79вЂ“89).Д¤In any case, the historical credentials of myth cannot so easily be set aside. 6 If there actually was a person called Tlepolemos who actually did flee the Argolid and actually did lead a colonising party, in three divisions, to found the Rhodian states, then one may say that for us this would no longer be myth: it would, in fact, be history preserved from, say, the 11th centuryВ BC by oral tradition. So for instance, we can consider the myth that Tlepolemos, fleeing the Argolid, colonised Rhodes. 5 Greek authors tend to view myths as flawed history, whilst we tend to view them more radically as simply not historical.

4 In the case of Greek mythology, though other вЂњmythologiesвЂќ may have different agendas, the term is used to identify those traditional narratives that concern a past that antedates history. MalkinВ (2011, 66вЂ“70) Dowden (1989, (.)ДЈвЂњMythвЂќ is a Greek word, but a modern conception designed for the discussion of Greek culture. 4 Bremmer in Dowden & Livingstone (2011, ch.В 28).

And neither of these peculiar categories serves to explain or reduce the obstinately distinctive category of myth. In both of these, one cannot escape the feeling of becoming side-tracked, of arranging exhibits in the museum of the 19th century mind. вЂњLegendвЂќ is little better, as it depends on the saintsвЂ™ lives from which it sprang to achieve its modern role as a bridge between myth and historical fact. вЂњFolktaleвЂќ ( MГ¤rchen) carries the baggage of the romantic movement and of post-romantic antiquarianism: though originally considered to represent the unmediated expression of the People (Folk), this, as is well known, is largely illusory in the work of the Grimm brothers, who are surprisingly dependent on ultimately literary sources and the tellings of literate friends and relatives. Myth and historyДўMyth used to be positioned in the imaginaire by contrast with вЂњlegendвЂќ and вЂњfolktaleвЂќ, either comparand as flawed as the other. 3 How then does a mythic figure come to be вЂњsplinteredвЂќ? And what part, and why, does location play in the development of mythology? We have much to learn about mythology from Atalanta. 2 Yet this myth has awkward inconsistencies: does it belong to Boiotia or to Arkadia? Why does her fatherвЂ™s name, and that of her suitor, vary? Have different myths, coincidentally attached to a maiden in all cases called вЂњAtalantaвЂќ, been merged? Yet, as Atalanta is not in any sense a common name and there are significant common features between these manifestations, it looks more as though there has been some sort of splintering of an originally unitary Atalanta. More central for her, if painted on the whole by less famous artists and depicted much less often in antiquity too, 1 is the myth of her suitor Hippomenes dropping the golden apples in order to outrun her in the race for her hand. It is a striking painting, but not, maybe, the primary myth for Atalanta-here she is one of a cast of stars. So did FontenroseВ ( (.)ДЎCentre and front in PoussinвЂ™s LaВ Chasse de MГ©lГ©agre (1634вЂ“8 in the Prado) on a resplendent white horse rides, javelin in hand, the maiden Atalanta ready for the fearsome boar.

3 FowlerВ (2013, 110) thinks too of an original figure that has become splintered.

Exhaustive listing of pictorial art and some surprises (Granville BantockвЂ™s op (.) вЂњThe famous footrace, popular with authors since Hesiod, was virtually ign (.)

Somewhere far beyond 1992 rar