Did the Greeks Believe In Their Myths?

Belief and Disbelief in a Secular Age

Paul Veyne argues that the Greeks did not believe all the fanciful stuff we read in Herodotus and Homer. Don’t assume that the ancients were naive literalists. Their adherence to myth was, as it were, postmodern. They recognized a meaning and a utility to their stories even if they understood them to be scientifically deficient. They saw with a squint w…