Online Encyclopedia
Make a correction
Your email address will not appear on the site. Note, comments may take some time to be approved.
Back to article:
PALAEPHATUS
Your email:
Article name:
Article content:
PALAEPHATUS, the author of a small extant treatise, entitled llepi 'Airivrcov (On "Incredible Things "). It consists of a series of rationalizing explanations of Greek legends, without any attempt at arrangement or plan, and is probably an epitome, composed in the Byzantine age, of some larger work, perhaps the Maas rwv lived wg eipt hvwv, mentioned by Suidas as the work of a grammarian of Egypt or Athens. Suidas himself ascribes a Ilea 'Aaiarcav, in five books, to Palaephatus of Paros or Priene. The author was perhaps a contemporary of Euhemerus (3rd century a.e.). Suidas mentions two other writers of the name: (r) an epic poet of Athens, who lived before the time of Homer; (2) an historian of Abydus, an intimate friend of Aristotle. See edition by N. Festa, in Mythographi graeci (1902), in the Teubner series, with valuable prolegomena supplementary to Intorno all' opuscolo di Palefato de incredibilibus (1890), by the same writer.