Greek Mythography in the Roman World

Greek Mythography in the Roman World
Author: Alan Cameron
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2004-09-02
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0195171217

By the Roman age the traditional stories of Greek myth had long since ceased to reflect popular culture, and become instead a central element in elite culture. This book illustrates the importance of semi-learned mythographic handbooks in the social, literary, and artistic world of Rome. One of the most intriguing features of these works is the fact that they all cite classical sources for the stories they tell, sources which are often forged.

Greek Mythography in the Roman World

Greek Mythography in the Roman World
Author: Alan Cameron
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2004-09-02
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0198038216

By the Roman age the traditional stories of Greek myth had long since ceased to reflect popular culture. Mythology had become instead a central element in elite culture. If one did not know the stories one would not understand most of the allusions in the poets and orators, classics and contemporaries alike; nor would one be able to identify the scenes represented on the mosaic floors and wall paintings in your cultivated friends' houses, or on the silverware on their tables at dinner. Mythology was no longer imbibed in the nursery; nor could it be simply picked up from the often oblique allusions in the classics. It had to be learned in school, as illustrated by the extraordinary amount of elementary mythological information in the many surviving ancient commentaries on the classics, notably Servius, who offers a mythical story for almost every person, place, and even plant Vergil mentions. Commentators used the classics as pegs on which to hang stories they thought their students should know. A surprisingly large number of mythographic treatises survive from the early empire, and many papyrus fragments from lost works prove that they were in common use. In addition, author Alan Cameron identifies a hitherto unrecognized type of aid to the reading of Greek and Latin classical and classicizing texts--what might be called mythographic companions to learned poets such as Aratus, Callimachus, Vergil, and Ovid, complete with source references. Much of this book is devoted to an analysis of the importance evidently attached to citing classical sources for mythical stories, the clearest proof that they were now a part of learned culture. So central were these source references that the more unscrupulous faked them, sometimes on the grand scale.

A Handbook to the Reception of Classical Mythology

A Handbook to the Reception of Classical Mythology
Author: Vanda Zajko
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 496
Release: 2017-04-10
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1444339605

A Handbook to the Reception of Classical Mythology presents a collection of essays that explore a wide variety of aspects of Greek and Roman myths and their critical reception from antiquity to the present day. Reveals the importance of mythography to the survival, dissemination, and popularization of classical myth from the ancient world to the present day Features chronologically organized essays that address different sets of myths that were important in each historical era, along with their thematic relevance Features chronologically organized essays that address different sets of myths that were important in each historical era, along with their thematic relevance Offers a series of carefully selected in-depth readings, including both popular and less well-known examples

The Book of Greek and Roman Folktales, Legends, and Myths

The Book of Greek and Roman Folktales, Legends, and Myths
Author: William Hansen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 579
Release: 2019-10-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691195927

The first anthology to present the entire range of ancient Greek and Roman stories- from myths and fairy tales to jokes Captured centaurs and satyrs, talking animals, people who suddenly change sex, men who give birth, the temporarily insane and the permanently thick-witted, delicate sensualists, incompetent seers, a woman who remembers too much, a man who cannot laugh-these are just some of the colorful characters who feature in the unforgettable stories that ancient Greeks and Romans told in their daily lives. Together they created an incredibly rich body of popular oral stories that include, but range well beyond, mythology-from heroic legends, fairy tales, and fables to ghost stories, urban legends, and jokes.

A Companion to Greek Mythology

A Companion to Greek Mythology
Author: Ken Dowden
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 672
Release: 2014-01-28
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1118785169

A Companion to Greek Mythology presents a series of essays that explore the phenomenon of Greek myth from its origins in shared Indo-European story patterns and the Greeks’ contacts with their Eastern Mediterranean neighbours through its development as a shared language and thought-system for the Greco-Roman world. Features essays from a prestigious international team of literary experts Includes coverage of Greek myth’s intersection with history, philosophy and religion Introduces readers to topics in mythology that are often inaccessible to non-specialists Addresses the Hellenistic and Roman periods as well as Archaic and Classical Greece

