What an embarrassing piece of work. Berens litters most of the retellings of the myths and legends with his over-arching commentary on how each mythological tale and archetype is essentilly the work of a "savage", "crude" or "unrefined" civilization.

Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome by E. M. Berens is a mine of information about the lineage of the gods, forms of worship, festivals and temples devoted to them.

Written in an easy and light style, the author attempts to bring the pantheon of gods into a comprehensible format. He organize

I read this book through Better Morning Reading, which sends you a chapter of a book every morning by email. Not a bad way to consume a book, but this one was a bit dry and didn't really divulge too much of interest that I didn't already know. Still, I picked it for its short chapters so I suppose I

This is a well researched and essential book for anyone trying to learn more in real depth about the religious beliefs of the Greeks and Romans. It doesn't go into any great depth in any one area but what it does is cover all ridiculous numbers of the Gods and Godesses of both Pantheons. I honestly

I read this on my e-reader, which meant I didn’t have access to the much lauded footnotes (major drawback I didn’t know about when I bought it!). However, I read it to refresh my memory of ancient mythology before settling down to read The Iliad, and I am amazingly glad I did. Berens has done an exc