The Chronological Inconsistency in the Narratives of Selected Greek Myths

Ali Maher, Eslam

doi:10.21608/bcps.2023.331150

The Chronological Inconsistency in the Narratives of Selected Greek Myths

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Eslam Ali Maher

Lecturer, Faculty of Arts, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

10.21608/bcps.2023.331150

Abstract

The research deals with the idea of the inconsistency that occurred among some Greek writers and mythographers regarding the chronological sequence in Greek mythical narratives. The study focuses on a few mythical narratives from the Heroic Age, particularly the myth of the Trojan War, because it includes some stories that are the best examples of chronological inconsistency, in addition to being the most well-known Greek myths ever. The researcher assumes that some Greek mythographers felt the chronological inconsistencies in some mythical narratives within their writings, and then they tried to refute these inconsistencies in different ways that we will discuss in this research. The research is divided into three main axes: the definition of the chronological sequence of myths, some examples of the chronological inconsistency of Greek myths, and the reasons for the existence of these chronological inconsistencies and an attempt to explain them. In this research, the researcher will rely on analytical and comparative approaches.

Keywords

References

Ancient Sources:

The researcher relied most of Greek and Latin texts on:

Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) and Thesaurus Linguae (TLL) (Irevine: University of California, 2000).

Aesch. Fr. = Aeschylus, Fragmenta.

Alc. = Alcman, Fragmenta.

Apollod. Bibl. = Apollodorus, Bibliotheca.

Apollod. Ep. = Apollodorus, Epitome.

Apollon. Rhod. = Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica.

Athen. = Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae.

Bacchyl. Fr. = Bacchylides, Fragmenta.

Callim. Hym. = Callimachus, Hymni.

Clem., Rec. = Clemens Romanus, Recognitiones.

Cypr. Fr. = Stasinus, Cypria Fragmenta.

Dar. Phryg. = Dares Phrygius, De excidio Troiae.

Dict. = Dictys Cretensis, Ephemeris belli Trojani.

Diod. Sic. = Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica.

Dur. Fr. = Duris, Fragmenta.

Eur. Med. = Euripides, Medea.

Eur. Rh. = Euripides, Rhesus.

Hdt. = Herodotus, Historiae.

Hellanic., Fr. = Hellanicus, Fragmenta.

Hes. Fr. = Hesiodus, Fragmenta.

Hes. Op. = Hesiodus, Opera et Dies.

Hes. Th. = Hesiodus, Theogonia.
1. = Hymni Homerici.
Hom. Il. = Homerus, Ilias.

Hom. Od. = Homerus. Odyssea.

Lycophr. Alex. = Lycophron, Alexandra (Cassandra).
1. Oxy. = The Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Published by the Egyptian Society in Graeco-Roman Memoirs. London. The number in this series. Earlier vols. Carry the heading of Egypt Exploration Fund, Graeco-Roman Branch; even after the title change numbers were not assigned to the volumes until the 1950s.
2. Rein. = Papyrus Grecs et démotiques recueillis en Égypte, ed. T. Reinach, W. Spiegelberg and S. de Ricci. Paris 1905.
Paus. = Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio.

Pind. Fr. = Pindarus, Fragmenta.

Plat. Resp. = Plato, Respublica.

Plut. Thes. = Plutarchus, Theseus.

Schol. Hom. Il. = Scholia in Iliadem.

Schol. Lycophr. = Scholia in Lycophronem.

Schol. Pind. Nem. = Scholia in Pindarum Nemean Odes.

Stesich. Fr. = Stesichorus, Fragmenta.

Strab. = Strabo, Geographica.

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