Palaephatus

Palaephatus (Greek: Παλαίφατος) was the original author of a rationalizing text on Greek mythology, the work of paradoxography On Incredible Tales (Περὶ ἀπίστων (ἰστορίων) Peri apiston (historion); Latin: Incredibilia), which survives in a (probably corrupt) Byzantine edition.

This work consists of an introduction and 52 brief sections on various Greek myths. The first 45 have a common format: a brief statement of a wonder tale from Greek mythology, usually followed by a claim of disbelief ("This is absurd" or "This is not likely" or "The true version is..."), and then a sequence of every-day occurrences which gave rise to the wonder-story through misunderstanding. The last seven are equally brief retellings of myth, without any rationalizing explanation.

Palaephatus' date and name are uncertain; many scholars have concluded that Palaephatus is a pseudonym; the evidence, such as it is, is all of it consistent with the late fourth century BC.

On Incredible Things

Palaephatus' introduction sets his approach between those who believe everything that is said to them and those more subtle minds who believe that none [of Greek mythology] ever happened. He sets up two premises: that every story derives from some past event, and a principle of uniformity, that "anything which existed in the past now exists and will exist hereafter"; this he derives from the philosophers Melissus and Lamiscus of Samos. So there must be some probable series of events behind all myth; but the "poets and early historians" made them into wonderful tales to amaze their audience. Palaephatus then claims to base what follows on personal research, going to many places and asking older people what happened.

A typical, if short,[1] example of Palaephatus' method and tone is his handling of Callisto:

"The story about Callisto is that while she was out hunting she turned into a bear. What I maintain is that she too during a hunt found her way into a grove of trees where a bear happened to be and was devoured. Her hunting companions saw her going into the grove, but not coming out; they said that the girl turned into a bear." (§14, tr. Stern)

As usual in Palaephatus, the miracle is told baldly and without context, and the action of the gods is not mentioned; in the traditional story, Artemis transforms Callisto, because she was an unfaithful priestess. Palaephatus rarely mentions the gods,[2] and when he discusses Actaeon, his statement of disbelief is: "Artemis can do whatever she wants, yet it is not true that a man became a deer or a deer a man" (§6, tr. Stern); his principle of uniformity applies to human beings. Jacob Stern distinguishes this from the more wide-ranging rationalism of Euhemerus: Palaephatus retains Callisto and Actaeon as historic human beings; rationalism extended to the gods can make them deified human beings or personifications of natural forces or of the passions, but does not leave them gods.[3]

Palaephatus uses four principal devices for explaining the wonders of myth, and a number of minor devices:

The author's identity and the Suda entries

Palaephatus is a very rare name, and many scholars have concluded that it is a pseudonym; as an adjective in epic poetry, it meant of ancient fame; it could also mean speaker of old tales. If Palaephatus wrote (as is perhaps most likely) in Athens in the fourth century BC, rationalizing Greek mythology could be dangerous; Anaxagoras had been sent into exile in the previous century for no more.

The only accounts of the life of any Palaephatus are four entries in the Suda (pi 69, 70, 71, 72), a Byzantine biographical dictionary, compiled about 1000 AD:

"Palaephatus of Athens"

Palaephatus of Athens, an epic poet, to whom a mythical origin was assigned. According to some he was a son of Actaeus and Boeo, according to others of Iocles and Metaneira, and according to a third statement of Hermes. The time at which he lived is uncertain, but he appears to have been usually placed after Phemonoe, though some writers assigned him even an earlier date. He is represented by Christodorus (Anth. Graec., i. p. 27, ed. Tauchnitz) as an old bard crowned with laurel. The Suda has preserved the titles of the following poems of Palaephatus:

"Palaephatus of Paros"

Palaephatus of Paros, or Priene, lived in the time of Artaxerxes. Suidas attributes to him the five books of Incredible Things [also five books of On Troy], but adds that many persons assigned this work to Palaephatus of Athens.

"Palaephatus of Abydos"

Palaephatus of Abydos, an historian who lived in the time of Alexander the Great, and is stated to have been loved (παιδικά) by the philosopher Aristotle, for which the Suda[4] quotes the authority of Philo, Peri paradoxou historias, and of Theodorus of Ilium, Troica, Book 2. Suidas gives the titles of the following works of Palaephatus: Cypriaca, Deliaca, Attica, Arabica.

(Smith explains that some writers believe that this Palaephatus of Abydos wrote the fragment on Assyrian history, which is preserved by Eusebius of Caesarea, and which is quoted by him as the work of Abydenus; but Abydenus is that author's name, not the adjective meaning "from Abydos".)

