Contents:

Abstracts:

FRITZ GRAF:
La génèse de la notion de mythe

The author examines the birth and evolution of myth from the 5th Century B.C. till 18th A.C. (editor)

LOWELL EDMUNDS:
Oral story-telling and archaic Greek hexameter poetry

The practice of oral story-telling is well-attested in the Iliad and the Odyssey. The epics implicitly distinguish between this practice and poetry. Homer's attitude toward the former is skeptical. The story told by Antinous (xxi 287-304) is an example of how, in the Homeric perspective, stories are shaped by the self-interest of the story-teller. Beginning with the Muses' claim to authority in Hesiod Theog. 26-28, others' versions of a story are assigned to the negative category of "that which is said" (verb legein). Thus a standard enunciative practice of story-telling already emerges, which can be defined more fully on the basis of examples in Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato.

EMILIO CRESPO:
Los mitos de la Ilíada

The aim of this paper is to classify the myths narrated, mentioned or merely presupposed by the Iliad, within a scheme taking into account the properties of the prehistorical oral tradition and the chronological period from IE times up to the final composition around 700 B.C. The criteria used for distributing the Iliadic myths within this scheme are the form and contents of names and epithets used for deities and heroes, and the exclusive coincidence of a myth with informations coming from Mycenaean and pre-classical archaeological findings, from Mycenaean Linear B tablets, from the Odyssey, from the poems by Hesiod, from the archaic Homeric hymns and the epic Cyclic poems, from other cultures and from their formular character or untraditional wording. On this basis an attempt is made to distinguish: 1) myths coming from the Greek cultural background; 2) elements belonging to the prhistorical epic tradition; 3) treatments common to the Iliad and the Odyssey; 4) specific features of the Iliad; and 5) themes introduced by epic narrative conventions. A classification along these lines can be helpful in describing the creative individuality of the Iliad.

PAUL WATHELET:
Leçons à tirer des mythes de l'Odyssée

This paper analyses some characteristics of myths in the Odyssey, mainly its importance for initiation. (editor)

JOSÉ ANTONIO FERNÁNDEZ DELGADO:
Elaboración hesiódica del mito

This work proposes to examine the myth of succession in the Theogony from a point of view strictly in keeping with the text. Taking as a sample the above mentioned mythical tale, the paper examines Hesiodic compositional habits from the context of the literary antecedents of the theme from the Near East and other parallels with Greek literary tradition. The analysis shows that the Hesiodic traits of the tale seem to be manifested in the peculiar arrangement of the mythical material, the names of the mythical entities, and in certain aesthetic and moral aspects of the tale.

ALBERTO BERNABÉ:
Los mitos de los Himnos homéricos: el ejemplo del Himno a Afrodita

Interpretation and analysis of the myths inside the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite. (editor)

JAUME PÒRTULAS:
De la serpiente de Cadmo a la lira de Anfión

What can we learn from the 'biographies' of a series of (clearly mythical) Greek poets? Herodotus II 53 says: "Homer and Hesiod lived, I believe, not more than four hundred years ago. The poets who are said to have preceded them were, I think, in point of fact born later". But the ancient Greeks had created a background for their own world, fancying a glorious past, populated with poets, songs and hymns. We must take account of the fact that these mythical singers are, as a matter of fact, cultural heroes. In the present paper we focus our interest in just one of these poetys, Amphion, representative of the city of Thebes, but also holder of a 'panhellenic' status, because he appears in Homer.

ENRIQUE ÁNGEL RAMOS JURADO:
El mito en los presocráticos

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the attitude of the Presocratic Philosophers in relation to Mythology, from Thales to Sophists, paying special attention to Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Parmenides and Empedocles.

BERNHARD ZIMMERMANN:
Myth in dithyrambic poetry

As always in Greek choral lyric the dithyrambic poetry offers a mythological narration. The differences between Pindar and Bacchylides are evident. While Pindar integrates the myths into the poem --the myth narrated has always got a link to the polis which ordered the poem--, we have to reconstruct these links in the Bacchylidean dithyrambs as the poet avoids any hints to the polis which ordered the dithyramb and the occasion of performance.

FERNANDO GARCÍA ROMERO:
La función del mito en el epinicio

This paper concntrates on Bacchylides' use of myths. (editor).

RICHARD BUXTON:
Time, space and ideology: tragic myths and the Athenian polis

The aim of this paper is to study some aspects of Greek tragedy in relation to time, space and ideology, pointing out the peculiar blend of proximity and distance, especially about the use of myths. (editor).

BERNARD DEFORGE:
Fonctions du mythe chez Eschyle

Importance of the myths in Aeschylus' tragedies: myths provide theme and characters of several plays; myths show on the stage not only the world and time, but also the gods. (editor).

