Mythography
Mythography is the scientific and philological collection and interpretation of myths. Those involved in this activity, people are referred to as mythographers.
Overview
In classical studies mythographers the word refers to those writers of antiquity, which, as Lysimachus, Dionysios Skytobrachion, Asclepiades, inter alia, since the Alexandrian period ( its heyday was in the 2nd and 3rd century BC), the various myths and machined seals of the earlier times in prose and put together.
Also, it is customary in the collections of the meager remnants of this literature to understand those writers under this name, which it is not the same both to the narrative of the myths as to interpretation do. The obtained main writings of the latter genus are the work of Cornutus about the nature of the gods and the Homeric Allegories of Heraclitus, which have a predominantly philosophical trend and represent the main direction of allegorical myths statement, the physical, which the nature of the gods as a carrier of the old legends leads back to the forces of nature.
The second direction of the myths explanation, the historical or pragmatic, is represented not only by the relevant books of Diodorus especially by the poor received Libri de incredibilibus of Palaiphatos and that of Heraclitus.
The most important remains of the actual writings of Greek mythographers are the Libraries of Apollodorus, the obtained only when Photius in the extract Narrationes of Conon, the Narrationes amatoriae of Parthenius, the Transformationes of Antoninus Liberalis that the Eratosthenes enclosed Katasterismen.
In the collections of Roman Mythographi to find especially the Fabulae of Hyginus, the Mythologiae Fulgentius, the Narrationes fabularum Ovidiarum ( from Ovid, formerly erroneously Lutatius Placidus were attributed to ), the written in the Middle Ages from a Albericus Book De deorum imaginibus u a
List of mythographers
- Antigonus of Carystus
- Antoninus Liberalis
- Apollodorus
- Apollonius of Rhodes
- Aristarchus of Samothrace
- Aristophanes of Byzantium
- Asclepiades of Tragilos
- Boios
- Cicero
- Clement of Alexandria
- Cornutus
- Your Archos
- Diodorus
- Dionysius Skytobrachion
- Didymos Chalkenteros
- Eratosthenes
- Euhemerus
- Fulgentius
- Glaucus
- Hecataeus
- Herodorus of Heraclea
- Hesiod
- Hyginus
- Callimachus
- Conon
- Lactantius Placidus
- Lysimachus
- Nikandros
- Palaiphatos
- Parthenius
- Philochorus
- Philostephanos
- Ptolemy Chennos
- Theon
- Zenodotos
Expenditure
An early edition of the Mythographi Graeci worried Anton Westermann ( Braunschweig 1843); the Mythographi Latini gave Thomas Muncker ( 2 vols, Amsterdam 1681) and Augustinus van Staveren ( 2 vols, Leiden 1712) out, which was then still the issue of the three Mythographi Vaticano, of which at least the first nor the pagan antiquity belongs, by has come Angelo Mai (Rome 1831 ) and Georg Heinrich Bode ( Celle, 1834 ). Recently, the first two were Mythographi Vaticano by Péter Kulcsár published ( Turnholti: Brepols, 1987; Corpvs Christianorvm: Series Latina). Other collections are the Mythographi Graeci I-III edd. Wagner Sakolowski Martini Olivieri- Festa, 1894-1902. Also in the collection edited by Felix Jacoby fragments of Greek historians mythographisches material is included.