Gregory Hays
A basic canon of Roman mythography was established by the publication of Thomas Muncker’s Mythographi Latini in 1681. Muncker included four main works: Hyginus’s Fabulae and Astronomica, the Narrationes of “Lactantius Placidus,” and the Mitologiae of Fulgentius.1 Despite being lumped together as “mythographers,” these texts in fact vary widely in structure, purpose, and date. They cover a spectrum from stand‐alone compendia to guides designed to facilitate the reading of other authors. Most are interested mainly or exclusively in the stories themselves, but at least one (Fulgentius) is also, or even primarily, interested in the interpretation of myth. Not surprisingly, Roman mythography has close connections with similar works in Greek. Each of the Latin examples has Greek parallels, and several may be partly translated from Greek. This chapter will begin by briefly surveying the individual works (plus some related material) and will then look at their handling of a sample myth. I will conclude with some remarks on later reception.
Of Muncker’s quartet, the most wide‐ranging is the handbook of Fabulae transmitted under the name of Hyginus. In modern editions the work is divided into 277 chapters, and falls into three main parts. A prefatory section outlines divine genealogies, rather like Hesiod’s Theogony in outline form. The bulk of the work is made up of discrete chapters, many of them clearly originating as plot summaries of tragedies. Some of these chapters show signs of grouping by family relationship, for example, 1–5 (the family of Athamas) or 82–88 (the house of Pelops). In other cases, the ordering seems purely arbitrary. The concluding chapters are mainly lists and catalogues (e.g., 247 “Characters Eaten by Dogs,” 274 “Who Invented What”). A number of such catalogues are now missing from our text, though their headings are listed in a surviving table of contents. The date and authorship of the collection are problematic. In its current form it has only a tenuous connection, if any, to the Augustan‐era scholar C. Julius Hyginus. A recognizable version of it seems to have been in existence by 207 CE; portions of that version appear in a bilingual Greek/Latin schoolbook, the so‐called Hermeneumata Pseudo‐Dositheana (Goetz 1892, 56–60). Excerpts are also found in a fourth‐ or fifth‐century palimpsest manuscript (Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Pal. lat. 24; see Lowe 1934, 22); like the Hermeneumata extracts they reflect a version of the work that differs in some respects from the transmitted text. That the work had Greek sources appears certain, and in fact the Latin version in the Hermeneumata appears to be translated from the accompanying Greek text.
The second work attributed to Hyginus is the Astronomica, of uncertain date and dedicated to an unidentified M. Fabius. The work includes sections on the earth, a guide to identifying the constellations, and material on the planets. The mythographic material is concentrated in the present Book 2 (the book divisions are modern), and deals with the transformation of various mythological characters and animals into stars. A comparable Greek treatise survives in the set of Catasterisms falsely ascribed to Eratosthenes, which is in fact one of Hyginus’s sources. There is also a close Latin parallel in the older scholia to Germanicus’s translation of Aratus – in reality a continuous treatise which also draws on Pseudo‐Eratosthenes.
The relationship of the two “Hyginean” works is complex. The author of the Astronomica at one point asserts authorship of a mythographic work in more than one book called Genealogiae (Astr. 2. 12). The extant Fabulae contains a fair amount of genealogical material, and the Hermeneumata compiler in fact cites his Hyginus under the title Genealogia. But the Fabulae in its present form has no book divisions and nothing in it corresponds to the passage on the Graeae cited in the Astronomica. On the other hand, there is clearly some relation between the two works: the story of Icarius and Erigone (Fab. 130; Astr. 2. 4) shows links too close to be coincidental. The simplest assumption is that the extant Fabulae represents an abridgement or adaptation of an original work now lost. This would also account for the variations between the surviving text of the Fabulae and the two sets of excerpts.
