Palaephatus

Palaephatus (Greek: Παλαίφατος) was the original author of a rationalizing text on Greek mythology, the work of paradoxography On Incredible Tales (Περὶ ἀπίστων (ἰστορίων) Peri apiston (historion); Latin: Incredibilia), which survives in a (probably corrupt) Byzantine edition.

This work consists of an introduction and 52 brief sections on various Greek myths. The first 45 have a common format: a brief statement of a wonder tale from Greek mythology, usually followed by a claim of disbelief ("This is absurd" or "This is not likely" or "The true version is..."), and then a sequence of every-day occurrences which gave rise to the wonder-story through misunderstanding. The last seven are equally brief retellings of myth, without any rationalizing explanation.

Palaephatus' date and name are uncertain; many scholars have concluded that Palaephatus is a pseudonym; the evidence, such as it is, is all of it consistent with the late fourth century BC.

Palaephatus' introduction sets his approach between those who believe everything that is said to them and those more subtle minds who believe that none [of Greek mythology] ever happened. He sets up two premises: that every story derives from some past event, and a principle of uniformity, that "anything which existed in the past now exists and will exist hereafter"; this he derives from the philosophers Melissus and Lamiscus of Samos. So there must be some probable series of events behind all myth; but the "poets and early historians" made them into wonderful tales to amaze their audience. Palaephatus then claims to base what follows on personal research, going to many places and asking older people what happened.

A typical, if short, example of Palaephatus' method and tone is his handling of Callisto:

As usual in Palaephatus, the miracle is told baldly and without context, and the action of the gods is not mentioned; in the traditional story, Artemis transforms Callisto, because she was an unfaithful priestess. Palaephatus rarely mentions the gods, and when he discusses Actaeon, his statement of disbelief is: "Artemis can do whatever she wants, yet it is not true that a man became a deer or a deer a man" (§6, tr. Stern); his principle of uniformity applies to human beings. Jacob Stern distinguishes this from the more wide-ranging rationalism of Euhemerus: Palaephatus retains Callisto and Actaeon as historic human beings; rationalism extended to the gods can make them deified human beings or personifications of natural forces or of the passions, but does not leave them gods.

...
Wikipedia