Saxo Grammaticus

By Gregory Nagy

Thinking comparatively about Greek mythology XIV, with a focus on the role of Hēraklēs as a leader of fighting men

2019.10.25 | By Gregory Nagy §0. In my essay for 2019.10.18, I argued that the role of Hēraklēs as a leader of fighting men is interchangeable in Greek myth with his wider role as a leader of people in general. And then, toward the end of that same essay, at §14, I indicated that a parallel argument can be made in the case of the Germanic hero named Starkaðr/Starcatherus as… Read more

By Gregory Nagy

Thinking comparatively about Greek mythology II, Hēraklēs as an ‘Indo-European’ hero

2019.08.02 | By Gregory Nagy §0. In the posting for 2019.07.26, I argued that the role of the Greek hero Hēraklēs as a boxer was cognate with the role of the Scandinavian hero Starkaðr as, likewise, a boxer. In using the term “cognate,” I was saying, in effect, that the myths about Hēraklēs as transmitted in the Greek language and the myths about Starkaðr / “Starcatherus” as originally transmitted in… Read more

By Gregory Nagy

Thinking comparatively about Greek mythology I, Hēraklēs as athlete

2019.07.26 | By Gregory Nagy §0. There is no single way to think comparatively about mythology—or about anything else. And Greek mythology is surely no exception. In my own work on mythology in general and on Greek mythology in particular, I have found it useful to apply—and to integrate—three different comparative methods: (1) typological, (2) genealogical, and (3) historical. For definitions and explanations of these terms, I cite §§3–6 of… Read more