Encyclopedia Mythica defines Greek mythology as the totality of stories and fables about the gods, heroes, and rituals of ancient Greece. The individual stories are expressed in myth.

In doing so, the study of mythology engages with “logos” and myth, and moreover, attempts to examine the transmitted myth and give it a structural form.

Mythology arose above all with great effort and caution, and it also absorbed other forms of expression, such as oral speech, fairy tales, and epics. It should likewise be noted that Greek mythology incorporated “Cretan, Egyptian, Palestinian, Phrygian, Babylonian” elements and components of other myths as well.

The distinctiveness of Greek mythology, however, is that it has spread and been used globally, especially by European writers and painters. Furthermore, over time, it has maintained its importance despite historical, religious, and social changes.

If one first looks at Homer and the impact and use of his Odyssey, one can see that myth functions here as opinion in the form of a report, an “answer,” a command, and a threat, or as a bestowal of meaning in the form of “advice” and thoughts.

Myth is also linked to history insofar as it is regarded as an original source, since it lends historical events a sense of meaning. As for the historical elements, however, these cannot be documented precisely.

Even Thucydides, who as a historian viewed everything through a critical lens, was convinced that the Trojan War actually took place. Euripides, on the other hand, a contemporary of Thucydides, understood the various Myths as a construct of the epic poets and his fellow citizens. That is also why he took the liberty of using Myths in his tragedies and altering them.

At this point, we can understand myth in this preliminary context as an “oral tradition” with a historical background and a popular character.

Because people’s historical consciousness in antiquity was not yet fully developed, these historical stories or Myths were regarded as true. After all, they reported on their ancestors, and, beyond that, through myth, they could affirm their higher cultural development compared to other people. If, however, a poet altered these Myths, they did not oppose it, something that in turn can be attributed to an insufficient historical conscience.

Pindar, on the other hand, saw in myth a means of establishing a connection between the poet and his audience. However, he rejected viewing myth as having a “social function,” in the sense that the tradition is a communication of information.

This historical image of the world that the Greeks developed based on Myth repeatedly tells of the deeds of the gods and heroes and of a higher world, in which the hero holds a special position, since he also serves as a historical source. Time and space likewise play a special role because the gods and humans share them.

On this basis, Myth can be understood as a “copy of the past” that nevertheless undergoes change. These changes occur through the increasing incorporation of legends and their combination with real events; later, in view of their legendary qualities, myth in modernity is regarded as a form of report. However, there is no change here through the addition of other elements, but rather an epic expansion. In this case, legend comes into being, which, among other things, uses the fable so that such legends can arise at all. What is true in these legends is marvelous. Therefore, both the ancient Greeks and modernity hold on to the Trojan War, but for different reasons: for the Greeks because the war contains nothing marvelous for them, and for modernity because this war possesses something marvelous precisely in that sense.

This raises the question of how much truth Myth contains. For philosophers, myth was an allegory of “philosophical” truth; for historians, by contrast, it was a distortion of historical truth.

Pindar had already opposed myth to logos, exposing it as a lie and a deception.

However, the Greeks also used the truth that myth continued to carry within it rhetorically, thereby elevating myth into a political ideology. Through myth, they were able to justify their propaganda, expansionist policy, and the conquest of other states.

In the Hellenistic period in particular, mythology was also used as a subject of instruction, with access to this knowledge granted only to a specific group, namely the “elite.” But although mythology was declared a school subject, it remained a living object and part of culture.

At this point, the rationalist use of mythology, or of Myth itself, becomes apparent. With regard to this observation, Veyne cites Strabo, who recognizes an instructive intention behind myth rather than an entertaining one. Thus, for example, Strabo sees in the myth of Odysseus the intention to teach geography.

From this, one can see that Greek mythology reflects the aims, feelings, and above all, the ideals of the Greeks of antiquity. Through Myth, a person can give free rein to imagination, portray passions and dreams, and transfer them to the hero.

If we now look to the modern era and the Age of Enlightenment, we observe a critical view of “theophany,” even though theophany appears frequently in Greek myth. Thus, in myth, a boundary is now drawn between the “I” and reality.

In the 19th century, myth was instead regarded as a story of and about gods that inaugurates the initial stage of an understanding of the world that is still inadequate.

Looking at the 20th century, Jamme refers to Hübner, who connects logos with Myth, or uses this connection as a “subject–object” relation to come to terms with truth. Hübner recognizes in myth a system of thought and experience grounded in interpretive categories that have already been worked over by reason. In this way, he grounds the emergence of a mythical “ontology,” which can be equated with science.

Yet the truth of “ontology” can actually be grounded neither empirically nor theoretically. This is because, on the one hand, scientific truths can be questioned, and, on the other hand, myth presupposes mythical experiences. With this argument, Hübner seeks to defend myth against the charge that it lacks logic. He justifies this lack by arguing that the object in myth and the reality of Myth do not allow an approximation on the basis of logic. For Hübner, myth is not irrational, but merely another way of arranging reality differently, or, put differently, one perceives reality differently, which is at the same time another mode of expression. Thus, there is actually no difference between myth and science about attaining truth, since there exists a mediating relationship between the two that ultimately unites them.

Eliade, on the other hand, is not surprised by the persistence of mythical features in modernity, for he recognizes limits in a rational way of life, especially when meaning and significance are destroyed. Myth provided these for human beings in order to satisfy them. Eliade does not explain uncontrollable irrationality as resulting from insufficient rationality, but from excessive rationality. He concludes that Myths do not return to the present through irrationality; rather, decomposed rationality adorns itself with Myths and their effects, neutralizing the meanings of modernity.

Ultimately, through Myth, human beings gain the opportunity to experience the present differently; it offers them other reasonable modes of thought that are not instrumentally rational, and thus, a person can attain a differentiated idea of reality. It must be emphasized, however, that reason always moves along the lines of myth.

With regard to historical events in myth, Malinowski holds that they do not unfold chronologically but rather as repetition. Through this repetition, patterns, image templates, or archetypes arise that provide meaning and insight to future generations. However, it must be noted that errors can occur during transmission.

For Cassirer, myth follows its own law: it does not distinguish between “idea/concept and thing, between appearance and truth, between image and object, between whole and part”; for Cassirer, the truth of myth first arises from its material. The law that runs through myth is primarily that of the spirit. For Myth does not react to influences; rather, it is the spirit that processes and represents the external world with a system of signs and symbols. He therefore ultimately concludes that it is not the material that is decisive for myth, but its form. This makes it possible to explain why Cassirer regards Myth as a “preliminary stage” of higher reason. Cassirer sees in myth and language, above all, helpful means of freeing consciousness from its exclusive reliance on sensory perception so that it can actively participate in the creation of another world. This process takes place in the act of narration in modern literature. Yet a Myth becomes fully comprehensible only after it has been demythologized.

©2026, Vasiliki Papadopoulou