Griechische und römische Götter- und Heldensage

Hermann Steuding’s *Griechische und römische Götter- und Heldensage* (English: *Greek and Roman Mythology*) appeared in 1897 from the Leipzig publisher G.J. Göschen. It was actually the second edition of a work first released in 1892 under the title *Griechische und römische Mythologie*. The volume surveys the origins of both Greek and Roman mythological traditions. Over time it was revised and rendered into several languages, becoming the most widely known of Steuding’s publications.

Steuding was a classical philologist, teacher, and eventually a headmaster. He earned his doctorate at the University of Jena in 1874 with a dissertation on the transmission history of the Roman poet Tibull. After that he taught in Gotha, then moved to Wurzen, where the school was restructured into a royal Humanistisches Gymnasium that emphasized Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. While teaching, he wrote several books, including school texts such as *Beiträge zur Textkritik im Dialog des Tacitus* (1878) and *Denkmäler antiker Kunst für das Gymnasium ausgewählt und in geschichtlicher Folge erläutert*. He was not the only German scholar of the late 1800s working on Greek and Roman mythology; other authors produced works ranging from studies of minor legends to comprehensive overviews like Steuding’s. The journal *Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte der klassischen Alterthumswissenschaft* (often called *Bursians Jahresbericht*) also devoted whole issues to the available literature on the subject—for instance, Volume 25, published in 1891. Steuding’s own book drew on such nineteenth-century scholarship, with sources dating from 1825 to 1896.

The book splits into two main sections: one on Greek mythology, the other on Roman mythology. The Greek part is further divided into three subsections. The first, “Beginnings of Greek Belief and Worship,” explains that early Greeks imagined ghosts, spirits, or souls of the dead as existing in a form tied to the corpse. These beliefs arose from fear of death and from a need to account for otherwise unexplainable events. Besides ghosts, there were underworld powers called heroes, who were thought to affect the lives of people living near their underground homes. Usually prominent family members were regarded as heroes, and their graves became sites of worship. The section also covers natural and elemental powers, which were attributed to nature-demons,