This book explores how Roman religious festivals were celebrated in the Greek East, how they changed in the centuries between Augustus and the Middle Byzantine Era, and how this influenced the Christian liturgical calendar. Of interest to scholars of the religions of Rome, Greece, and the Near East, including Judaism and Christianity.
First surveying the various definitions of myth that have been advanced, Graf proceeds to examine topics such as the relationship between Greek myths and epic poetry, the connection between particular myths and shrines or holy festivals, the use of myth in Greek song and tragedy, and the uses and interpretations of myth by philosophers and allegorists.