life the Roman gods were conceptualized before Rome had even been founded and weren’t paired up with their Greek counterparts until later.
** The Egyptian sister series of above, ''Literature/TheKaneChronicles'', however, plays this straight by mostly using the Hellenized spelling of the Egyptian gods instead of the actual (well, approximated, but it's the closest thing we got) Egyptian spellings. "Horus", "Isis", "Osiris, "Anubis", "Nephthys", and "Apophis", for example, would be called "Haru", "Iset, "Ausir", "Anupev", "Nebthet", and "Apep", respectively, in Egyptian. There are exceptions, though, such as "Set" and "Ptah", which are the same in both languages.

* ''Literature/TheCampHalfBloodSeries'': The sequel to ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'', ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'', shoots this trope to hell by making ''very'' clear distinctions between Greek and Roman mythology.

Though this trope is due in large part to research failures, the Romans themselves are not blameless, causing a healthy amount of TruthInTelevision. They were heavily influenced, and totally transformed, by the Greeks, who they had contact with for centuries before finally conquering Greece fully in 146 BCE. One of the most blatant examples is Myth/ClassicalMythology, but other examples can be found in politics, science, the hyper-realistic statues, ''et cetera'' (in fact, ost of the statues of Classical Greece come down to us via Roman copies). Although they did regard some aspects of Greek culture with disapproval,[[note]]especially regarding their homoerotic penchants, their perceived lack of pragmatism in certain topics and their opinion about non-Greek cultures, like the Romans themselves[[/note]] Romans generally were quite open about their love and debt to Greek civilization in general, and borrowed their ideas, concepts, and motifs from their neighbors with endless gusto. Many of Rome's greatest historians, including the first one (Polybius), were Greek (e.g. Plutarch, Appian), not to mention all the Greek thinkers and school of thought that spread and evolved in Rome. And of course, Romans thought of UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat as the ultimate conqueror-civilizator, with many of them devoting their lifes and careers to imitate him as much as possible.

Though this trope is due in large part to research failures, the Romans themselves are not blameless, causing a healthy amount of TruthInTelevision. They were heavily influenced, and totally transformed, by the Greeks, who they conquered fully in 146 BCE. One of the most blatant examples is Myth/ClassicalMythology. Other examples can be found in politics, science, the hyper-realistic statues, ''et cetera''. Most of the statues of Classical Greece come down to us via Roman copies. Although they did regard some aspects of Greek culture with disapproval,[[note]]especially regarding their homoerotic penchants and their opinion about non-Greek cultures, like the Romans themselves[[/note]] Romans generally were quite open about their love and debt to Greek civilization in general, and borrowed their ideas, concepts, and motifs from their neighbors with endless gusto. Many of Rome's greatest historians, including the first one (Polybius), were Greek (e.g. Plutarch, Appian), not to mention all the Greek thinkers and school of thought that spread and evolved in Rome. And of course, Romans thought of UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat as the ultimate conqueror-civilizator, with many of them devoting their lifes and careers to imitate him as much as possible.

Roman authors had a habit of inserting Greek quotations into their works, and even one of the few Romans who made a fuss about Greek culture, Cato the Elder, secretly learnt Greek and sent his children to study it. Greece was regarded as the source of culture, philosophy, science and learning in general, and Greek was seen as a symbol of cultivation and intelligence (and no doubt the Romans also thought it was downright awesome) hence why science, mathematics, philosophy and the like have a massively bad tendency to do this, reinforcing the idea that [[SmartPeopleKnowLatin intellectuals, scientists, mathematicians and such know Latin and/or Greek]]. Romans of the late Republic and early Imperial era tended to use quite a lot of Greek in their speech (to the point where the letters Y and Z, not ordinarily used in Latin, had to be appended to the alphabet due to their frequent use in Greek loanwords), and Caesar is said to have quoted a play by Menander, a Hellenistic Greek, when crossing the Rubicon.

While Latin was the official language in Rome, Greek was the ''Lingua Franca'' of the eastern half of the Roman Empire, still fresh from Alexander's legacy.[[note]]In the western half of the Empire, the ''lingua franca'' really was (Vulgar) Latin, which, in those countries that were not conquered by Germans or Arabs (and even [[UsefulNotes/{{France}} some]] [[UsefulNotes/{{Spain}} that]] [[UsefulNotes/{{Portugal}} were]]) became the Romance languages and Latin was the language of the military and administration everywhere.[[/note]] The vast majority of the [[Literature/TheBible New Testament]] was originally in Greek as a result, as it was written for a diverse audience living in the eastern half. This is also why when the Roman Empire was formally split into the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, the Eastern Roman Empire (what would later come to be known to historians as the UsefulNotes/ByzantineEmpire) had Greek as its official language from 7th century onwards.

