Myth
“He then prays that it may be possible to purify the mythical by means of reason and so come to a view of what actually happened. But in cases where ‘the mythical defies what is credible and does not admit the admixture of probability’, he hopes that his readers will be indulgent and forgiving to his version of antiquity. To go back as far as this [to Romulus], he suggests, in a comparison with maps, is like filling in the details beyond the limits of the known world.
In this passage, Plutarch distinguishes in broad terms between a mythical and a historical period. [Characterised thus:]...all of them were the subject of traditons which seemed implausible to the ancients, and the tales of this period had therefore to be deciphered in the light of what was likely or probable.
It had long been accepted that historians should not traffic in ‘myth’, by which was meant an account of events that seems inconsistent with what is known or expected of ordinary human behaviour.” pp 161,2.
Comment
I've made a couple of earlier comments on history, time and myth. Its interesting to see how P. regarded myth as being outside the ken of the ordinary; and that he separates mythical 'time' and the historical period. Myth seems to be beyond investigationa and where all sorts of crazy things can happen and be given a type of story-line credibility. But their denial of the shared real world makes them to be purely stories that betray ignorance, and not providing any knowledge that will help us know the world we are in.
Contrast this to the biblical creation account which does place itself within dateable time and tells us all we need to know: that is that the world is inanimate and not populated by faries, that there is a real causal continuity across space and time and that a uniformity of experience is accessible to all comers: all we need to know to start on the path of understanding and living in the world.
