Palaephatus
PALAEPHATUS, the author of a small extant treatise, entitled Ilepi 'AttIcttuj' (On " Incredible Things "). It consists of a series of rationalizing explanations of Greek legends, without any attempt at arrangement or plan, and is probably an epitome, composed in the Byzantine age, of some larger work, perhaps the AiKjets tS)v fivOiKus elprqiifvuv, mentioned by Suidas as the work of a grammarian of Egypt or Athens. Suidas himself ascribes a Ilepi 'Att'lctoov, in five books, to Palaephatus of Paros or Priene. The author was perhaps a contemporary of Euhemerus (3rd century B.C.). Suidas mentions two other \vriters of the name: (i) an epic poet of Athens, who lived before the time of Homer; (2) an historian of Abydus, an intimate friend of Aristotle.
See edition by N. Festa, in Mythographi graeci (1902), in tlie Teubner series, with valuable prolegomena supplementary to Inlorno all' opuscolo di Palefato de incredibilibus (1890), by the same writer.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
