Palaephatus (Παλαιφατος) is the name of four literary persons in Suidas, who, however, seems to have confounded different persons and writings. Suda (Σουδα or alternatively Suidas) is the name of a massive medieval lexicon, not an author as was formerly supposed. ...

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 locles 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 [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 Suidas has preserved the titles of the following poems of Palaephatus: Athens (Greek: Αθήνα - Athína) is the largest city and capital of Greece, located in the Attica periphery of central Greece. ... Actaeus (Actaeüs) was the first king of Athens, father of Agraulus and father-in-law to Cecrops, the second king of Athens. ... In Greek mythology, Metanira (or Metaenira or Metaneira) was a queen of Eleusis and wife of Celeus. ... Hermes bearing the infant Dionysus, by Praxiteles, found at the Heraion, Olympia, 1877 Hermes (Greek, , IPA: ), in Greek mythology, is the Olympian god of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures... Christodorus, of Coptos in Egypt, epic poet, flourished during the reign of Anastasius I (491-518). ... Tauchnitz was the name of a family of German printers and publishers. ...

1. Κοσμοποιιαν, εις επη ε',
2. 'Απολλωνος και 'Αρτεμιδος γονας επη ε'
3. 'Αφροδιτης και Ερωτος φωνας και λογους επη ε'
4. 'Αθηνας εριν και Ποδειδωνος επη ε'
5. 'Αητους πλοκαμον

Palaephatus of Paros

Palaephatus of Paros, or Priene, lived in the time of Artaxerxes. Suidas attributes to him the five books of Atricrra, but adds that many persons assigned this work to Palaephatus of Athens. This is the work which is still extant, and is spoken of below. Artaxerxes was the name of several rulers of the Achaemenid dynasty of Persia: Artaxerxes I Artaxerxes II Artaxerxes III Arses of Persia is believed to have taken the royal title of Artaxerxes IV. Bessus, the Persian nobleman who murdered Darius III of Persia, renamed himself Artaxerxes when he claimed the...

Palaephatus of Abydus

Palaephatus of Abydus, an historian (ιστορικος), lived in the time of Alexander the Great, and is stated to have been loved (παιδικα) by the philosopher Aristotle, for which Suidas quotes the authority of Philo, περι παραδοξον ιδτοριας, and of Theodorus of Ilium, 'Εν δευτερω Τρωικων. Suidas gives the titles of the following works of Palaephatus: Κυπριακα, Δηλιακα, 'Αττικα, 'Αραζικα. Some writers believe that this Palaephatus of Abydus is the author of the fragment on Assyrian history, which is preserved by Eusebius, and which is quoted by him as the work of Abydenus. There can, how­ever, be little doubt that Abydenus is the name of the writer, and not an appellative taken from his native place. (Voss. de Hist. Graec, pp. 85, 375, ed. Westermann.) [abydenus.] An historian is someone who writes history, a written accounting of the past. ... Alexander the Great (Greek: ,[1] Megas Alexandros; July 356 BC–June 11, 323 BC), also known as Alexander III, king of Macedon (336–323 BC), was one of the most successful military commanders in history. ... Aristotle (Greek: AristotélÄ“s) (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. ... An Assyrian winged bull, or lemmasu. ... Eusebius of Caesarea Eusebius of Caesarea (c. ... Abydenus, a Greek historian, was the author of an History of the Chaldeans and Assyrians, of which some fragments are preserved by Eusebius in his Praeparatio Evangelica, and by Cyril in his work against Julian. ...

Palaephatus the Egyptian

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

1. Αιγυπτιακη θεολογια
2. Μυθικων Βιβλιον α
3. Λυσεις των μυθικως ειρημενων
4. 'Υποθεσεις εις Σιμωνιδην
5. Τρωικα, which some however attributed to the Athenian [No. 1], and others to the Parian [No. 2].