** Emperor Hadrian in particular was a noted Philhellene (lover of Greek culture) and he enthusiastically adopted a range of Greek practices such as growing a beard and taking a male lover. Commodus took all that further and dressed as Heracles.

[[JustForFun/IReadThatAs Has nothing to do with]][[OurGnomesAreWeirder Gnomes]] from ancient civilizations, or with the King of the Earth Elementals in the [[Literature/TheElricSaga Elric of Melnibone]] universe.

Has nothing to do with [[OurGnomesAreWeirder Gnomes]] from ancient civilizations, or with the King of the Earth Elementals in the [[Literature/TheElricSaga Elric of Melnibone]] universe.

* Marvel's ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHercules'': Two different explanations have been provided in the comics for the use of his Roman name when everything else is drawn from the Greek myths. The first was that Herakles is his real name and Hercules is his "superhero" name, since that name is more familiar to Americans. This was later retconned into his having changed his name to distance himself from his stepmother Hera (since Herakles means "Glory of Hera").

** This is alluded to in the New 52's Earth 2 comics, where the Roman pantheon and myths are real instead of the Greek.

[[folder:Folklore and Mythology]]
* A lot of [[Myth/ClassicalMythology mythological Greek characters]] that Rome borrowed are known either by their Greek or Roman name but not both, even when set in the "other" culture. Many of their Roman names (except for Poseidon/Neptune and Dionysus/Bacchus) are now {{Forgotten Trope}}s, despite the ''planets of our solar system'' being named after them. (Or perhaps because of it through a JustForFun/OneMarioLimit effect. Such names as "Jupiter" and "Mars" are so closely associated with the planets to modern hearers that their mythological origins have been supplanted.)
** Hercules: Best known by his Latin name, despite being a Greek hero. His Greek name was Herakles, which is sometimes [[SpellMyNameWithAnS written as Heracles in English]], both in works of fiction featuring him such as the ''VideoGame/GloryOfHeracles'' VideoGame series and reference materials related to Greek mythology. If you want to be especially correct, it would be written as Ἡρακλῆς, because it's hard to please everyone when using romanization.
*** Even if the author does the research this can become a TranslationConvention; there are a lot more people who recognize the name "Hercules" than "Heracles," and we don't want to confuse the audience, now do we?
** Zeus: Rarely, if ever, called Jupiter, or Jove.
*** Except in the somewhat archaic phrase "By Jove".
** Athena: Her Roman name is Minerva.
** Ajax is the Latin name for the Greek name Aias. This gets very confusing in ''Literature/TheIliad'' because translators have various ways of referring to the two Aiantes... Ajaces... two people named Ajax.
** Try reading a book of Greek myths that uses only the Roman names? (Greek names were only used in the Greek-to-Roman ''name chart''.)
** The very assumption that the Roman gods were nothing but alternate names for Greek gods is an example of this trope. In actuality, a few were direct borrowings (e.g. Apollon -> Apollo), but others were parallel derivations from earlier figures (proto-Indo-European *Dyḗus evolved into both Jupiter and Zeus), and others had separate origins but came to be identified with each other (Mars, for instance, was an agricultural deity and defender of the land who came to be identified with Ares only because both were war gods - thus the Romans' much more positive view of Mars compared to how the Greeks regarded Ares). There were a few native Roman gods, such as Janus, that never found a Greek equivalent.
* Similarly, all the [[Myth/EgyptianMythology Egyptian gods]] (except Sobek) are usually called by the Ancient Greek versions of their names, not the actual Egyptian. For instance, the far more popular Greek translation of "Anubis", compared to the original Egyptian name "Anupev".
[[/folder]]

* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'' has Greek and Roman themes side by side.
** Not to mention there are several gods who are referred to with both Roman and Greek names (Jupiter/Zeus, Mars/Ares). It's probably a cultural/linguistic thing.
*** Interestingly, while the Tauron language is revealed on ''Series/{{Caprica}}'' to be Ancient Greek (or more likely [[TranslationConvention represented by Ancient Greek]]), the Taurons consistently refer to their chief/patron god as "Mars" rather than Ares. Of course, the Greek Ares was a tremendous [[BloodKnight bloodthirsty]] [[JerkassGods dick]] who was the closest thing the Greeks had to an [[GodOfEvil evil god]] ([[EverybodyHatesHades Hades]] [[DarkIsNotEvil actually being quite a decent fellow]]), while Mars (fittingly for the conquering Romans) was [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation rather more positive]].
*** In the case of the Taurons this is probably not an accident. As the soldiers of the early Roman Republic were mostly farmers who served military duty as well, there is an obvious parallel to the Taurons, who place great reverence in the soil in which they grow their food, yet are also {{Proud Warrior Race Guy}}s.

