You are putting way too much faith in the knowability of a historical thing, at the level of detail required to construct and cohere a narrative.
That's convenient, if your preferred mythology matches up to your culture's mainstream accepted view of history. But it is not definitionally more correct.
This is the cognitive bias/belief side of Gell-Mann amnesia, as held by a culture.
I am not discounting the possibility that some mythologies are more true, or more supported, or more plausible, than others. Just that it's not a requirement or a disqualification.
> Is there still a fundamental difference between what we ‘know’ about Zeus and Caesar?
Yes!
But both narratives are mythologies.
This is an interesting example. What we think we know about Caesar has lots of documentation (much of it written by himself), and the correspondence to truth for a great deal of it, is absolutely unknown.
I'd agree that the Caesar mythology is clearly more truthy than the Zeus mythology. But that doesn't make it any more of less of a mythology.
As soon as simple, non-interpretable, facts get fleshed out into a story, you have a mythology. All story writers are fallible and often have an agenda.
Caesar was born to a wealthy family, did lots of things, led armies, wrote lots of words, crossed a river, challenged some ideas, offended some people, got killed by a mob.
Add any more detail to that, and you're building a mythology. It doesn't matter if it's true. Every single one of those "facts" has a mythology attached to it, and the whole system of stories is the Caesar mythology.
You picked Caesar, which I think is an interesting but easily-debunked choice. Any historian of the era would agree that there's an enormous mythology built around Caesar's life.
Something simpler and more recent? Would you say there's no mythology around the Kennedys or the Clintons? (There is so much mythology around those people it's hard to imagine an argument otherwise).
Anywhere there's a collective interpretation of a narrative, there's a mythology.
(It might be important that "collective interpretation of narrative" is also a reasonable definition of "history", and that any interpretation is a likely introduction of error or at least lossy compression -- which is the same thing.)
We know that Caesar lived. We probably also know that Jesus lived. They are both real people (probably) and also icons.
Zeus did not live, as we understand him, but the notional Zeus is derived from earlier prototypes and it's even possible that there was a real human behind proto-Zeus as there is behind notional Jesus. There is more documentation behind Caesar, of course, but the full truth of "Caesar" the icon is equally unknowable.
All of these characters have extensive mythologies about the details, intentions, and meanings of their lives.
Many of those details are unverifiable-but-critical parts of their stories, and the purposes those stories serve. Even the verifiable points of truth have mythologies around their meaning.
This may devolve into a question of what is knowable and what is unknowable. Facts are very very important, but they are not the most powerful force in society.
If you want to argue that you are a scholar of the early Roman Empire, and you know everything there is to know about Caesar, that's fine -- but the scholarship changes, and all you are saying is that you can recite the most-accepted-today interpretation of sparse facts. Interesting, but not authoritative.
They say that history is written by the victors. Caesar was a victor until he was not. They do not say that history is truth.
Then you should know - your argument is burying the useful word distinction and meaning in a not-completely-incorrect, but not-useful-in-reality wrapper.
Yes, there is always a degree of myth in common usage. Yes, there is always an element of distortion in history. And the further we go in time, the more history turns into myth as actual evidence gets lost, buried, destroyed, manipulated, etc. And history gets manipulated for political purposes.
But there is a giant valley between the common case of myth, and any formal study of history. For real reasons, because there are fundamental differences in approach and goals. Think 90/10 one way, 10/90 the other way (hopefully).
Because any study of history which isn’t solidly based on actual independently verifiable facts or evidence isn’t history, it’s just myth making. And those are different words for real reasons. Including trying to fight manipulation and BS. Something that is really important for us to remember, especially now.
Because at some point, something either did actually happen or not, and for folks who care, that matters. If people don’t, that’s fine - but let’s not confuse anyone by confusing the resulting cool stories with actual history eh?
There are many aspects of what we call "history" that are guesses, best guesses, biased guesses, ignorant assumptions, intent-driven narratives, or uncontested acceptance of plausible but currently-uncorroborated narrative.
It's a mistake to pretend that any "historical record" is not littered with these things. More so as the years tick by, more so if there's any contention around influence or meaning of the person/story. (Aside: This is why I will not watch Oliver Stone movies.)
There is (usually) a bright line between truth and falsehood. We almost never know where that line is.
Sure, some details are documented and plausible. These are probably true, unless there are details that are very important or useful to some group.
And some details are incredible and fanciful. Probably "false" although possibly derived from some kernel of truth or substantively true but simplified/embellished for audiences over time.
The deeper you dig, the more you realize that all stories are incomplete at best, and likely several layers deep in manipulation or at least imperfect interpretation. We are all imperfect interpreters.
Do I believe that Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC? Yes -- with very high certainty.
Do I believe that he uttered Iacta Alea Est just before doing so? Maybe -- it's romantic and flatteringly displays his executive strength, and IIRC he wrote that he did.
If you want to delineate "history" from "myth" on the "truthy-falsy" spectrum, you may choose to do so with that example. But this history and mythology are inseparable, so the distinction is untrustworthy and often not useful anyway.
That's convenient, if your preferred mythology matches up to your culture's mainstream accepted view of history. But it is not definitionally more correct.
This is the cognitive bias/belief side of Gell-Mann amnesia, as held by a culture.
I am not discounting the possibility that some mythologies are more true, or more supported, or more plausible, than others. Just that it's not a requirement or a disqualification.