In a striking metaphor that opens one of this book’s central chapters, its editors Smith and Trzaskoma compare the pursuit of Hellenistic mythography to observing a dim star at night – visible only out of the corner of an eye, vanishing when looked at directly (p. 61). This analogy, confined to a particular historical period, encapsulates the spirit of the volume as a whole, for the metaphor speaks not only to the fragmentary and often marginalised nature of the texts under consideration, but also to the scholarly challenge of defining mythography. The volume consistently returns to the challenges of pinning down the term ‘mythography’, whether in its ancient forms or in modern definitions.
The editors’ introduction sets the tone for what is to follow, immediately confronting the conceptual difficulty at the heart of the enterprise. Mythography is defined, tentatively, as ‘ancient writing about myth or the recounting of myth in prose with no pretensions to artistry’ (p. 1), a formulation that is both serviceable and immediately challenged. That the editors acknowledge the definition’s provisional nature is crucial: what follows is not a prescriptive taxonomy but a critical reflection on the disciplinary assumptions that have governed the treatment of mythography. The editors are upfront in their refusal to impose coherence on a diverse and often ambiguous body of material. What they offer instead is ‘productive disagreement and tension’ (p. 3). Indeed, one of the most notable features of the collection is its willingness to let some of the tensions stand.
Part 1, ‘Mythography from Archaic Greece to the Empire’, lays the theoretical groundwork through a sequence of chapters that interrogate the chronology, nature and purpose of mythography. It opens with P. Nieto Hernández’s wide-ranging account of archaic poetic traditions. Nieto Hernández questions the sharp distinction often drawn between poetic and prose treatments of myth, suggesting instead that a ‘mythographical mindset’ is already detectable in authors such as Hesiod. If mythography is characterised by a degree of critical distance from mythic material – rather than by formal properties such as prose narrative –, then much archaic poetry, and indeed tragedy, would merit inclusion. Her chapter thus destabilises the editors’ opening definition and sets the stage for subsequent contributions that return to the difficulty of delineating the scope of the topic.
J. Pàmias follows with an examination of the idea of a ‘mythographical turn’ in classical Greece. Pàmias traces the long-standing assumption – most famously set out in the work of Felix Jacoby – that mythography stands as a transitional or subordinate discourse on the path towards historiography. Pàmias challenges such a teleological reading of mythographical production in the early prose tradition and offers mythography as a genre in its own right, capable of literary value and intellectual ambition. The model inherited from Jacoby – where mythography exists primarily as a prelude to historiography – is subjected to sustained critique, especially in the light of R. Fowler’s recent work, which has ‘demolished earlier conceptions based on Jacoby’s developmental view’ (p. 52). Such a reappraisal not only alters an understanding of early prose traditions but also elevates the status of mythography as an autonomous and legitimate object of study.
These definitional debates are taken up more directly in Smith and Trzaskoma’s chapter on Hellenistic mythography, the point in the volume where the metaphor of the ‘dim star’ is introduced. Hellenistic mythography is, they argue, both pervasive and elusive. Its key figures – such as Asclepiades and Apollodorus – are often preserved only in fragments or citations, and their works are known largely by title or through later reworkings. Yet these authors represent an important intellectual shift: the emergence of a critical engagement with myth. Their writing, frequently associated with scholarly production in Alexandria, demonstrates a new concern with variant traditions, source criticism and the taxonomic organisation of mythic material.
The remaining chapters of Part 1 continue the chronological trajectory into the Roman and imperial periods. C. Delattre’s chapter charts the proliferation of mythographical activity in various forms: commentaries, treatises and encyclopaedic compilations. While much of this material is fragmentary or preserved in indirect transmission, Delattre explores the literary and cultural significance of these works. Smith concludes this part with a survey of Latin mythography, from Hyginus’ Fabulae and De Astronomia to the often-overlooked scholia on Latin epic. These sources – once dismissed as derivative or unoriginal – are reinterpreted as products of a vibrant mythographical tradition.
Part 2, ‘Mythographers’, shifts from diachronic frameworks to individual case studies. Here, the scope is impressively broad, encompassing canonical figures such as Apollodorus and Parthenius as well as lesser-known authors such as Conon and Cornutus. E. Sistakou opens with a discussion of Alexandrian ‘learned poetry’, examining the mythographical impulses at work in the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius and Lycophron’s Alexandra, both of which are, as she investigates, deeply informed by scholarly mythographical traditions and function as sophisticated engagements with the mythic evidence base. Next, K. Dowden’s chapter on Dictys and Dares – long neglected in modern scholarship – offers a reassessment of these so-called ‘anti-Homeric’ texts, which present the Trojan War from alternative perspectives (e.g. that of Paris) and challenge the authority of Homer while also prefiguring later rationalising approaches to myth. Dowden’s treatment of Dictys, in particular, underscores the potential of such works to reshape an understanding of ancient mythological reception.
