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Palaephatus

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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the author of a small extant treatise, entitled Hopi A7riarwv (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 Abora Twv pwOu0s eipfl vwv, mentioned by Su^das as the work of a grammarian of Egypt or Athens. Suidas himself ascribes a IIepi Arre6Twv, in five books, to Palaephatus of Paros or Priene. The author was perhaps a contemporary of Euhemerus (3rd century B.C.). 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.