Mythological dictionaries and compendia
The excellent dictionary by Pierre Grimal is available in two different editions, as the Dictionary of Classical Mythology(Oxford, 1986, com plete edn., with references to ancient sources), or the Penguin Dictionary of Classical Mythology(Harmondsworth, 1991, a convenient abridged edn.). William Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, 3 vols. (London, 1844) is still of value for the mythological entries by Leonhard Schmitz, which are long, generally reliable, and give full references. Robert Graves’ compendium, The Greek Myths, 2vols. (Harmondsworth, 1955) is comprehensive and attractively written (but the interpretative notes are of value only as a guide to the author’s personal mythology); and Karl Kerenyi in The Gods of the Greeks(London, 1951) and The Heroes of the Greeks(London, 1974) has also retold many of the old stories in his own way. H. J. Rose’s Handbook of Greek Mythology(London, 1928) has not aged well, but it is useful on divine mythology in particular.
Other Books on Greek Myth
The literature is vast, and only a few suggestions can be offered here. For those first approaching the subject (and others too), Fritz Graf, Greek Mythology: An Introduction(Baltimore, 1993), can be recommended unreservedly, as a concise but remarkably complete survey, examining the varieties of Greek myth and also changing attitudes to the myths and their interpretation in ancient and modern times, with helpful bibliographies. To this, three other works may be added which, in their different ways, convey an idea of the distinctive nature of Greek myth: K. Dowden, The Uses of Greek Mythology(London, 1992), a lively introductory work; G. S. Kirk, The Nature of Greek Myths(Harmondsworth, 1974), and above all, R. C. A. Buxton, Imaginary Greece: Contexts of Mythology(Cambridge, 1994), a very rich and suggestive study.
Timothy Gantz’s Early Greek Myth(Baltimore, 1993) is an invaluable guide to the literary and artistic evidence on the early mythological tradition. T. H. Carpenter, Art and Myth in Ancient Greece: A Handbook(London, 1991) offers a useful introduction to the treatment of myth in the visual arts. M. L. West, The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women(Oxford, 1985), explains the origins and nature of the genealogical scheme for heroic mythology which was adopted and developed by the early mythographer-historians, and thence by the author of the Library.
Paul Veyne, Did the Greeks Believe in their Myths?(Chicago, 1988), examines the complex and inconsistent attitudes of the Hellenistic and later Greeks to their traditional myths, and M. Detienne, The Creation of Mythology(Chicago, 1986), the development of our modern conception of mythology. On modern approaches to the interpretation of Greek myth since the eighteenth century, see Grafs discussion, and also the illuminating survey by J.-P. Vernant in Myth and Society in Ancient Greece(Brighton, 1966). And finally, two volumes of essays may be mentioned which show some of the ways in which scholars of the present day approach the interpretation of myth: J. N. Bremmer (ed.), Interpretations of Greek Mythology(London, 1987) and L. Edmunds, Approaches to Greek Myth(Baltimore, 1990).
THE LIBRARY OF GREEK MYTHOLOGY
CONTENTS
THE original text of the Librarycontains no formal subdivisions or chapter headings; at most, the author occasionally indicates that he has concluded his account of one family and is passing on to the next. This can make a modern edition difficult to use, even where it is prefaced with an analytical summary, and a reader first approaching the work is likely to feel, quite mistakenly, that it is formless or even chaotic. To overcome these problems, and to make the work’s implicit structure immediately intelligible, I have divided the book into titled chapters and subsections, as summarized in the following table. In the text, these headings, which form no part of the original text, are italicized.
The basic pattern should be apparent at a glance. Greek mythical history begins with the Theogony, accounting for the origin of the world and the divine order within it, and culminates with the Trojan War and its aftermath; and everything that happens in between forms part of the history—or can be related to the history—of the great families of heroic mythology. Considering the richness of the mythological tradition and the multiplicity of independent centres within the Greek world, there are remarkably few main families, only six here (or seven, depending on whether the Pelasgids in Arcadia are considered to be independent from the Inachids). A thorough grasp of their history is evidently the key to an understanding not only of the present work, but of the whole pattern of Greek mythology. Genealogical tables have therefore been added after the Contents (together with some brief remarks on the heroic families and their geographical setting). The roman figures (IA, IB, etc.) in the Contents refer to these tables, indicating which part of the text is covered by each table.
BOOK I
1. Theogony
Ouranos, Ge, and the birth of the Titans
The revolt of the Titans and rule of Cronos
The birth of Zeus and his war against Cronos and the Titans
Descendants of the Titans
Descendants of Pontos and Ge
Various children of Zeus and Hera; children of the Muses
The births of Hephaistos and Athene
Artemis and Apollo
The children of Poseidon; Demeter and Persephone
The revolt of the Giants
The revolt of Typhon
2. The Deucalionids
Prometheus and early man
Deucalion, Pyrrha, and the great flood
The immediate descendants of Deucalion
[IA]
Ceux and Alcyone; the Aloads; Endymion
Early Aetolian genealogies; Evenos and Marpessa
Oineus, Meleager, and the hunt for the Calydonian boar
The later history of Oineus, and the birth and exile of Tydeus
[IB]
Athamas, Ino, and the origin of the golden fleece
Sisyphos, Salmoneus, and other sons of Aiolos
Pelias and Neleus
The earlier history of Bias and Melampous
Admetos and Alcestis
[IC]
3. Jason and the Argonauts
Pelias orders Jason to fetch the golden fleece
Catalogue of the Argonauts
The women of Lemnos; in the land of the Doliones
The loss of Hylas and abandonment of Heracles
Polydeuces and Amycos; Phineus and the Harpies; the Clashing Rocks
Jason, Medea, and the seizure of the fleece
The murder of Apsyrtos and journey to Circe
To the land of the Phaeacians
Anaphe; Talos in Crete
The return to Iolcos and murder of Pelias
The later history of Medea
BOOK II
4. Early Argive mythology (the Inachids, Belid line)
The early descendants of Inachos
The wanderings of Io, and division of the Inachid line
[IIA]
Aigyptos, Danaos, and the Danaids
Proitos and Acrisios divide the Argolid
Bias, Melampous, and the daughters of Proitos
Excursus: the story of Bellerophon
Danae and the birth of Perseus
Perseus fetches the Gorgon’s head
Perseus and Andromeda
The later history of Perseus
The immediate descendants of Perseus