Writing Myth: Mythography in the Ancient World

by RS Smith (Editor), SM Trzaskoma (Editor)

Overview

This collection of essays brings innovative perspectives to the study of ancient mythography, that is, the writings of the Greeks and Romans about their own mythical traditions. It treats a range of sources from the beginnings of myth criticism in the 5th century BCE to the end of antiquity in the 5th century CE, highlighting mythography's centrality to ancient views of myth and moving beyond seeing mythographic texts as valuable primarily for the preservation of details about traditional stories. Important individual mythographers are treated (e.g., Ps.-Apollodorus and Hyginus), but throughout there is an emphasis on the connections of mythography with more literary genres, such as epic, and more prestigious prose genres, such as historiography and geography. This makes the volume of interest for those who work on myth in Greek and Roman society, but also for anyone working on ancient intellectual history more broadly, including those who study rhetoric, education, literary composition, art and ancient scholarly traditions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789042929111
Publisher:	Peeters Publishing
Publication date:	08/13/2013
Series:	Studies in the History and Anthropology of Religion , #4
Pages:	406
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.40(h) x 0.90(d)

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Notes on Contributors xi

Introduction xv

The Origins and Development of Greek Mythography

1 Herodotos and the Early Mythographers: The Case of the Kabeiroi R.L. Fowler 1

2 Choerilus Mythistoricus? K.A. MacFarlane 21

3 Greek Thebes in the Early Mythographic Tradition D.W. Berman 37

Hellenistic and Imperial Mythography

4 Local Mythography: The Pride of Halicar-nassus J.N. Bremmer 55

5 Citation, Organization and Authorial Presence in Ps.-Apollodorus' Bibliotheca S.M. Trzaskoma 75

6 Text and Transmission of Ps.-Apollodorus' Bibliotheca: Avenues for Future Research U. Kenens 95

7 † Traces of Scholarship and Erudition in Greek Mythographic Papyri from the Roman Period M. Huys 115

8 Hyginus' Fabulae: Toward a Roman Mythography K.F.B. Fletcher 133

9 Mythographic Material and Method in the So-Called 'Statius Scholia' R.S. Smith 165

The Mythographic Impulse and Other Genres

10 Geographers as Mythographers: The Case of Strabo L.E. Patterson 201

11 Complementarity and Contradiction in Ovidian Mythography J. Farrell 223

12 Young Achilles in the Roman World A. Cameron 253

13 True or False? Greek Myth and Mythography in the Progymnasmata C.A. Gibson 289

14 Fulgentius the Mythographer? G. Hays 309

Bibliography 335

Index of names, subjects and passages 359