Note 970 — Chapter XVI · GRECIAN MYTHES, AS UNDERSTOOD, FELT AND INTERPRETED BY THE GREEKS THEMSELVES. (continued 2)

This doctrine is set forth in Macrobius (i. 2). He distinguishes between fabula and fabulosa narratio: the former is fiction pure, intended either to amuse or to instruct—the latter is founded upon truth, either respecting human or respecting divine agency. The gods did not like to be publicly talked of (according to his view) except under the respectful veil of a fable (the same feeling as that of Herodotus, which led him to refrain from inserting the ἱεροὶ λόγοι in his history). The supreme god, the τἀγαθὸν, the πρῶτον αἴτιον, could not be talked of in fables: but the other gods, the aërial or æthereal powers and the soul, might be, and ought to be, talked of in that manner alone. Only superior intellects ought to be admitted to a knowledge of the secret reality. “De Diis cæteris, et de animâ, non frustra se, nec ut oblectent, ad fabulosa convertunt; sed quia sciunt inimicam esse naturæ apertam nudamque expositionem sui: quæ sicut vulgaribus sensibus hominum intellectum sui, vario rerum tegmine operimentoque, subtraxit; ita à prudentibus arcana sua voluit per fabulosa tractari.... Adeo semper ita se et sciri et coli numina maluerunt, qualiter in vulgus antiquitus fabulata est.... Secundum hæc Pythagoras ipse atque Empedocles, Parmenides quoque et Heraclides, de Diis fabulati sunt: nec secus Timæus.” Compare also Maximus Tyrius, Dissert. x. and xxxii. Arnobius exposes the allegorical interpretation as mere evasion, and holds the Pagans to literal historical fact (Adv. Gentes, v. p. 185, ed. Elm.).

Respecting the allegorical interpretation applied to the Greek fables, Böttiger (Die Kunst—Mythologie der Griechen, Abschn. ii. p. 176); Nitzsch (Heldensage der Griech. sect. 6. p. 78); Lobeck (Aglaopham. p. 133-155).