Roman God statuettes

The contact with the Roman Empire gave the Germans knowledge of Roman religion and art. The Roman God statuettes of bronze sometimes ended up in the Danish Iron Age settlements in the 2nd-4th century AD. Some of the figurines can, do to their form and shape, be identified as Roman deities such as Jupiter, who was the king of Gods in the Roman Empire, love goddess Venus or the god of war Mars. Others are guardian deities. One of the guardian spirits was the so-called Genius, which could represent both the father of the house as emperor or State vitality. These figures are very different in their design compared to the Germanic figurines that are different coarse and shows a different expression. It is not unthinkable that the Scandinavians knew about the roman religion and their rituals, and maybe even copied it.