Ovid

I really like that every single god and goddess has their very own distinct personality. In relation to what we have read before, we did not really learn any specifics, or at least specific character traits, about any of the other gods. I kind of wish the book had a handy-dandy little chart that transposed the Roman version of the character to the Greek version of the character, because I know all of the main gods, but other characters are more difficult, and there are a lot of minor gods, too. I have to think about the Roman version in terms of the Greek version, I do not know why.

I have never really liked Juno (or Hera) but I always more or less understood why she was so grumpy. I think that is emphasized even more in this. More or less the entirety of problems in mythology could have been solved if Jupiter (Zeus) *cough cough* decided to keep himself to himself (and his wife). Instead he had to mess things up by getting involved in (more or less) every possible female he could. It makes so much sense why Juno was upset, because not only was her husband sleeping around, but he was sleeping around and having children. So there were all these children descended from Jupiter that were running around reminding Juno that they were her husband’s, but they were not hers.

I think it is really interesting, that out of all the major gods, Apollo is the only one who does not have name change. I mean, technically he does have two names, but he is referred to by both, more or less equally, and he is still referred to as Apollo. I really want to know why this is. This seems like it could be very significant. Also, Minerva is the only major god(/goddess) that has a different main trait, per se. Athena is the goddess of wisdom and battle strategy, and the goddess of weaving, as well as a few other things. However, the Roman goddess of war is not Minerva. This was a very interesting distinction that was made between the Greek and Roman counterparts, especially since the other major gods more or less all kept their same significant traits. It was very much a purposeful slap in the face to Minerva.

I feel really bad for Callisto. Ovid makes a point that it was very  much not her fault what was done to her, and obviously, she still had to leave Diana, but what happened was not her fault.