A third category, distinct from both general handbook (such as the Fabulae) and thematic anthology (like Astronomica 2), is what one might call the mythological companion or onomasticon. This is a mythographic work keyed to a specific literary text and giving brief summaries of myths narrated or alluded to in it. Greek examples include the fragments of the so‐called “Mythographus Homericus,” the Callimachean Diegeseis, and the summaries of tragic plots known to modern scholars as the Tales from Euripides. In Latin the genre is represented by the set of Ovidian Narrationes first edited under the name of a non‐existent “Lactantius Placidus.” (This label stems from a complex series of confusions, on which see Cameron 2004, 313–316). They are transmitted in some manuscripts of the Metamorphoses but also circulated independently. Remnants of a similar handbook for Virgil (the “Mythographus Vergilianus”) have recently been discerned lurking within the Virgilian commentator Servius – or, more accurately, in the extended version of the commentary commonly known as Servius Auctus or Servius Danielis, which may go back to the fourth‐century scholar Donatus (Cameron 2004, 184–216).
Finally, we have Fulgentius’s Mitologiae, a collection of myths and mythical interpretations in three books, with an imaginative allegorical prologue. Fulgentius wrote in North Africa, probably in the late Vandal or early Byzantine period. His opening book deals mainly with the iconography of gods and associated figures (the Fates, Cerberus, etc.), which are interpreted in symbolic terms. This portion of the work looks back to a tradition of Greek exegesis represented among extant texts by the Epidrome of Cornutus. The remainder of the work narrates individual stories and equips them with allegorical explications, sometimes of a moral nature but in other cases physical or rationalizing. These chapters are comparable to the treatise On Unbelievable Tales of Pseudo‐Palaephatus and a handful of similar works in Greek.
In addition to these texts, there is a certain amount of mythographic material scattered through surviving commentaries on other Latin poets, notably that on Statius’s Thebaid attributed (again, by confusion) to Lactantius Placidus. Twentieth‐century papyrus finds, which have done much for our understanding of Greek mythography, have produced little or no new Latin material, but they do give us more insight into the Greek background from which the surviving Latin works emerged.
We can get a better sense of these texts’ similarities and differences by looking at their handling of a sample myth. The story of King Midas and the Golden Touch can serve as an example. This is part of a small group of Midas stories (it would be an exaggeration to call it a “cycle”) which also include Midas’s capture of a Silenus and his involuntary acquisition of ass’s ears as a punishment for poor musical taste.2 The Silenus story is often amalgamated with the Golden Touch episode; both are found both with and separately from the Ass’s Ears. Among literary sources the fullest extant version is found in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (11. 85–193), which includes all three in the order Silenus → Golden Touch → Ass’s Ears.
We can start with Hyginus (Fabulae 191), who includes all three stories in a continuous (though loosely linked) sequence:
Rex Midas. Midas rex Mygdonius filius Matris deae a Timolo < … > sumptus eo tempore quo Apollo cum Marsya uel Pane fistula certauit. quod cum Timolus uictoriam Apollini daret, Midas dixit Marsyae potius dandam. 2 tunc Apollo indignatus Midae dixit, “Quale cor in iudicando habuisti, tales et auriculas habebis.” quibus auditis effecit ut asininas haberet aures. 3 eo tempore Liber pater cum exercitum in Indiam duceret, Silenus aberrauit, quem Midas hospitio liberaliter accepit atque ducem dedit, qui eum in comitatum Liberi deduceret. 4 at Midae Liber pater ob beneficium deoptandi dedit potestatem, ut quicquid uellet peteret a se. <a > quo Midas petiit ut quicquid tetigisset aurum fieret. quod cum impetrasset et in regiam uenisset, quicquid tetigerat aurum fiebat. 5 cum iam fame cruciaretur, petit a Libero ut sibi speciosum donum eriperet; quem Liber iussit in flumine Pactolo se abluere, cuius corpus aquam cum tetigisset, facta est colore aureo; quod flumen nunc Chrysorrhoas appellatur in Lydia.
