Greek Mythography in the Roman World (Society for Classical Studies American Classical Studies, No. 48)

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. "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, or on the silverware at well-appointed homes." "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."--BOOK JACKET. "Sophron of Syracuse wrote in the late fifth/early fourth century BC. He represents our only surviving example of classical Greek mime, and is an important example of the classical literary tradition outside Athens. This is the first book devoted exclusively to the mimes for over fifty years, and the first-ever in English. It provides a new translation of the fragments, and a detailed commentary that explores not only Sophron's relationship to early, non-mime traditions such as iambus, but also his influence on Hellenistic poetry, particularly Theocritus and Herodas. The text is based on Kassel and Austin's magisterial Poetae Comici Graeci, but there are also several new fragments. A substantial introductions deals with the meagre biographical material and discusses the important question of the mimes' performance and audience. There is detailed discussion of Sophron's dialect and lexicon, the textual tradition, and his impact on post-classical literature."--Jacket Contents 14 Abbreviations 16 Chapter 1. An Anonymous Ancient Commentary on Ovid’s Metamorphoses? 20 Chapter 2. The Greek Sources of Hyginus and Narrator 50 Chapter 3. Mythological Summaries and Companions 69 Chapter 4. Narrator and His Greek Predecessors 87 Chapter 5. Historiae and Source References 106 Chapter 6. Bogus Citations 141 Chapter 7. Myth in the Margins 181 Chapter 8. Mythographus Vergilianus 201 Chapter 9. Myth and Society 234 Chapter 10. The Roman Poets 270 Chapter 11. Conclusion 321 Appendix 1. Lactantius Placidus 330 Appendix 2. Three Versions of Hyginus 334 Appendix 3. The Text of the Narrationes 336 Appendix 4. Marginal Source Citations in Parthenius and Antoninus Liberalis 338 Appendix 5. Source Citations in the Origo Gentis Romanae 345 Appendix 6. Anonymus Florentinus 352 Index 358 A 358 B 359 C 359 D 359 E 360 F 360 G 360 H 360 I 360 J 360 K 360 L 360 M 361 N 361 O 361 P 361 Q 362 R 362 S 362 T 363 U 363 V 363 X 363