Myths on Maps

I have noticed that when Apollodorus gives several versions of the same event,or the details of the same event, these are often entered into the events list as separate events. What I think would be best in most of these cases would be to rewrite the description of the main version of the event to emphasize what is common to all the versions, and then merge the bibls from all the events into that event.

I think it is generally a good idea to avoid putting details that are disputed (or overly specific details) into event descriptions, because this will make it harder to judge when events are the same. In writing event descriptions, we should try to include the most salient point of the event, and leave extraneous and potentially confusing details out.

For example, the description of event_1481 used to read "Peleus brings the child to Chiron, who feeds him inside wide (sic) beasts and names him Achilles for not putting his lips to the breast." This description assumes that it is going to be read as part of a sequence, not in isolation, but given the nature of the user interface descriptions are often going to be read in isolation or out of sequence. Out of sequence, the reference to "the child" in this description doesn't make sense. Also, the etymology of Achilles' name is not an essential part of the event, and its inclusion will make adding other sources for this event more difficult. I have changed the description to read "Peleus gives Achilles over to Chiron's care."

Some events describe a transition from one place to another, where the journey itself is unremarkable. event_728 is an example; the description is "Niobe leaves Thebes and goes to her father in Sipylus."

Currently, the place for this event is given as "unknown," but this does not seem entirely correct. SBE and I agree that in cases like this, where there is a beginning point and an end point to the journey and neither seems more salient than the other, priority should be given to the destination. So, "Sipylus" should be listed as the place here. (This assumes that there exists another event in the list in which the character shows up at the point of departure. If not, one should be created).

I changed the description of the event to reflect the focus of Niobe's arrival in Sipylus.

One thing that's become really clear as I'm reading through the events list is that we need to come to a consensus about and then explicitly define "event." As it stands, there seem to be competing definitions of "event," and this is beginning to cause problems.

When we started this project, and were only going to have a map without text, the definition we agreed on for event was, more or less "at least one person said to be in a given place (doing something)." We were mainly interested in who went where, and whom we could say were in places together. Narrative didn't matter that much. As a consequence, early in the list we find "events" that contain an awful lot of narrative elements. For example, the description of event_542 is "Hercules marches on Elis, kills Augeas and sons, restores Phyleus to power, celebrates the Olympian games, etc." In the logic of our definition, this could all be called one event, since it involved Heracles being in Elis with Augeas and Phyleus.

The problem is that now, we care about narrative. It no longer makes sense to group many narrative elements into the same event, just because they all happen to involve the same person in the same place. This is especially true when we have the same event described in more than one source. "Events" need to be narrative units that can be meaningfully compared across sources. If one author describes Heracles doing 10 things in Thebes and we call that an event, what are we do to when another author describes Heracles doing 3 of those 10 things, plus 2 others not mentioned by this first author, and on and on? Is this the same "event"?

I have consulted with LB, and the provisional definition she suggests is "one or more person in one place doing one thing." The "one place" element of the definition is important for the map. "One thing" is still unavoidably subjective, but is certainly narrower than the definition being used now.

If a sequence of events is disputed (e.g. one author includes an event in a sequence but another author does not) we should have a sequence that includes bibl entries for different authors. Conditionally then, we can say that when a sequence of events lists more than one author in its corresps we have a potential dispute - and we can render it in a way that highlights the dispute.

When groups are included in events, we do not mean to imply that every member of the group participated in the event. For example, although the Argonauts go to Colchis, and should be listed as doing so, Heracles, although a member of the Argonauts, does not go to Colchis. We will want to add a notice or disclaimer of some sort to the user interface to reflect this.

This means that whenever someone is explicitly named as taking part in an event, that person should be added as an individual to the event, even if a group of which that person is a member is also listed as taking part in the event.