euhemerism

Theory of the origin of mythology, which claims that the gods were once humans, deified after death for their exceptional qualities and actions. It was founded by the 4th-century Greek philosopher Euhemerus.

He claimed that while voyaging to the Indian Ocean he discovered an island called Panchaia, and on it a number of inscriptions representing the gods of Greece as human individuals. He was accused of atheism, but later thinkers and philosophers, such as Polybius, Lactantius, and Saint Augustine, adopted the theory. It was subsequently simplified by Greek writers, leaving a number of commonplace and credible stories in which Aeolus became an ancient mariner, the Cyclopes a race of savages inhabiting Sicily, Atlas an astronomer, and Scylla and Pegasus fast-sailing pirates.