The Roman Debt to Greece

[M. Caecilius]

Surely the Romans had religion before they had even heard of the Greeks.

Certainly, but it is very difficult to untangle these Roman elements from the Greek ones at times. As said above, the Romans venerated Vulcan as god of fire, amongst other things. He was possibly a homegrown god combined with the Etruscan Vechlans (etymological connection), and with Hephaistos (very early evidence from the Volcanal). They did not import their religion wholesale from the Greeks, but they did pick out elements they liked (consciously or not).

The Romans certainly kept some very particular deities, peculiar aspects of deities equated with Greek deities through syncretism, and unique ways of venerating them - a good way to quickly gather information about this would be to check Plutarch's Roman Questions.

But let's remember that the traditional foundation date of Rome is 753 B.C. That of Pithekoussai, the earliest Greek colony in Italy, is ca. 800-750.

True, Rome was not founded, historically, when someone called Romulus ploughed some earth on the Palatine. True, there is evidence for settlement going back beyond the 8th century. But Greek influence started very early, possibly even before the creation of the permanent emporion at Pithekoussai. The question I would ask is whether the Romans were properly "Romans" rather than members of the "Latial" or borderline-"Villanovan" cultures at that time. By the time Rome emerges as such, the Greeks are right on their doorstep, their influence and trade with the Etruscans was growing, and it would have been difficult for Rome to ignore them for long.

More likely, in my opinion, is that over the years Rome imported some Greek gods, as for example in later years they imported Mithras.

They did. Aesculapius was quite officially fetched from Greece and given a home on the Tiber Island. But there's a difference between adopting a new god, and syncretism - combining a god from a different culture with yours. Both happened: Caesar calls the Gallic gods by Roman names ("Their chief god is Mercury..."). Incidentally, it's sometimes unclear who did the syncretising: the Greeks adored this too, for instance claiming both Hermes and Hercules to be the Egyptian Toth, and the Hephaistos-shard in the Volcanal may have been deposited by a Greek rather than a Roman making the association. And then there's the unconscious adoption, as Rome's population was increased by Greeks (slaves, immigrants, merchants, fugitives, freedmen...), as people forgot what the old traditions meant, or when they misunderstood them, saw something similar elsewhere, and unconsciously made a connection.

All that being said, you are very right about the numina and other features that are ideosyncratically Roman. Incidentally, I also agree with what you said in your other post above, which is very well argued, especially on the wider and mutual influences between Greeks, Phoenicians, Etruscans and so forth; I also agree that a lot of reassessment is needed, and that the superiority complex of Rome versus Greece outmatched the fad of Horace's inferiority complex (which he doesn't show elsewhere), but we're really off into the difficult question on when we can clearly label a culture as "Roman", "Greek", etc. So far, arguments I've read about the Etruscans can't find a line between proto-Villanovan, Villanovan, Etruscan, etc... especially when parts of them show up in unexpected places.