Greek and Roman Mythology

Definition of Myth

A myth is a sacred story explaining the origin of the world, of humankind and of human institutions. It is the symbolic and pre-scientific answer to the eternal questions of humankind and it refers to facts that occurred prior to History and were preserved by the collective memory. Thus, we can classify myths into three types:

- Cosmogonic, explaining the origin of the world

- Theogonic, explaining the origin of the gods

- Anthropogonic, explaining the origin of humankind.

The Greeks initially and the Romans afterwards developed one of the most complex mythologic systems. We will study it in the present section.