He also wrote Ιστυρια ιδια. It has been supposed that the Μυθικα and the Λυσεις are one and the same work; but we have no certain in­formation on the point. Of these works the Τρωικα seems to have been the most celebrated, as we find it frequently referred to by the ancient gramma­rians. It contained apparently geographical and historical discussions respecting Asia Minor and more particularly its northern coasts, and must have been divided into several books. (Comp. Suidas, s. v. Μακροκεφαλοι; Steph. Byz. s. v. Χαριμαται; Harpocrates s. v. Δυθανλνς) Stephanus Byzantinus (Stephanus of Byzantium), the author of a geographical dictionary entitled Εθνικα (Ethnica), of which, apart from some fragments, we possess only the meagre epitome of one Hermolaus. ... The child Horus represented to the ancient Egyptians the new-born Sun, rising each day at dawn. ...

There is extant a small work entitled Παλαιφατος περι απιστων or "Concerning Incredible Tales", giving a brief account of some of the most celebrated Greek legends. That this is merely an abstract of a much larger work is evident from many considerations ; first, because Suidas speaks of it as consisting of five books [see above, No. 2]; secondly, because many of the ancient writers refer to Palaephatus for statements which are not found in the treatise now extant; and thirdly, because the manuscripts exhibit it in various forms, the abridgement being sometimes briefer and sometimes longer. It was doubtless the original work to which Virgil refers (Cms, 88): Publius Vergilius Maro (October 15, 70 BC – September 21, 19 BC), later called Virgilius, and known in English as Virgil or Vergil, was a classical Roman poet, the author of the Eclogues, the Georgics and the substantially completed Aeneid, the last being an epic poem of twelve books that became...

"Docta Palaephatia testatur voce papyrus."

Respecting the author of the original work there is however much dispute, and we must be content to leave the matter in uncertainty. Some of the earliest modern writers on Greek literature assigned the work to the ancient epic poet [No. 1]; but this untenable supposition was soon abandoned, and the work was then ascribed to the Parian, as it is by Suidas. But if this Palaephatus was the contemporary of Artaxerxes as Suidas asserts, it is impossible to believe that the myths could have been treated at so early a period in the rationalizing way in which we find them discussed in the extant epitome. In addition to which we find the ancient writers calling the author sometimes a peripatetic and sometimes a stoic philosopher (Theon, Progymn. 6, 12; Tzetzes, Chil. ix. 273, x. 20), from which we must conclude, if these designations are correct, that he must have lived after the time of Alexander the Great, and could not therefore even have been the native of Abydus [No. 3], as others have maintained. It is thus impossible to identify the author of the work with any of the three persons just mentioned; but from his adopting the rational­istic interpretation of the myths, he must be looked upon as a disciple of Evemerus [evemerus], and may thus have been an Alexandrine Greek, and the same person as the grammarian spoken of by Suidas, who calls him an Egyptian or Athenian. [No. 4.] Artaxerxes was the name of several rulers of the Achaemenid dynasty of Persia: Artaxerxes I Artaxerxes II Artaxerxes III Arses of Persia is believed to have taken the royal title of Artaxerxes IV. Bessus, the Persian nobleman who murdered Darius III of Persia, renamed himself Artaxerxes when he claimed the... Theon (c. ... John Tzetzes, was a Byzantine poet and grammarian, known to have lived at Constantinople during the 12th century. ... Alexander the Great (Greek: ,[1] Megas Alexandros; July 356 BC–June 11, 323 BC), also known as Alexander III, king of Macedon (336–323 BC), was one of the most successful military commanders in history. ...