FRANÇOIS JOUAN:
Les légendes attiques dans le théâtre de Sophocle

The proportion of Attic legends is far from being the most important in the stock of subjects among the three great tragic poets. In particular, there are very few references to them in the extant plays of Sophocles, except in Oedipus Coloneus. But they supplied subjects for something like ten or eleven plays, all of them being now lost. The aim of this paper is to investigate, as far as possible, the content of each of these plays. The study will begin with the most uncertain and obscure, like Procris, Orytheia or Creusa / Ion, to conitnue with others somewhat better known, like Tereus, Theseus --if the papyrological fragments are sophoclean-- Phaedra and Triptolemus, and finish with Oedipus Coloneus. A few conclusions can be drawn, like the large place of tragic love-plots and, on another side, the idealization of the primitive Athens and of some of its kings and heroes, as Triptolemus, the benefactor of human kind, and the assertion of the power of the city, even in these early times, not only over Attica and its borders, but also over remote countries like Cyprus or Thrace.

JUAN ANTONIO LÓPEZ FÉREZ:
Mitos en las obras conservadas de Eurípides

This paper examines the use of myths in Euripides' preserved plays. This tragic author knew pretty well the former Greek literature; his selection, distribution and use of myths are relevant to know him as a poietès sophós, especially when he offers mythical innovations.

BERND SEIDENSTICKER:
Myth and satyr-play

Tragedy and satyr-play rely on the same mythical material, but satyr-play selects too its stories from the rich treasure of Greek mythology. The paper examines the selection of some typical themes, inventions, novelties and riddles inside the satyr-plays. (editor).

ANTONIO MELERO:
El tema del cíclope en el teatro griego

The author examines the Cyclops' theme from the Odyssey till Euripides. (editor).

GASPAR MOROCHO GAYO:
Hermenéutica y alegoría en los mitos de Platón

Exam of the platonic myths from a hermeneutical and allegorical point of view. (editor).

ANTONIO LÓPEZ EIRE:
El mito en la oratoria griega

The paper aims to study the different uses of myths inside the Greek oratory of 5th and 4th Century B. C. (editor).

ALBERTO DÍAZ TEJERA:
Aristóteles. El mythos como fábula y argumento

Aristotle uses the term myth in two senses: as fabula and as argumentum. (editor).

JESUS LENS TUERO:
El mito en la historiografía griega del siglo IV

This paper offers the use of myths in som historical authors of the 4th Century B. C. (editor).

JAN N. BREMMER:
Why did Medea kill her brother Apsyrtos?

The author examines the death of Medea's brother according to the ancient sources, pointing out the special bond between brother and sister in ancient Greece and among the modern Greeks. (editor).

MARCOS MARTÍNEZ:
Las islas de los Bienaventurados/Afortunadas: historia de un mito en la literatura griega arcaica y clásica

Birth, evolution and use of the Fortunate Island Myth inside the archaic and classic Greek literature. (editor).

ADRIAN S. HOLLIS:
Myths in the service of kings and emperors

This paper considers some of the ways in which scholarly poets created or propagated myth to glorify Hellenistic kings, by tracing their ancestry back to gods or heroes and providing a mythical origin for newly-founded cities. This process continued into the Roman Imperial age. Some of the rulers themselves had strong interests in learned Greek poetry. The whole episode of Hadrian's visit to Egypt in A.D. 130, including a lion hunt and the death and 'catasterism' of Antinous, has a remarkably Callimachean air, bringing together many motifs from, particularly, Victoria Berenices and Coma Berenices. A minor poet, Pancrates of Alexandria, was at hand to celebrate at least some parts of this affair, to the Emperor's satisfaction and the poet's personal advantage.

MÁXIMO BRIOSO SÁNCHEZ:
El concepto de divinidad en las Argonáuticas de Apolonio de Rodas

The aim of this paper is a research into the theology of Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica, that is to say the so-called Götterapparat or divine machinery, the role of the gods and the relationship between gods and men in this Hellenistic poem. Much attention has been focused on the comparison and contrast with both the Homeric poems and the literary texts of Greek classical age.

JOSÉ GUILLERMO MONTES CALA:
Los exempla mitológicos en la bucólica griega

The aim of this paper is to analize some controversial passages in the Corpus Bucolicorum Graecorum related to the practice of using mythological exempla. In order to elucidate Theocritus' exploitation of mythical paradigms, I first know the traditional use of myth to illustrate a gnome; secondly, I study some exempla in their realignment to the new bucolic context; thirdly, I clarify the sharp contrast between positive and negative exemplary; and lastly, I discuss some "epic" exempla particularly in connection to encomiastic purposes.

