In this series of posts I’m mostly interested in exploring what the ancient travel writer Pausanias has to say about local myth and local ritual in ancient Greece, but a number of people have asked me to say something about whether or not the ancient Greeks believed their myths. That’s an interesting question—it’s a question … Continue reading Can You Believe It?

In the last couple of posts I’ve been discussing local myth in ancient Greece, as found in The Guide to Greece, a travel guide written by Pausanias back in the second century AD. I’ve been trying to show that the local version of a myth can be quite different from the Panhellenic version that was … Continue reading Muddy Artemis and Other Tall Tales

In my last post I began to talk about myth and ritual in ancient Greece, and I made a distinction between local myth and ritual on the one hand and Panhellenic myth and ritual on the other. My current project is an investigation of local myth and ritual. A good place to start this investigation … Continue reading Who Killed Medea’s Children?