28 THE MYTHS OF CREATION: THE GODS
The mythographers were late compilers of handbooks of mythology. Of
these, the work ascribed to Apollodorus with the title Bibliotheca (Library of Greek
Mythology), which is still valuable, perhaps was composed around A.D. 120. The
Periegesis (Description of Greece) of Pausanias (ca. A.D. 150) contains many myths
in its accounts of religious sites and their works of art.
The philosophers, most notably Plato (fourth century B.C.), used myth for
didactic purposes, and Plato himself developed out of the tradition of religious
tales' "philosophical myth" as a distinct literary form. His myth of Er, for ex-
ample, is a philosophical allegory about the soul and its existence after death. It
is important as evidence for beliefs about the Underworld, and its religious ori-
gins go back to earlier centuries, in particular to the speculations of Pythagorean
and Orphic doctrine. The Roman poet Vergil (discussed later in this chapter), in
his depiction of the afterlife, combines more traditional mythology developed
out of Homer with mythical speculations about rebirth and reincarnation found
in philosophers like Plato. Thus by translating all three authors—Homer, Plato,
and Vergil—on the Realm of Hades (Chapter 15) we have a composite and vir-
tually complete summary of the major mythical and religious beliefs about the
afterlife evolved by the Greeks and Romans.
One late philosopher who retold archaic myths for both philosophical and
satirical purposes was the Syrian author Lucian (born ca. A.D. 120), who wrote
in Greek. His satires, often in dialogue form, present the Olympian gods and
the old myths with a good deal of humor and critical insight. "The Judgment of
Paris," found in Chapter 19, is a fine example of his art.Roman Sources. The Greek authors are the foundation of our knowledge of clas-
sical myth. Nevertheless, the Roman authors were not merely derivative. Vergil
(70-19 B.c.) developed the myth of the Trojan hero Aeneas in his epic, the Aeneid.
In so doing, he preserved the saga of the fall of Troy, a part of the Greek epic
cycle now lost to us. He also developed the legend of the Phoenician queen Dido
and told a number of myths and tales associated with particular Italian locali-
ties, such as the story of Hercules at Rome. Several passages from Vergil appear
in Chapter 26 as well as Chapter 15.
Vergil's younger contemporary Ovid (43 B.C.-A.D. 17) is the single most im-
portant source for classical mythology after Homer, and his poem Metamorphoses
(completed ca. A.D. 8) has probably been more influential—even than Homer—
as a source for representations of the classical myths in literature and art. A kind
of epic, the poem includes more than 200 legends arranged in a loose chrono-
logical framework from the Creation down to Ovid's own time. Many of the
most familiar stories come from Ovid, for example, the stories of Echo and Nar-
cissus, Apollo and Daphne, and Pyramus and Thisbe. Ovid's poem on the Ro-
man religious calendar, Fasti, is a unique source for the myths of the Roman
gods, although he completed only the first six months of the religious year. We
include a great deal from Ovid, in direct translation or in paraphrase.