Palaephatus

Palaephatus is the name attached to a short Greek handbook of rationalised myths, On Unbelievable Tales (Περὶ ἀπίστων). Nothing certain is known of the author: ancient sources variously call him a pupil of Aristotle, a grammarian of Athens or of Paros, or an Egyptian; the text we have is an abridgement of a lost longer work, probably of the Hellenistic or early Roman period. Its method is to explain each myth as a distorted report of an ordinary event.