(King Midas. King Midas, a Mygdonian, the son of the Mother goddess, was chosen < as his fellow judge > by Timolus the time that Apollo competed on the pipes with Marsyas or with Pan. But when Timolus gave the victory to Apollo, Midas said that it should be awarded instead to Marsyas. 2 Then Apollo in anger said to Midas, “Considering the intelligence you have shown as a judge, you shall have ears to match.” Having uttered these words, he made him have an ass’s ears. 3 The time that Liber was leading his army against India, Silenus strayed away. Midas graciously offered him hospitality and gave him a guide to take him back to Liber’s party. 4 But Liber gave Midas in return for his favor the opportunity of choosing, that he ask from him whatever he wished. Midas asked of him that whatever he touched should become gold. When he obtained his desire and returned to his palace, whatever he touched became gold. 5 When he was tormented by hunger he asked Liber to take the desirable gift from him. Liber instructed him to wash himself in the Pactolus. When his body touched the water it was turned a golden color. This river is now called Chrysorrhoas in Lydia.)
The opening words – Midas rex Mygdonius filius Matris deae – situate the main character both geographically and in genealogical terms. This is a feature found in a number of fabulae (e.g., 45 Tereus Martis filius Thrax…; 178 Europa Argiopes et Agenoris filia Sidonia…), and is a natural formula for a work divided into discrete chapters. The compiler also makes an effort to situate the story in relation to other events in mythological time (eo tempore quo Apollo…; eo tempore Liber pater cum…); such markers function like the “(q.v.)” in a modern handbook. There is at least one echo of Ovid, in the reference to the Golden touch as a speciosum donum (cf. Met. 11.133 speciosoque eripe damno). But Hyginus’s version is, or at least purports to be, independent of any single instantiation of the story. Hence the nod to alternative traditions: cum Marsya uel Pane. Such moments of uncertainty or references to “other sources” recur throughout the collection.
From a stylistic standpoint, the chapter shows a consistent character. Sentences are relatively short and simple. Syntactic complexity rarely goes beyond a basic cum clause (cum Tmolus uictoriam Apollini daret, Midas…; cum iam fame cruciaretur, petit…). There are few particles of the autem/enim type. Rather, narrative units are crudely soldered onto what precedes with a monotonous string of relative pronouns:
quibus auditis effecit ut…
quem Midas hospitio… accepit…
<a> quo Midas petiit ut…
quod cum impetrasset…
quem Liber iussit…
quod flumen nunc…
As we shall see, these features are not unique to Hyginus. Rather, they are characteristic of mythographers in general, and have their counterparts in Greek mythographic texts.
With Hyginus as a benchmark, we can turn to the version of the story in the pseudo‐Lactantian Narrationes (11.3–4):
Liber Thracia digressus cum Tmolum montem Lydiae comitatus Bacchis peteret, Silenus ei aufugit, quem Phryges captum ad Midan regem duxerunt. agnitus ab eo exceptus est, et Libero aduenienti reddidit. et ob beneficium optandi deus ueniam ei dedit: si quid uellet, a se peteret. ille, ut quaeque contigisset, aurum fieret; quod ei inutile fuit. cui deus petenti, ut restitueretur sibi, fecit. iussit enim ad flumen Pactolum peruenire; ibique se supponeret et sic rediret in pristinum statum, unde aqua aurei coloris esset. […] qui tamen fertur Midas esse Matris magnae filius. sic enim cum Hesiodo consentit Ouidius.
(When Liber, having departed from Thrace, accompanied by Bacchants, was heading for Mount Tmolus in Lydia, Silenus ran away from him, and the Phrygians brought him in bonds to King Midas. Recognized by him, he was received, and he returned him to Liber on the latter’s arrival. In return for the favor, the god gave him the privilege of a choice: he was to ask from him anything he wished. The other wished that whatever he touched should become gold – which profited him nothing. When he asked to be restored to himself, the god did it. For he instructed him to make his way to the river Pactolus and there he was to submerge himself and thus return to his original state, and from then on the water would be of a golden hue. [Here there follows the Ass’s Ears story] This Midas is said to have been the son of the Great Mother. For Ovid agrees in this with Hesiod.)