"Palaephatus the Egyptian"

Palaephatus, an Egyptian or Athenian, and a grammarian, as he is described by Suidas, who assigns to him the following works:

One author behind these traditions

Of these, the first Palaephatus is, like Phemonoe, entirely legendary; modern scholars regard the other three as different literary traditions relating to the author of On Incredible Things. The Troica did once exist, and was cited in antiquity for geographical information on the people of the Trojan War, the Troad itself, and the surrounding area of Asia Minor; ancient authors cited the work's seventh and ninth books, so it must have been fairly long.[5]

If the Artaxerxes mentioned by the Suda is Artaxerxes III Ochus, these data are all compatible with a student of Aristotle about 340 BC, who came from the area around the Hellespont to Athens, and is called the Egyptian, sometimes, because he wrote on Egypt. The only internal evidence in the surviving book are citations of the two philosophers in the introduction and two literary references; if Melissus is Melissus of Samos, he lived in the previous century, and one possible Lamiscus is a Pythagorean contemporary of Plato.[6] The literary references are one citation of Hesiod and the presentation of Alcestis, which is quite similar to Euripides' Alcestis.

References in ancient literature

The comic poet Athenion has a scene[7] in which an interlocutor praises a cook as a new Palaephatus, to which the cook replies by explaining the benefits bestowed on mankind by the first inventor of cooking, who replaced cannibalism by animal sacrifice and roast meat; this alludes to the "first inventor" theories still reflected in our text of Palaephatus. (Unfortunately, Athenion's date is uncertain, but if he wrote, as it appears, New Comedy, he should be 3rd or 2nd century BC.)

Aelius Theon, the rhetorician, spends a chapter discussing Palaephatus' rationalism, using several of the examples in our text of Palaephatus; other, later, authors cite Palaephatus for instances not in our text: Pseudo-Nonnus, the author of some commentaries on Gregory Nazianzen,[8] attributes to Palaephatus the explanation that Cyclopes were so called because they lived in a round island; Eustathius of Thessalonica ascribes to him the explanation that Laomedon secured the help of Poseidon and Apollo in building the walls of Troy because he seized their temple treasuries to pay his workmen.

Some of the references in the Suda say that Palaephatus' work on myths was in five books, some that it was one book; Eusebius, Jerome, and Orosius all write of the first book of Palaephatus, implying that there were more. Jacob Stern, the modern editor, concludes from this, and the missing references, that Palaephatus was originally in five books, and was condensed down to one sometime before the publication of the Suda, although a fuller copy survived so Eustathius could see it in the twelfth century.

Transmission of the text

There are a dozen manuscripts of the present text, differing in length and in order, dating from the thirteenth through sixteenth century. How much of it derives from Palaephatus himself is open to question, although there is general agreement that the seven chapters of straight unrationalized mythology at the end are not. Festa, who edited the text in 1902, believed that Palaephatian texts became a genre, and our present text is a congeries of texts in that genre, most not by Palaephatus himself; Jacob Stern believes that this is a selection from all five books of the original.

Modern editions

Palaephatus' book was first printed by Aldus Manutius in his 1505 edition of Aesop. It became popular as a school-text because of its simple but Attic Greek, and because the Renaissance approved its approach to classical mythology; it was edited by six more editors before the nineteenth century because of its popularity. Although Aldus did not include a Latin translation, later editors included one; many reprinted Cornelius Tollius' Latin version, included with his Greek text (Amsterdam, 1649). First German edition: Paleaphati INCREDIBILIA Various Notis & doctrinis Moralibus recensuit M. Pavlvs Pater Hungarus. Francofurti ex officina Meyeriana. 1685

Recent editions include:

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ This is six lines of Greek prose; the longest is about eighty, and the median is about twenty
  2. ↑ Stern has a list of eight mentions, but most are insignificant (that, for example, Io was a priestess of Hera)
  3. ↑ Jacob Stern, "Heraclitus the Paradoxographer: Περὶ Ἀπίστων, 'On Unbelievable Tales'" Transactions of the American Philological Association 133.1 (Spring, 2003), pp. 51-97.
  4. ↑ See Suda On Line s.v. and Westermann, Biographoi.
  5. ↑ Suda, under Μακροκέφαλοι; Stephanus of Byzantium, under Χαριμάται; Harpocration under Δυσαύλης
  6. ↑ Lamiscus appears in Plato's Seventh Letter, which may not be genuine; but it probably gives an accurate picture of Plato's world.
  7. ↑ Quoted in Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, Book 14, §660e
  8. ↑ Identification from Pseudo-Nonnus: A Christian’s guide to Greek culture : the Pseudo-Nonnus commentaries on Sermons 4, 5, 39 and 43 by Gregory of Nazianzus ; translated with an introduction and notes by Jennifer Nimmo-Smith, p. 37, which notes that some inferior MSS. give Telephatus, otherwise unknown.

References

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