STEPHANIE WEST:
Lycophron's Alexandra: something old and something new

Lycophron's masterly handling of mythological narrative deserves more appreciation than nowadays it generally receives; concentration on a few passages has distracted attention from the poet's skill in the selection and presentation of his material. An extraordinarily wide range of legend is interwoven in Cassandra's prophecy of the Trojan War and its aftermath, to create a quasi historical unity covering more than a millenium. Interesting effects of defamiliarization and reinterpretation result from this treatment of the Matter of Troy from Cassandra's viewpoint, while the inclusion of Western legends concerning the postwar careers of the principal Greek and Trojan survivors provides a fascinating supplement, skilfully recasting material drawn from recent historical publication.

ESTEBAN CALDERÓN:
El mito en la poesía helenística menor

The paper examines the presence and importance of myths in some hellenistic poets: Hermesianax of Colophon, Isyllus of Epidaurus, Phanocles, Euphorion of Calcis, Alexander Aetolus, etc. (editor).

JESÚS LENS TUERO:
Mito y utopía en la historiografía helenística

The aim of this paper is to study the use of myths in some historical writers of the hellenistic period, especially in Hecateus of Abdera and Diodorus Siculus. (editor).

AURELIO PÉREZ JIMÉNEZ:
De cuando los dioses perdieron su divinidad: orígenes de la interpretación histórica de los mitos divinos

Criticism and rationalization of old myths in hellenistic authors like Hecateus of Abdera, Manetho, Euhemerus, Dionysius Scytobrachion and Leo of Pella. (editor).

ROSA Ma AGUILAR:
El mito y su función en la filosofía helenística: escépticos, académicos y estoicos

In this paper, the author attempts to find the ties between philosophy and myth, which in many cases were perhaps too loosely made. Allegory was the main technique used by several philosophers, especially the Stoics, to explain the myths, but parody was also employed, as in the case of the Skeptics.

FRANCESC J. CUARTERO I IBORRA:
Mityos en Nono de Panópolis y otros poetas del Alto Egipto

Myth is used in late Antiquity by Egyptian poets, both pagan and Christian, not only as a subject of literary exercitation and scholarly display, but also with more complex purposes. So Nonnos' bulky epics Dionysiaca, composed at the end of pagan times, must be interpreted as a summa mythologica, shaped around the figure of a kind and syncretical deity, and possibly as an elaborated farewell to paganism. Some treatments of myths are discussed. Cadmus, Dionysos' grandfather, defeats monstruous and Haughty Typhoeus, and works together with Zeus in the establishment of order in the Olympic pre-dionysiac world. The cow slaughtering by Cadmus in the foundation of Thebes is narrated as a foundational sacrifice and pattern of all sacrifices. The immoderate hunter Actaeon becomes the complement as well as the antithesis of his father, the cultural pre-cerealistic hero Aristaeus. Finally, Colluthus' epyllion The Abduction of Helen is discussed as a piece of skilful work on all sorts of literary imitatio.

ITALO GALLO:
Funzione e significato de miti nei dialoghi "morali" di Plutarco

Function and meaning of myths in Plutarch's Moralia. The author studies in particular three relevant escathological and demonological myths. (editor).

JOSÉ ANTONIO CABALLERO LÓPEZ:
La herencia mitológica en los autores de la Segunda Sofística: la obra de Elio Aristides

In this article I examine the presence and the treatment of the mythological heritage in the large production of rhetor Elio Aristides, a most distinguished representative of what has been termed the Second Sophistic. On the whole, Aristides does not feel very close to the mythical traditio, and he likes to use a wide variety of registers and variations, which he adjusts to the contents developed in his discourse.

GRAHAM ANDERSON:
Some aspects of Lucian's use of myth

The author offers some underlying trends in Lucian's handling of mythology suggesting some characterisation of his interest in the field as a whole. (editor).

MARTIN L. WEST:
The flood myth in Ovid, Lucian, and Nonnus

The Greek myth of the flood of Deucalion, which is first attested in the first half of the fifth century, in Epicharmus and Pindar, must derive ultimately from the oriental flood myth known from Mesopotamian and biblical sources. No full account survives in Classical literature from before Roman times. Three such accounts, those of Ovid, Lucian, and Nonnus, are here examined with a view to identifying their possible preservation of early (oriental-derived) motifs, their mutual relationships, and the individual approaches of each author.

ANTONIO LÓPEZ EIRE:
El Mito, los Refranes y la Epistolografía: el ejemplo de las Cartas de Libanio

Myths in Libanios' Letters confers them poetical purpose, dignity and literary echoes, especially when they are used as proverbs. Myths have both a poetical and a paradigmatic function. (editor).

A. BRIAN BOSWORTH:
Arrian, Megasthenes and the making of myth

Arrian is scrupulous in separating the report of myth from the historical effect of it. He examines Alexander's emulation of Heracles and Dionysus. When he describes India he summarises the extensive mythological survey which Megasthenes had provided in Book I of his Indike. (editor).