As one would expect, Pseudo‐Lactantius presents the stories in the Ovidian order. And there are a few pieces of phrasing that seem to derive from the Metamorphoses:
- Met. 11. 92 ad regem duxere Midan → ad Midan regem duxerunt
- Met. 11. 94 quem simul agnouit → agnitus
- Met. 11. 100–101 inutile … / muneris arbitrium → quod ei inutile fuit
Yet the chapter omits significant aspects of the Ovidian narrative (e.g., Midas’s ten‐day celebration of Bacchic rites), and is curiously vague on the drawbacks of the Golden Touch itself (which Ovid describes at length). And it differs from Ovid on at least one minor detail: in Ovid, Midas takes Silenus back to Bacchus (Met. 11. 98–99), while in “Lactantius” he holds him for the god’s arrival. Stylistically, Pseudo‐Lactantius has much in common with Hyginus. We recognize the use of linking relatives: quem Phryges captum… duxerunt; quod ei inutile fuit…; cui deus petenti, ut… Also common to both is the use of cum clauses: Liber… cum Tmolum… peteret, Silenus… Indeed, one similarity of wording (not found in Ovid) suggests a direct relationship: ob beneficium deoptandi dedit potestatem (Hyg.) ~ ob beneficium optandi deus ueniam ei dedit (Ps.Lact.). Another feature shared with Hyginus is the citation of multiple or variant sources (cum Hesiodo consentit Ouidius); these are likely to reflect pillaging of earlier mythographers rather than first‐hand research. Ovid does not in fact identify Midas as the son of the Mother Goddess; the closest he comes is the allusive phrase Berecynthius heros (11. 106). Hyginus, on the other hand, does so explicitly. Lactantius’s chapter, then, is not simply a prose epitome of Ovid. It is an autonomous chunk of mythographic discourse, drawing on the same sources as Hyginus (if not Hyginus himself), but differently packaged.
Our third version of the story comes from Servius Auctus, explicating a passing reference to the streams of the Pactolus (Aen. 10.142):
Pactolusque inrigat auro] Pactolus et Hermus Lydiae flumina sunt, aurum sicut Tagus trahentia. || sed Pactoli fabula talis est: Mida rex cum ibi regnaret, Silenus captus ab eius sociis et uinctus est. miseratione uel prudentia eum et resolui fecit et omni adfabilitate fouit. quibus rebus ille gratiam rependens, praestitit Midae, ut quicquid tetigisset, in aurum uerteretur; sed cum ille quaecumque contigisset in aurum conuertens, fame periclitaretur, ex praecepto in Pactolum fluuium abluendi gratia se mittere iussus est. in quem se cum iecisset, ferendi auri naturam flumini dedit, ipse destitit in aurum quae contingebat mutare. || inrigat autem auro mire, cum ramenta quaedam auri inueniri dicantur.
(… and the Pactolus irrigates it with gold: The Pactolus and Hermus are rivers of Lydia that carry gold, like the Tagus. | | But the story of the Pactolus is as follows: when king Midas reigned there, Silenus was captured by his men and tied up. Whether out of pity or prudence, he had him released and treated him with every sign of friendship. In gratitude for this, he granted to Midas that whatever he touched should be turned to gold. But when he was in danger of starvation, since he turned whatever he touched into gold, according to instructions3 he was told to throw himself into the river Pactolus to wash away (the power). When he had thrown himself in, he bestowed on the river the power of carrying gold, while he himself ceased to transform into gold what he touched. | | “Irrigates with gold” is a remarkable expression, whereas (sc. in reality) flakes of gold are said to be found in it).