The work Περι απιστων consists of 51 sections, of which only the first 46 contain explanations of the myths. The remaining five sections are written in an entirely different style, without any expression of distrust or disbelief as to the common form of the myth; and as they are want­ing in all manuscripts at present extant, they are probably the work of another hand. In the first 46 sections Palaephatus generally relates in a few lines the common form of the myth, introducing it with some such words as φασιν ως, λεγεται ως, etc.; he then expresses his disbelief, and finally proceeds to give what he considers a rational ac­count of the matter. The nature of the work is well characterised by Mr Grote (Hist. of Greece, vol. i. p. 553, etc.). "Another author who seems to have conceived clearly, and applied consistently, the semi-historical theory of the Grecian myths, is Palaephatus. In the short preface of his treatise Concerning Incredible Tales, he remarks, that some men, from want of instruction, believe all the current narratives; while others, more searching and cautious, disbelieve them altogether. Each of these extremes he is anxious to avoid: on the one Land, he thinks that no narrative could ever have acquired credence unless it had been founded in truth; on the other, it is impossible for him to accept so much of the existing narratives as conflicts with the analogies of present natural phaenomena. If such things ever had been, they would still con­tinue to be--but they never have so occurred; and the extra-analogical features of the stories are to be ascribed to the licence of the poets. Palaephatus wishes to adopt a middle course, neither accepting all nor rejecting all; accordingly, he had taken great pains to separate the true from the false in many of the narratives; he had visited the locali­ties wherein they had taken place, and made care­ful inquiries from old men and others. The results of his researches are presented in a new version of fifty legends, among the most celebrated and the most fabulous, comprising the Centaurs, Pasiphaë, Actaeon, Cadmus and the Sparti, the Sphinx, Cycnus, Daedalus, the Trojan horse, Aeolus, Scylla, Geryon, Bellerophon, etc. George Grote George Grote (November 17, 1794 - June 18, 1871) was an English classical historian. ... In Greek mythology, the centaurs (Greek: Κένταυροι) are a race of creatures composed of part human and part horse. ... In Greek mythology, Pasiphaë (Eng. ... Actaeon and his dogs In Greek mythology, Actaeon (or Aktaion), son of Aristaeus and Autonoe in Boeotia, was a famous Theban hero, trained by the centaur Cheiron but suffered the fatal wrath of Artemis (or her Roman counterpart Diana). ... Cadmus Sowing the Dragons teeth, by Maxfield Parrish, 1908 Caddmus, or Kadmos (Greek: Κάδμος), in Greek mythology, was the son of the king of Phoenicia (Modern day Lebanon) and brother of Europa. ... The Great Sphinx of Giza, with the Pyramid of Khafre in the background For other uses, see Sphinx (disambiguation). ... In Greek mythology, four people were known as Cycnus or Cygnus. ... Daedalus and Icarus, by Charles Paul Landon, 1799 (Musée des Beaux-Arts et de la Dentelle, Alençon) In Greek mythology, Daedalus (Latin, also Hellenized Latin Daedalos, Greek Daidalos (Δαίδαλος) meaning cunning worker, and Etruscan Taitle) was a most skillful artificer, so skillful that he was said to have invented... Greek mythology, Scylla, or Skylla (Greek Σκύλλα) was a name shared by two characters, a female sea monster and a princess. ... Heracles fighting Geryon, amphora by the E Group, ca. ... Bellerophon on Pegasus spears the Chimaera, on an Attic red-figure epinetron — 425–420 BC Bellerophon or Bellerophontes (perhaps bearing darts[1]) was a hero of Greek mythology, the greatest hero and slayer of monsters, alongside of Kadmos and Perseus, before the days of Heracles[2]—whose greatest feat was...