The Last Pagans of Rome

The Last Pagans of Rome
Author: Alan Cameron
Publisher: OUP USA
Total Pages: 891
Release: 2011
Genre: History
ISBN: 019974727X

Rufinus' vivid account of the battle between the Eastern Emperor Theodosius and the Western usurper Eugenius by the River Frigidus in 394 represents it as the final confrontation between paganism and Christianity. It is indeed widely believed that a largely pagan aristocracy remained a powerful and active force well into the fifth century, sponsoring pagan literary circles, patronage of the classics, and propaganda for the old cults in art and literature. The main focus of much modern scholarship on the end of paganism in the West has been on its supposed stubborn resistance to Christianity. The dismantling of this romantic myth is one of the main goals of Alan Cameron's book. Actually, the book argues, Western paganism petered out much earlier and more rapidly than hitherto assumed.The subject of this book is not the conversion of the last pagans but rather the duration, nature, and consequences of their survival. By re-examining the abundant textual evidence, both Christian (Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Paulinus, Prudentius) and "pagan" (Claudian, Macrobius, and Ammianus Marcellinus), as well as the visual evidence (ivory diptychs, illuminated manuscripts, silverware), Cameron shows that most of the activities and artifacts previously identified as hallmarks of a pagan revival were in fact just as important to the life of cultivated Christians. Far from being a subversive activity designed to rally pagans, the acceptance of classical literature, learning, and art by most elite Christians may actually have helped the last reluctant pagans to finally abandon the old cults and adopt Christianity. The culmination of decades of research, The Last Pagans of Rome will overturn many long-held assumptions about pagan and Christian culture in the late antique West.

Women and Weasels

Women and Weasels
Author: Maurizio Bettini
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 383
Release: 2013-08-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 022603996X

If you told a woman her sex had a shared, long-lived history with weasels, she might deck you. But those familiar with mythology know better: that the connection between women and weasels is an ancient and favorable one, based in the Greek myth of a midwife who tricked the gods to ease Heracles’s birth—and was turned into a weasel by Hera as punishment. Following this story as it is retold over centuries in literature and art, Women and Weasels takes us on a journey through mythology and ancient belief, revising our understanding of myth, heroism, and the status of women and animals in Western culture. Maurizio Bettini recounts and analyzes a variety of key literary and visual moments that highlight the weasel’s many attributes. We learn of its legendary sexual and childbearing habits and symbolic association with witchcraft and midwifery, its role as a domestic pet favored by women, and its ability to slip in and out of tight spaces. The weasel, Bettini reveals, is present at many unexpected moments in human history, assisting women in labor and thwarting enemies who might plot their ruin. With a parade of symbolic associations between weasels and women—witches, prostitutes, midwives, sisters-in-law, brides, mothers, and heroes—Bettini brings to life one of the most venerable and enduring myths of Western culture.

Pausanias in the World of Greek Myth

Pausanias in the World of Greek Myth
Author: Greta Hawes
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2021
Genre: History
ISBN: 0198832559

The author uses Pausanias's Periegesis to illuminate the spatial dynamics of Greek myth, showing how apparently conflicting local versions belonged to a unifying cultural expression.

Greek Myths in Roman Art and Culture

Greek Myths in Roman Art and Culture
Author: Zahra Newby
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 409
Release: 2016-09-15
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1107072247

A new reading of the portrayal of Greek myths in Roman art, revealing important shifts in Roman values and identities.

The Myths of Rome

The Myths of Rome
Author: Timothy Peter Wiseman
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780859897044

"It is often thought, for no good reason, that myth and history are mutually exclusive. But most mythic stories were believed by their tellers, and some of them were true. Was Lucretia a real woman, raped by the king's son? Did Horatius really hold the bridge alone against an army? Nobody knows; but figures like Spartacus, Cleopatra, Caligula and Nero were certainly real flesh and blood before they became figures of myth. The long history of the Roman People and their city - whether under the kings, the free republic, or the Caesars - generated countless stories, no less mythic than the tale of Troy." --Book Jacket.