[jampekka]

It's usually next to impossible to read the real source material, as it's in literally ancient language and written in context and for purposes that are hard to understand.

For most things it probably doesn't matter that much. For example classical philosophy (or its common translations/interpretations) provides a sort of "shared language" for academia, regardless of how historical it is. That's why I tend to think it more as a myth unless there's something specifically historically intetesting.

Most of the classical stories, e.g. the Cave, have "transcended" the original context anyway, and are in a sense richer nowadays.