Why are some Myths so Perfect?

Pangur Bán;13465336 said:
In answer to the opening poster, the fame of Graeco-Roman myths is essentially due to preservation and transmission. Most of the West got literacy with Roman culture and religion, and the stuff they loved was seen as more prestigious among the literacy castes than native alternatives in Germanic, Celtic and Slavic Europe.

The OP is about "Europe vs the Rest", though, rather than about classical and non-classical Europe, though. In fact, the idiosyncratic OP somewhat dismisses the Romans, although he holds Hellenic fare in high regard.
 
The OP is about "Europe vs the Rest", though, rather than about classical and non-classical Europe, though. In fact, the idiosyncratic OP somewhat dismisses the Romans, although he holds Hellenic fare in high regard.

Yip, was only address his first paragraph. Dismissing the Romans is pretty ludicrous. These things only matter because of the Romans, because they privileged and reproduced them. Even the Greek language stuff usually got preserved because Roman bureaucrats and churchmen needed models for their training.
 
A good half of the Romans never stopped speaking Greek as a first language (or at least a lingua franca), which is partly why it survived much better than Latin. Bear in mind, of course, that we have no surviving manuscripts from the lifetime of the pagan empire.
 
I agree with Plot, you kind of seriously overlooked Virgil and Ovid in your declaration of the dearth of good Roman myths

I would have too.

Those myths didn't make it into modern pop culture in any big way under their own names. So excluding them helps make part of attackfighter's point. Including them would only bolster the argument that he's being eurocentric. I think his argument is more nuanced than that.
 
That's a pretty strange way to measure influence - surely at least some credit is due to their influence in the past, and their indirect influence on modern culture? Most people can't name Ovid, but they can tell you the stories in his work, thanks in part to Shakespeare.
 
That's a pretty strange way to measure influence - surely at least some credit is due to their influence in the past, and their indirect influence on modern culture? Most people can't name Ovid, but they can tell you the stories in his work, thanks in part to Shakespeare.

But they just weren't perfect ;)
 
It's not like we have the complete record of Greek myths either.

For example, there's a heroic daughter of Helios mentioned in a single line, and we have no other information about what she did or even what she was a goddess of.
 
Top Bottom