Further chapters in this section expand the range of authors considered. Delattre returns with a second chapter, this time on Antoninus Liberalis, while Trzaskoma offers a nuanced reading of Apollodorus – the ‘Mythographer’ par excellence. M. Sanz Morales discusses the narratives of Conon, while I. Ramelli considers Cornutus’ Survey of the Traditions of Greek Theology. Meanwhile, I. Sulimani investigates the mythographical significance of Diodorus Siculus, and G. Hawes and D. Konstan examine, respectively, the ‘unbelievable stories’ of Heraclitus the Mythographer and the Homeric Problems of Heraclitus the Allegorist, drawing attention to the boundary between mythography and allegorical exegesis.
In the other contributions in this section K.F.B. Fletcher examines Hyginus’ Fabulae, J. Pagès explores the Mythographus Homericus, A. Harder considers mythography preserved in papyri, and N. Villagra investigates the huge potential for approaching scholia as mythography. Several chapters – J. Farrell’s on Ovidian mythography, C. Francese’s on Parthenius, H. Koning’s on Palaephatus and W. Hutton’s on Pausanias – draw explicit connections between mythographical practice and literary artistry, challenging the notion that mythography lacks aesthetic ambition. C. Meccariello’s chapter closes Part 2 with a discussion of tragic mythography, another area where the boundaries between mythic retelling and critical commentary turn out to be fluid.
Part 3, ‘Interpretations and Intersections’, extends the thematic range still further. Rather than focusing on individual authors or works, this section groups chapters by conceptual modes. Here we find chapters on rationalising and historicising (a second contribution by Hawes), allegorising and philosophising (Ramelli’s second chapter), and etymologising (E. Pellizer). These ‘-ising’ verbs reflect the editors’ emphasis on mythography as a set of intellectual operations and not merely a descriptive genre. A. Zucker writes on catasterisms, D. Berman on local mythologies, I. Pajón Leyra on paradoxography and M. Pretzler on geography and myth. This section also includes contributions by the editors on mythography and education, and by L. Patterson on mythography and politics. These chapters collectively highlight the diverse functions of mythography in antiquity – as a mode of explanation, a tool of cultural pedagogy and a means of ideological expression.
The tone of ‘productive disagreement’ that characterises earlier chapters is brought into sharp relief in C. Calame’s contribution, which closes Part 3. Calame argues that mythography did not exist before the fourth century bce – at least not under that name. He thus excludes Homer, Hesiod and early prose authors from the mythographical canon and explicitly rejects the model proposed by Fowler. His chapter stands in counterpoint to the more inclusive approach that characterises the rest of the book. His critique of Fowler is unusually direct, even polemical. In his ‘further reading’ section, he advises readers to use Fowler’s Early Greek Mythography ‘only with the greatest caution’ (p. 472). Such advice stands in stark contrast to the concluding invitation to readers in Dowden’s chapter to approach any follow-up enquiry with curiosity and enjoyment.
The final sections of the volume shift towards connections between mythography and visual arts and the reception and adaptation of ancient mythography in later periods. The potential for a study of visual arts to inform an understanding of mythography is addressed in chapters on ancient Greek vase painting (K. Topper), Roman wall painting (E. Winsor Leach) and sarcophagi (Z. Newby). These chapters highlight the intersection between visual and literary traditions of mythographical representation, providing a rich cross-disciplinary perspective. The volume continues with chapters on the transformation of mythographical traditions in Christianity (J. Nimmo Smith) and the Byzantine and Renaissance periods (two chapters by B. Garstad). The final chapter, by J. Solomon, traces the influence of ancient mythographical traditions into the Renaissance, thus bringing the volume’s inquiry into the modern era.
Like other Oxford Handbooks, this volume’s ambitions and achievements exceed the provision of introductory material. It offers a sophisticated and comprehensive survey of the field, reflecting the range of scholarly approaches to mythography, from the more ‘technical’ to the more ‘theoretical’. Though Fowler is not among the contributors, his presence looms large throughout, both as a point of reference and, in one case, as a foil. The editors are to be commended for assembling a diverse and authoritative group of contributors, and for building on their previous collaborative work for their Oxford Bibliographies Online article on the same topic. The book maps a field still in the process of defining its boundaries and shows the field – and the boundaries of that field – to be provisional, contested and set to continue to evolve as a field of study.