I have inserted “||s” above to bring out the miscellaneous nature of the note (which is entirely typical of both Servius and Servius Auctus). The commentator opens with a pedestrian gloss (the identification of “Pactolus”), and closes with a comment on Virgilian phrasing. In between is sandwiched a developed mythographic narrative (Midas… contingebat mutare) probably drawn from a Virgilian equivalent to Pseudo‐Lactantius. Understandably, the narrative here includes only the Golden Touch story. Stylistically we are clearly in a mythographic environment, with short, bald sentences, linking relatives (quibus rebus ille gratiam rependens…; in quem se cum iecisset…) and cum clauses (Midas rex cum ibi regnaret, Silenus…; sed cum ille…). Yet the phrasing seems to be independent of Hyginus and Pseudo‐Lactantius, and the content too shows variations. Here it is Silenus who is responsible for the ambiguous gift, not Bacchus (who is nowhere mentioned). The narrative also fails to make clear that the golden touch was bestowed on Midas at his own request. One would have thought this a vital part of the story, and its absence may suggest that a longer version has been condensed.
What emerges from this inquiry? First, the extant works display a strong family resemblance: mythographic texts are recognizable not only on the basis of their content but also their style. But while these works are clearly written within the same tradition, and two (Hyginus and Pseudo‐Lactantius) may well be related, it is probably hopeless to try to establish the exact relationship between them. One problem is that so little remains. Another is the natural fluidity and derivative character of such works (modern as well as ancient). It is as if we had to reconstruct the links between a Book of Greek Gods and Goddesses, a web page on star myths, and the Monarch Notes to Ovid.
More potentially fruitful is the question of audience: for whom did these compilers compile? The excerpts from Hyginus in the Hermeneumata Pseudo‐Dositheana suggest use as a school‐text, but there is little other evidence for this. Alternatively, they may have served as a vehicle for what we would now call “cultural literacy,” enabling their readers, like Thomas Bulfinch’s “to comprehend the allusions so frequently made by public speakers, lecturers, essayists, and poets, and those which occur in polite conversation” (Bulfinch 1855, 5). Just as many modern readers derive their knowledge of Greek myth not from Homer, Euripides, or Ovid, but from Edith Hamilton, Robert Graves, or Wikipedia, so their ancient counterparts may have found it more efficient to read Hyginus than Homer, and Pseudo‐Lactantius than Ovid.
In this connection, it is worth noting an aspect so obvious as to be overlooked: all these authors are concerned primarily with Greek myth. To be sure, there are exceptions: the Ovidian narrator is forced to cover some Roman stories in the close of the Metamorphoses, while Fulgentius includes the Virgilian story of Hercules and Cacus (2. 4). Hyginus includes Romulus, Remus, and Camilla in his list of mythical characters suckled by animals (Fab. 252), and other Roman myths crop up occasionally in passing. But these are very much the exception. And this in turn points to a larger fact about imperial Roman society, the overwhelming dominance of Greek culture. Greek myth was a universal language, at least among those with pretensions to culture. Roman mythology remained the province of antiquarians and scholars of religion.
As we have seen, Hyginus, Pseudo‐Lactantius and the hypothetical Mythographus Vergilianus are recognizably similar, even if they articulate their material in somewhat different ways. All share a purely narrative focus: “just the facts, ma’am.” In Fulgentius, however, we find a much broader conception of mythography, as his chapter on the Golden Touch (Mitologiae 2.10) will show.
Fabula Midae regis et Pactoli fluuii. Mida rex Apollinem petit ut quid tetigisset aurum fieret. Cumque promeruisset, munus in ultionem conuersus est, coepitque sui uoti effectu torqueri. Nam quidquid tetigerat aurum statim efficiebatur. Erat ergo necessitas aurea locuplesque penuria. Nam et cibus et potus rigens auri materia marmorabat. Itaque Apollinem petit ut male desiderata conuerteret responsoque accepto, ut tertio caput sub Pactoli fluminis undas subderet; quo facto Pactolus deinceps arenas aureas trahere dicitur.
Sed euidenter poete alluserunt argutiam,4 illa uidelicet causa, quod omnis appetitor auaritiae cum omnia pretio destinat fame moritur. Quod et Mida rex fecerat.5 Sed collecta pecuniarum suarum summam, ut Solicrates Cizicenus in libris historiae scribit quod omni censu suo Mida rex Pactolum fluuium, qui in mari decurrere solitus erat, per innumerabiles meatus ad inrigandam prouinciam deriuauit suaque expensa auaritia fluuium fertilem reddidit. Mida enim Grece quasi meden idon, id est “nihil sciens.” Auarus enim tantum stultus est, ut sibi prodesse non norit.