** [[Series/{{QI}} They say of the Acropolis, where the Parthenon is...]]
** (For the record, the similarly-named ''Pantheon'' is in Rome.)

** The Russian translation corrects this by calling him and the show Herakles (although, dropping the "es"), which is more known in Russia than Hercules, which most people there think is a brand of oatmeal. Cupid probably remained, likely due to Eros not sounding very family friendly.
* ''Series/XenaWarriorPrincess'': One episode was devoted to ''Theatre/{{Bacchae}}'', and thus featured Bacchus in a major role. As opposed to, say, Dionysus.
** Dionysus also exists in the setting as a completely different character.

* An episode of ''Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'' saw Sabrina borrowing ice skates from Mercury who was on the phone to Minerva and later on, Zeus shows up. Insert facepalm.
** Also a book written from the show featured the Pid family arriving in Westbridge from Greece. The son Quentin is actually Cupid while his parents are Martin (Mars) and Veronica (Venus). And then for some reason Q. Pid said that Valentine's Day cards with Cupid on them are actually reproductions of his baby pictures.

* Taken to an extreme in Music/IgorStravinsky's cantata ''Oedipus Rex'', which is entirely sung in Latin (not counting a small amount of spoken narration) though based on an ancient Greek play and still set in ancient Thebes.
** The name "Oedipus Rex" is itself a bit Groman, since Rex is a Latin word. The original Greek was "Tyrannos."

* Creator/WilliamShakespeare's ''Theatre/TimonOfAthens'': This was because not much was known about ancient Greece at the time.
** Also very prevalent in Shakespeare's "Pericles, Prince of Tyre", which takes place in various locations in Greece, but uses only the Roman names for deities; those mentioned during the course of the play include Diana, Priapus and Juno.

* In ''VideoGame/GodOfWarIII'', the Spartan protagonist faces off most of the gods, heroes and beasts of Greek mythology... [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and Hercules]] (rather than Herakles).
** Considering that Hercules's voice actor is Kevin Sorbo, is more like an ActorAllusion to ''Series/HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys''.
*** WordOfGod admits they used the Roman name due to it being more well known (thus why "Hercules" shows up in move names in the previous two games made long before Sorbo was cast).
** Also, the standard mooks Kratos fights along the series are the Undead Legionnaires (and their variants). Legionnaires were Roman soldiers, not Greek. The actual basic Greek soldiers were the hoplites (which only appear in the Ghost of Sparta game).

** Happens in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}'' as well, especially in ''Innocent Sin.'' We are given Maia, Artemis, Hades, Apollo, Hermes, Chronos, and Vesta, and yet Tatsuya's starting Persona is Vulcanus (Hephaestus) and ''both'' of Lisa's Personas are Eros (Cupid) and Venus (Aphrodite).

* Disney's ''WesternAnimation/HerculesTheAnimatedSeries'': Set in mythological Greece but mentions gladiators and uses Roman numerals and Roman Name. BUT he gets an "alpha-plus" as a grade in the series, so everything works out fine.
** Heck! The character's name is "Hercules" which is his Roman name, his Hellenic name is "Herakles"

*** Which is in itself an example of not doing the research,[[note]]well, that, or RuleOfFunny,[[/note]] as Pluto was simply a Latinization of the Greek ''Πλούτων'' (''Ploutōn''), the god's actual Roman names being "Dis" or "Orcus."
** In the film, when Pain and Panic are pretending to be children needing Hercules to rescue them, one uses roman numerals by pleading "somebody call IX-I-I" (saying each letter).
** In another episode, [[LampshadeHanging a mailman arrives with a package for Herakles]], and Herc "corrects" him.
** In yet another episode of the animated series, they introduce the god of pleasure and call him Bacchus (Herc wants to throw a "Bacchanale") -- that's the god's Roman name; his Greek name is Dionysus.
*** Bacchus was, again, simply a Romanization of Greek ''Bacchos'' (''Βάκχος''), an alternative name for Dionysos -- who was not even a Greek god to begin with, but was imported from the East, much as Isis was later imported to Rome. The native Roman name for the god of viticulture was ''Pater Liber'', the "Free Father," who was identified with the Greek Bacchus much as ''Iuppiter''=''Deus/Iovis Pater'' ("God/Jove the Father") was identified with Zeus, father of the gods.

