A lot of those epics weren't to "make sense of the world". They were to transmit cultural values, and let the audience feel they were part of something bigger.

A lot of those epics weren't to "make sense of the world". They were to transmit cultural values, and let the audience feel they were part of something bigger. For example, if you're an ordinary Roman hearing the Aeneid, what you're hearing is not a story to explain why there's thunder or how the world got made -- what you're hearing is a story that says, no matter how low you may be in the system of Roman civilization, you and all Romans share in a greater destiny.