(The Story of King Midas and the River Pactolus. King Midas asked of Apollo that whatever he touched should become gold. And when he obtained his desire the gift was turned into a punishment, and he began to be tortured by the fulfilment of his desire. For whatever he touched at once became gold. Thus there was golden poverty and wealthy penury. For both food and drink hardened into the rigid form of gold. So he asked Apollo to change his foolish wish and on receiving the response that he should put his head thrice under the waters of the river Pactolus, when he did this, the Pactolus from then on is said to have carried golden sand.
But it is obvious that the poets have playfully created an elegant device, since every seeker of avarice, because he judges everything by its price, dies of hunger. Which is what King Midas would have done. But with the monies he had collected, as Solicrates of Cizicene writes in his historical works that King Midas, using all his wealth, redirected the river Pactolus, which was accustomed to disgorge its waters in the sea, through innumerable channels in order to irrigate the region; and by spending his own fortune, he rendered the river fertile. And Midas in Greek is as it were meden idon, that is, “knowing nothing.” For the miser is so foolish that he can do himself no good.)
We note several unique details. Here the god who grants Midas’s wish is Apollo rather than Bacchus. This is perhaps a slip influenced by Apollo’s central role in the Ass’s Ears episode. Also unparalleled in other accounts is the triple lustration (ut tertio caput… subderet), though the “three times” motif is a familiar folktale formula. From a stylistic point of view, the opening of our passage is comparable to the preceding passages. The mythographic style is evident in short sentences and straightforward vocabulary (Apollinem petit ut quidquid tetigisset aurum fieret; Pactolus deinceps arenas aureas trahere dicitur). Indeed, several syntactic glitches hint at a not very punctilious cut‐and‐paste job.
But other features reveal that we are dealing with something more ambitious than a handbook. We note the brief eruption of more rhetorical and poetic phrasing in the narrative section: munus in ultionem conuersus; necessitas aurea locuplesque penuria; rigens auri materia marmorabat.6 We also find an aspect absent from the mythographers examined above: the story is not just narrated but explained. Fulgentius in fact gives us not one but two interpretations: a historicizing interpretation attributed to “Solicrates” and a moralizing explanation (Midas as miser). Both are rooted in earlier interpretative traditions. While we know nothing of Fulgentius’s purported source, Solicrates of Cyzicene, traces of a rationalizing interpretation can be found in the Greek mythographer Konon (Fab. 1), where the Golden Touch appears hard by a reference to Midas as a finder of buried treasure. Midas serves as an exemplum of the foolish miser as early as Aristotle (Politics 1. 9. 1257b16), and a similar reading is found in the twelfth‐century Byzantine scholar‐poet John Tzetzes (Chiliades 1. 115–123), who is most unlikely to have known Fulgentius’s Latin version. Finally, we should note the confirmatory role played by etymologizing in the interpretation: Mida quasi “meden idon.” Etymologizing is a constant tool in Fulgentius and other interpreters, and this is by no means the most far‐fetched example.
Hyginus’s Fabulae have survived by the slenderest of threads. A manuscript written ca. 900 CE in Southern Italy seems somehow to have made its way to Freising in Germany in the early sixteenth century where it was transcribed and then dismembered; only fragments now survive. But most of the texts described above enjoyed a substantial medieval reception. Hyginus’s Astronomica was popular in the middle ages, with over 60 extant manuscripts (Viré 1981). The Servian “Mythographus Vergilianus,” “Lactantius Placidus” and Fulgentius all circulated widely. Coulson and Roy list over 50 surviving manuscripts of the Ovidian Narrationes (2000, 37–39); the Fulgentian Mitologiae were about as popular, and Servius far more so. They also enjoyed an indirect influence. All three were used, for example, by the anonymous compilers now known as the First and Second Vatican Mythographers. The First Mythographer’s Midas chapter (87) is a medley of “Lactantius” and Fulgentius.