It must be confessed that Palaephatus has performed his promise of transforming the 'Incredibilia' into narratives in themselves plausible and unobjectionable, and that in doing so he always follows some thread of ana­logy, real or verbal. The Centaurs (he tells us) were a body of young men from the village of Nephele in Thessaly, who first trained and mounted horses for the purpose of repelling a herd of bulls belonging to Ixion, king of the Lapithae, which had run wild and did great damage: they pursued these wild bulls on horseback, and pierced them with their spears, thus acquiring both the name of Prickers (κεντορες) and the imputed attribute of joint body Avith the horse. Actaeon was an Arca­dian, who neglected the cultivation of his land for the pleasures of hunting, and was thus eaten up by the expense of his hounds. The dragon whom Cadmus killed at Thebes, was in reality Draco, king of Thebes; and the dragon's teeth, which he was said to have sown, and from whence sprung a crop of armed men, were in point of fact elephant's teeth, which Cadmus, as a rich Phoenician, had brought over with him: the sons of Draco sold these elephants' teeth, and employed the proceeds to levy troops against Cadmus. Daedalus, instead of flying across the sea on wings, had escaped from Crete in a swift-sailing boat under a violent storm. Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges were not persons with one hundred hands, but inhabitants of the village of Hecatoncheiria in Upper Macedonia, who warred with the inhabitants of Mount Olympus against the Titans. Scylla, whom Odysseus so narrowly escaped, was a fast-sailing piratical vessel, as was also Pegasus, the alleged winged horse of Belle­rophon. By such ingenious conjectures, Palaephatus eliminates all the incredible circumstances, and leaves to us a string of tales perfectly credible and common-place, which we should readily believe, provided a very moderate amount of testimony could be produced in their favour. If his treat­ment not only disenchants the original myths, but even effaces their generic and essential character, we ought to remember that this is not more than what is done by Thucydides in his sketch of the Trojan war. Palaephatus handles the myths con­sistently, according to the semi-historical theory, and his results exhibit the maximum which that theory can ever present: by aid of conjecture we get out of the impossible and arrive at matters in­trinsically plausible, but totally uncertified; be­yond this point we cannot penetrate, without the light of extrinsic evidence, since there is no intrinsic mark to distinguish truth from plausible fiction." Cottus may mean: Cottus, one of the Hecatonchires of Greek mythology Cottus, a genus of sculpin fish This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The hecatonchires or hecatoncheires (the hundred-handed) were figures of Greek mythology, giants with a hundred arms and fifty heads. ... Gyges can be: A figure from Greek mythology, one of the Hecatonchires. ... This article is about the Greek mountain. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion, because: it is patent nonsense. ... Head of Odysseus from a Greek 2nd century BC marble group representing Odysseus blinding Polyphemus, found at the villa of Tiberius at Sperlonga Odysseus or Ulysses (Greek Odysseys; Latin: Ulixes or, less commonly, Ulysses), pronounced , is the main hero in Homers epic poem, the Odyssey, and plays a key... Pegasus and Bellerophon, Attic red-figure Pegasus and Bellerophon, from Mabie, Hamilton Wright (Ed. ... Bust of Thucydides residing in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. ...

It has been already remarked that the manu­scripts of the Περι απιστων present the greatest discrepancies, in some the work being much longer and in others much shorter. The printed editions in like manner vary considerably. It was first printed by Aldus Manutius, together with Aesop, Phurnutus, and other writers, Venice, 1505, and has since that time been frequently reprinted. The following is a list of the principal editions: Aldus Manutius (1449/50 - February 6, 1515), the Latin form of Aldo Manuzio (born Teobaldo Mannucci) was the founder of the Aldine Press. ... Aesop, as depicted in the Nuremberg Chronicle by Hartmann Schedel in 1493. ...

• Tollius, with a Latin translation and notes, Amsterdam, 1649
• Martin Brunner, Upsala, 1663, which edition was reprinted with improve­ments under the care of Paulus Pater, Frankfort, 1685,1686, or 1687, for these three years appear on different title pages
• Thomas Gale in the Opuscula Mythologica Cambridge, 1670, reprinted at Amsterdam, 1688
• Dresig, Leipzig, 1735, which edition was frequently reprinted under the care of JF Fischer, who improved it very much, and who published a sixth edition at Leipzig, 1789
• JHM Ernesti, for the use of schools, Leipzig, 1816
• the best edition of the text is by Wester­mann, in the "Μυθογραφοι: Scriptores Poeticae Historiae Graeci," Brunswick, 1843, pp. 268— 310. (Fabric. Bill. Graec. vol. i. p. 182, etc.
• Voss. de Hist. Graec. p. 478, ed. Westermann
• Westermann, Praefatio ad Μυθογραφους, p. xi. etc.
• Eckstein, in Ersch and. Gruber's Enclopädie, art. "Palaphatus")

Thomas Gale (?1636-1702), English classical scholar and antiquarian, was born at Scruton, Yorkshire. ...

External links

• Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology