Unleash Your Inner Mythologist

9 Questions

What is classical mythology?

The study of myths from ancient Greece and Rome as they are used or transformed by cultural reception

What are the major survivals of classical antiquity throughout later Western culture?

Philosophy, political thought, and mythology

When did the myths enter the literate era?

Around 700 BC

What are mythography and mythographers?

Later works by those who studied or collected the myths, or sometimes all literary works relating to mythology

What were Greek myths often concerned with?

The actions of gods and other supernatural beings and of heroes who transcend human bounds

What are Roman myths?

Traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins, religious institutions, and moral models, with a focus on human actors and only occasional intervention from deities but a pervasive sense of divinely ordered destiny

What did the Romans do with Greek myths?

Identified their own gods with those of the Greeks, keeping their own Roman names but adopting the Greek stories told about them (see interpretatio graeca) and importing other myths for which they had no counterpart

What was the literary collection of Greco-Roman myths with the greatest influence on later Western culture?

The Metamorphoses of the Augustan poet Ovid

What did Rome take over and adapt from Greek culture?

Philosophy, rhetoric, history, epic, tragedy and their forms of art

Study Notes

Study of Myths of the Greeks and Romans

Classical mythology is the study of myths from ancient Greeks and ancient Romans as they are used or transformed by cultural reception.
Along with philosophy and political thought, mythology represents one of the major survivals of classical antiquity throughout later Western culture.
The myths are believed to have been acquired first by oral tradition, entering since Homer and Hesiod (c. 700 BC) the literate era.
Later works by those who studied or collected the myths, or sometimes all literary works relating to mythology, are known as mythography and those who wrote them as mythographers.
Greek myths were narratives related to ancient Greek religion, often concerned with the actions of gods and other supernatural beings and of heroes who transcend human bounds.
Roman myths are traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins, religious institutions, and moral models, with a focus on human actors and only occasional intervention from deities but a pervasive sense of divinely ordered destiny.
The Romans identified their own gods with those of the Greeks, keeping their own Roman names but adopting the Greek stories told about them (see interpretatio graeca) and importing other myths for which they had no counterpart.
The most famous Roman myth may be the birth of Romulus and Remus and the founding of the city, in which fratricide can be taken as expressing the long history of political division in the Roman Republic.
The literary collection of Greco-Roman myths with the greatest influence on later Western culture was the Metamorphoses of the Augustan poet Ovid.
Mythology was not the only borrowing that the Romans made from Greek culture. Rome took over and adapted many categories of Greek culture: philosophy, rhetoric, history, epic, tragedy and their forms of art.
Some scholars argue that the reason for this “borrowing” is largely due to the chronology of the two cultures.
Many myths of Graeco-Roman antiquity show "a nucleus" that appears in "some later common European folk-tale".