Why the Versions Differ

Greek tradition often gives a figure more than one parentage, birthplace, or story. The disagreement can frustrate a reader looking for a single account. It can also reveal how the tradition lived.

A story carried through different communities may acquire local ties. A poet may select one version for its place in a larger narrative. A family may emphasize the branch of a genealogy that supports its standing. Variation is part of transmission.

None of this proves that an event happened behind the versions. Invented material can also spread and change. But contradiction alone does not establish that there was no earlier memory. It tells us that the material was reshaped or preserved differently.

The useful questions concern what remains stable, when a particular variation appears, and whose purposes it serves. Combining all versions into one smooth narrative would conceal precisely the evidence that helps us ask those questions.