ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to illustrate the ways in which Greek writers tried to save myth for history; and to indicate briefly the validity of myth in historical writing as compared to its validity in philosophy and rhetoric. In spite of the fact that 'Herodotus part was misrepresented, the effect of his work and of Thucydides preface was to push myth to the edge of historical writing. Rhetoricians then could think of myth as useful, and just as serviceable as the truth of pragmatic history. The implication is that most of the mythical was excluded by Ephorus, even though he was dealing with the remote past. There were then two principal ways in which the mythical could be justified. One group of writers was able to use myth as legitimate digression. In another sense myth and the mythical had to be sifted to arrive at the truth about early times.
