Several versions of a semi-official, structured pantheon were developed during the political, social and religious instability of the Late Republican era. Jupiter, the most powerful of all gods and "the fount of the auspices upon which the relationship of the city with the gods rested", consistently personified the divine authority of Rome's highest offices, internal organization and external relations. During the archaic and early Republican eras, he shared his temple, some aspects of cult and several divine characteristics with Mars and Quirinus, who were later replaced by Juno and Minerva. A conceptual tendency toward triads may be indicated by the later agricultural or plebeian triad of Ceres, Liber and Libera, and by some of the complementary threefold deity-groupings of Imperial cult. Other major and minor deities could be single, coupled, or linked retrospectively through myths of divine marriage and sexual adventure. These later Roman pantheistic hierarchies are part literary and mythographic, part philosophical creations, and often Greek in origin. The Hellenization of Latin literature and culture supplied literary and artistic models for reinterpreting Roman deities in light of the Greek Olympians, and promoted a sense that the two cultures had a shared heritage. COUNT 5
QSN1 To the Romans who was the most powerful of the gods? ANS1 Jupiter QSN2 What did Jupiter personify in regards to Rome's highest offices? ANS2 divine authority QSN3 What gods did Juno and Minerva replace in Roman religious practice? ANS3 Mars and Quirinus QSN4 From where does the practice of linking various gods into grouping come? ANS4 Greek in origin QSN5 Of what did the linking of Greek and Roman deities promote a feeling?  ANS5 heritage