Mythology and Fables Explained by History

PREFACE.

Dodona The oldest oracle in ancient Greece, which the historian Herodotus also claimed had Egyptian origins., according to the same Author, had been established by an Egyptian woman, and these foreigners who instructed the Pelasgians The indigenous people who inhabited the lands of Greece before the arrival of the Hellenes. could only have been Egyptians.

But even if some of the Gods had drawn their origin from Greece, or if they had conquered it—like Jupiter and the Titan Princes—and if their apotheosis Apotheosis original: "Apothéose"; the act of elevating a human being to the rank of a god. had taken place during times when the Greeks were ignorant of the use of letters, are there not many ways to transmit brilliant deeds to posterity? Festivals, Games, Hymns, Canticles, Columns, earth mounds, heaps of stones, or finally a tradition passed from father to son: all of this was capable of making known those celebrated Men who had deserved divine honors; and from there, it is not impossible to know their History. The historical explanations given for the Fables The author uses "fables" to refer to the myths and legends of the ancient world. that have been mixed in with them are not without foundation.

Sometimes events occur in the world that are so famous they are never forgotten. Such were, in Antiquity, the conquests of the Titan Princes, whom Holy Scripture says ruled upon the earth A likely reference to the "Nephilim" or the "mighty men of old" described in Genesis 6:4.; and those of Bacchus, or Osiris. In whatever manner the memory of these things passed to posterity, it is certain that they were not unknown, and that Diodorus Siculus A Greek historian of the 1st century BC, author of a universal history titled Bibliotheca historica. and the other ancients who wrote their History did not invent it.

Whether the Gods of Paganism were the Patriarchs of the Hebrews, as several Scholars claim; or whether they were ancient Kings of Egypt and Phoenicia, and of other neighboring Peoples, is what I do not—