** There is also the use of messenger of love, (the little putti with heart-shaped arrows) being called Cupid, which was his Roman name as his Hellenic name is Eros.

* In ''VideoGame/GodOfWarIII'', the Spartan protagonist faces off most of the gods, heroes and beasts of Greek mythology...[[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and Hercules]] (rather than Herakles).

Though this trope is due in large part to research failures, the Romans themselves are not blameless. They were heavily influenced, and totally transformed, by the Greeks who they conquered fully in 146 BCE. One of the most blatant examples is Myth/ClassicalMythology. Other examples can be found in politics, science, the hyper-realistic statues, ''et cetera''. Most of the statues of Classical Greece come down to us via Roman copies. The Romans generally were quite open about their love and debt to Greek civilization, and borrowed their ideas, concepts, and motifs from their neighbors. Many of Rome's greatest historians, including the first one (Polybius), were Greek (e.g. Plutarch, Appian).

Roman authors had a habit of inserting Greek quotations into their works, and even one of the few Romans who made a fuss about Greek culture, Cato the Elder, secretly learnt Greek and sent his children to study it. Greece was regarded as the source of culture, philosophy, science and learning in general, and Greek was seen as a symbol of cultivation and intelligence (and no doubt the Romans also thought it was downright awesome) hence why science, mathematics, philosophy and the like have a massively bad tendency to do this, reinforcing the idea that [[SmartPeopleKnowLatin intellectuals, scientists, mathematicians and such know both Latin and Greek]]. Romans of the late Republic and early Imperial era tended to use quite a lot of Greek in their speech (to the point where the letters Y and Z, not ordinarily used in Latin, had to be appended to the alphabet due to their frequent use in Greek loanwords), and Caesar is said to have quoted a play by Menander, a Hellenistic Greek, when crossing the Rubicon.

The Romans would also continue placing plays in UsefulNotes/{{Athens}} or other Greek cities, to avoid slandering the state, but leave everything else Roman-like. The epics of Creator/{{Homer}} inspired the Literature/TheAeneid of Virgil (even though it was actually an attempt to connect Rome's distant past with Greece's enemies, by making Romans the descendants of Trojans), and authors such as Seneca the Younger wrote using Greek styles albeit adding more imitations and innovations (chiefly [[{{Gorn}} incredibly graphic descriptions of violence]] for which he became proverbial). The Roman Emperor UsefulNotes/{{Nero}} visited Greece in 66 AD, and performed at the Ancient Olympic Games, despite the rules against non-Greek participation. Also, due to massive Greek colonization (mainly before the rise of Rome), part of southern Italy was known as ''Magna Græcia'' (''Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς, Megálē Hellás'') -- "Great Greece."

While Latin was the official language in Rome, Greek was the ''Lingua Franca'' of the eastern half of the Roman Empire[[note]]In the western half of the Empire, the ''lingua franca'' really was (Vulgar) Latin, which, in those countries that were not conquered by Germans or Arabs (and even [[UsefulNotes/{{France}} some]] [[UsefulNotes/{{Spain}} that]] [[UsefulNotes/{{Portugal}} were]]) became the Romance languages and Latin was the language of the military and administration everywhere.[[/note]] The vast majority of the [[Literature/TheBible New Testament]] was originally in Greek as a result, as it was written for a diverse audience living in the eastern half. This is also why when the Roman Empire was formally split into the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, the Eastern Roman Empire (what would later come to be known to historians as the UsefulNotes/ByzantineEmpire) had Greek as its official language from 7th century onwards.

* Sunny Villa is the first world Spyro explores in Sunrise Spring in ''VideoGame/SpyroYearOfTheDragon''. The world is populated by a race of anthropomorphic lions dressed in togas and wreath-crowns who bred [[CluckingFunny giant chickens]] before [[BigBad the Sorceress]] sent her Rhynoc hordes to invade the place. The Rhynoc enemies that populate it are all dressed like gladiators.

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'': At the end of the episode "Fire from Olympus", Maxie Zeus identifies Two-Face as Janus, a Roman god, despite imagining himself to be a modern incarnation of a Greek god and imagining Joker as Hermes and Poison Ivy as Demeter. Even before that when speaking to "Hades" (actually Batman), he asks if Vulcan is troubling him again (Vulcan being the Roman equivalent of Hephaestus). But then, Maxie ''is'' insane, and as alluded to under Comic Books not the sort who'd take well to being told he's wrong.

* According to [[https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/polyamory-is-wrong.png this t-shirt]], "polyamory" is wrong because mixing Greek and Latin roots is wrong. (No t-shirt was found with same position on "hexadecimal".)