The influence of the Latin mythographers can be traced even into the modern period. The information they provided was sorted and filed by Renaissance and early modern handbook‐writers, and assimilated in turn by modern reference works like Roscher’s Lexikon (1894–1897) or Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1872). But they also anticipate in form modern handbooks like those of Thomas Bulfinch (1855), Robert Graves (1960) and Edith Hamilton (1942) whose work is dealt with in chapters five and six of the current volume. Their lingering presence can be felt in the version of the Golden Touch in chapter 83 of Graves (1955: 281–282):
Midas, enchanted by Silenus’s fictions, entertained him for five days and nights, and then ordered a guide to escort him to Dionysus’s headquarters [Hyginus:]. Dionysus, who had been anxious on Silenus’s account, sent to ask how Midas wished to be rewarded. He replied without hesitation: ‘Pray grant that all I touch be turned into gold.’ Midas soon begged to be released from his wish, because he was fast dying of hunger and thirst; whereupon Dionysus, highly entertained, told him to visit the source of the river Pactolus, near Mount Tmolus, and there wash himself. He obeyed, and was at once freed from the golden touch, but the sands of the river Pactolus are bright with gold to this day.
The basic style and structure of the narrative should seem thoroughly familiar. Indeed, the phrase “ordered a guide to escort him to Dionysus’s headquarters” looks very much like a translation of Hyginus: ducem dedit, qui eum in comitatum Liberi deduceret. The influence may be at more than one remove. Like the Roman mythographers, Graves drew heavily on earlier handbooks for his narratives, as well as for the imposing array of sources he cites. His own contribution was an eccentric commentary to each myth, which in the case of the Midas chapter ranges from the Bronze Age Mushki (“a people of Pontic origin”) to the secret name of Dionysus (“a knot‐cipher tied in [a] raw‐hide thong”) to speculation about “scraps of Atlantian lore” and Gaelic legends. In this sense, the total effect of the entry is closer to Fulgentius. It thus illustrates a tension that is implicit not just in the canon of Roman mythography, but in the study of myth generally, between purely narrative mythography (as in Hyginus or Pseudo‐Lactantius) and the urge to explicate, to uncover “what lies beneath” these deceptively simple stories.
The best all‐around guide to this area is Cameron (2004); on the Greek background see van Rossum‐Steenbeek (1998). For Hyginus, “Lactantius,” and Fulgentius there is still much of value in the Latin notes of Muncker (1681), reprinted with additions by van Staveren (1742). The standard text of Hyginus’s Fabulae is now Marshall (1993). For a reliable English translation see Smith and Trzaskoma (2007), with a useful introduction (xlii–lv). The only general study known to me is Breen (1991), still unpublished but available via University Microfilms International. Fletcher (2013) explores aspects of the compilation that reflect a Roman audience. The Astronomica is edited by Viré (1992). The English renderings in Grant (1960) and Condos (1997) are not always trustworthy. On the textual tradition of both Hyginean works see Reeve (1983). The Pseudo‐Lactantian Narrationes are most easily accessible in Magnus (1914, 625–721); there is as yet no English rendering. On the dating and genre of the work Cameron (2004) is now fundamental. On its transmission and relationship with the manuscripts of Ovid see Otis (1936) and Tarrant (1995). For mythographic material in Servius see Cameron (2004, 184–216). The only complete text is Thilo and Hagen (1881–1902), but the relationship between the shorter and longer forms of the commentary is better represented by Rand et al. (1946–1965), which at present covers only Aen. 1–5. For the moment the standard text of Fulgentius is Helm (1898); the English rendering of Whitbread (1971) is not reliable. On what is known of his background see Hays (2003). His relationship to the earlier and later mythographic tradition is further explored in Hays (2013).
In keeping with the focus of this Handbook, this chapter has concentrated on the reception of Greek myth by Roman mythographers, and has had little to say about Roman myth and its ancient students. For those who wish to explore this area, good starting points are Bremer and Horsfall (1987) and the essays in Graf (1993).