ENRIQUE ÁNGEL RAMOS JURADO:
Mito y filosofía en época imperial

Philosophical writers in Roman period offer a rather critical position about old myths. This paper examines the presence of myths in philosophers of different orientation: sceptical (Sextus Empiricus), cynical (Oenomaus of Gadara), stoic (Heraclitus the allegoric, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius), jewish (Philo), platonic (Maximus of Tyre, Numenius), neoplatonic (Plotinus, Porphyry, Sallust, Proclus), etc. (editor).

CONSUELO RUIZ MONTERO:
El mito en Caritón de Afrodisias y Jenofonte de Éfeso

Presence and use of myths in two novelists: Chariton of Aphrodisias and Zenophon of Ephesus. Myths are important in Chariton's novel, which uses homeric models. Xenophon knew well the mythological tradition buth mythical alusions are rather few in his work. On the other hand the paper studies the use of mûthos and diegema in both writers. (editor).

EWEN BOWIE:
The function of mythology in Longus' Daphnis and Chloe

The paper addresses two issues: (1) the genre to which Longus directs his readers to assign his story --is it nearer to myth or to (fictional) historiography? (2) how does the presentation of sexual violence in the three inset tales in Books I, II and III bear on our reading of the relations between Daphnis and Chloe? It argues that these inset tales, presented as 'myths', initially prevent readers from taking the framing narrative itself as a myth; that their violence is at all times a contrast to and not a paradigm for the eros of Daphnis and Chloe, in whose relationship violence and constraint have no part; and that in Book IV the absence of an inset myth encourages readers to see the sexual union of Daphnis and Chloe as itself mythical, and hence to interpret the work as a whole as outside the traditional generic categories of myth and historiography.

B. P. REARDON:
Mythology in Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus

The use of myth can illuminate the way a Greek novelist tells his story. Achilles Tatius uses myth quite extensively, as one element in his sophisticated narrative technique, for various purposes: to afford exempla; to foreshadow major events in the action (e.g. the rape of Auropa, the sacrifice of Andromeda), sometimes in a deliberately misleading way; and to offer commentary on the course of the story. Heliodorus does not use myth as a major component except in two episodes: the comparison of the hero Theagenes with Achilles, and the explanation of the colour of his heroine Charicleia by reference to a picture of Andromeda. Otherwise he uses myth only for brief incidental purposes; his narrative technique is as deliberately mystifying as that of Achilles, but he replaces myth with other devices such as oracles and dreams.

JUAN J. MORALEJO:
El mito en la retórica imperial (Elio Teón, Hermógenes, Apsines, Aftonio)

The four rhetors studied in this paper do not deal with the Greek myths from a new or deep perspective. These authors are a clear example of how the Myth, huge ideological and aesthetical deposit, is a mere help for school teaching: mythical quotations and references are accumulated with no further reference to themes and details that are considered to be common knowledge. Mythical characters and situations are used as far as they are useful to exercise the abilities of exposition and persuasion, and, although evemerism and rationalist criticism are present, these rhetors are concerned with the Myth exclusively as far as it is well-known matter for their progymnásmata.

JUAN ANTONIO LÓPEZ FÉREZ:
Mitos y personajes míticos en Galeno

Galen knew well the Greek literary tradition. He uses myths and mythical names with great accuracy. Normally he accepts the usual mythical version, but sometimes he attacks some mythical stories. In general he writes for a select group of learned Roman friends, and therefore mythical references are often light and short in his works. Nevertheless when he is interested in a special mythical explanation he cites Homer, Hesiod, Lyric poets, tragical and comical writers, philosophers and former medical authors.

ANTONIO PIÑERO:
Mito y Nuevo Testamento

This essay is a survey of research on the possible mythical elements of the New Testament, from D. F. Strauss and the History of Religions School up to some authors of the 20th century (Troeltsch, Bultman, Maccoby, etc. and in Spain Puente Ojea). The article deals with all important themes designated as mythical in early Christian literature: Jesus historical existence, birth narrative, mission and self understanding, divine sonship, reconstruction of Jesus figure by the author of the Fourth Gospel, Pauline salvation concept, etc.

ALICIA ESTEBAN SANTOS:
Erudición, mito y sentimiento (mitógrafos)

Following and introduction about mythography and mythographers, the study centres on three Greek mythographers representatives of three different genres: Apollodorus, author of the Library, the most complete compilation of Greek myths; Antoninus Liberalis, with his collection of Metamorphoses. We comment on general data about their identity and their work (text, sources contents, general scheme of composition), and, on the other hand, we examine some particular episode as illustrative example. We add a select bibliography.