Censorship Across the Centuries

Authorities have been editing Greek and Roman stories for two thousand years. Ovid was exiled partly over sexually provocative poetry, especially the Ars Amatoria, along with an unknown "error" he never fully explained. Early Church fathers debated whether to preserve pagan literature at all. Many texts survived only because monks copied them, often altering passages as they went.

The strangest part is what the Greeks did with these flaws. Zeus committed acts that would be crimes by any standard, deceiving and abducting at will, yet Athens worshiped him as king of the gods and swore oaths in his name. The Greeks did not need their gods to be good; they needed them to be powerful.