Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)

It has the following not ungraceful epigram: 'Draw your knowledge of the past from me and read the ancient tales of learned lore.

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The Bibliotheca (in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
: Library), in three books, provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
 and heroic legend

Legend

A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude ....
s, "the most valuable mythographical work that has come down from ancient times," Aubrey Diller observed, whose "stultifying purpose" was neatly expressed in the epigram

Epigram

An Epigram is a brief, clever, and usually memorable statement. Derived from the "to write on - inscribe", the literary device has been employed for over two millennia....
 noted by Patriarch Photius I of Constantinople:

It has the following not ungraceful epigram: 'Draw your knowledge of the past from me and read the ancient tales of learned lore. Look neither at the page of Homer

Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
, nor of elegy, nor tragic muse, nor epic strain. Seek not the vaunted verse of the cycle; but look in me and you will find in me all that the world contains'.

The brief and plainly expressed accounts of myth in the Bibliotheca have led some commentators to suggest that even its complete sections are an epitome

Epitome

An epitome is a summary or miniature form; an instance that represents a larger reality, also used as a synonym for embodiment.Many documents from the Ancient Greek and Ancient Rome worlds survive now only "in epitome," referring to the practice of some later authors who wrote distilled versions of larger works now lost....
 of a lost work.

Pseudo-Apollodorus

A certain "Apollodorus" is indicated as author on some surviving manuscripts (Diller 1983). This Apollodorus has been mistakenly identified with Apollodorus of Athens

Apollodorus

Apollodorus of Athens son of Asclepiades, was a Greeks scholar and grammarian. He was a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon, Panaetius, and the grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace....
 (born c. 180 BC), a student of Aristarchus of Samothrace

Aristarchus of Samothrace

Aristarchus or Aristarch of Samothrace was a grammarian noted as the most influential of all scholars of Homeric poetry. He was the librarian of the Library of Alexandria Alexandria and seems to have succeeded his teacher Aristophanes of Byzantium Byzantium in that role....
, mainly as it is known—from references in the minor scholia on Homer—that Apollodorus of Athens did leave a similar comprehensive repertory on mythology, in the form of a verse chronicle. The text that we possess, however, cites a Roman author, Castor the Annalist

Castor the Annalist

Castor the Annalist was a Ancient Rome author, a contemporary of Cicero in the 1st century BC....
, who was a contemporary of Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Ancient Rome philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Constitution of the Roman Republic. Cicero is widely considered one of Rome's greatest rhetoric and prose stylists....
 in the 1st century BC. The mistaken attribution was made by scholars from Photius onwards. Since for chronological reasons Apollodorus of Athens could not have written the book, the Scriptor Bibliothecae ("writer of the Bibliotheca") is conventionally called the "Pseudo-Apollodorus" by those wishing to be completely correct. Traditional references simply instance "the Library and Epitome".

Manuscript tradition

The first mention of the work, ignored as a popularised handbook by Classical authors, is by Photius. The work was almost lost in the thirteenth century, surviving in one now-incomplete manuscript, which was copied for Cardinal Bessarion in the fifteenth century; from Bessarion's copy the other surviving manuscripts depend.

Unfortunately, the Bibliotheca, undivided in the manuscripts but conventionally divided in three books, has not come down to us complete. Part of the third book, which breaks off abruptly in the story of Theseus, has been lost. The Patriarch Photius had the full work before him, as he mentions in his "account of books read" that it contained stories of the heroes of the Trojan War

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy stole Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta....
 and the nostoi

Nostoi

The Nostoi is a lost Epic poetry of ancient Greek literature. It was one of the Epic Cycle, that is, the "Trojan" cycle, which told the entire history of the Trojan War in epic verse....
, missing in surviving manuscripts. On the other hand, we have an epitome

Epitome

An epitome is a summary or miniature form; an instance that represents a larger reality, also used as a synonym for embodiment.Many documents from the Ancient Greek and Ancient Rome worlds survive now only "in epitome," referring to the practice of some later authors who wrote distilled versions of larger works now lost....
 that was made by James George Frazer, who conflated two manuscript summaries of the text, also including the lost part, leaving us a good summary of its contents.

Printed editions

The first printed edition of "Apollodorus" was published in Rome in 1555, edited by Benedetto Egio (Benedictus Aegius) of Spoleto, who divided the text in three books, but made many unwarranted emendations in his very corrupted text. Hieronymus Commelinus published an improved text at Heidelberg, 1559. The first text based on comparative manuscripts was that of Christian Gottlob Heyne

Christian Gottlob Heyne

Christian Gottlob Heyne was a Germany classical scholar and archaeologist as well as long-time director of the G?ttingen State and University Library....
, Göttingen, 1782-83.

External links

• segmented text with copious footnotes
• condensed text (4 pgs)

Further reading

• Diller, Aubrey (1983). Studies in Greek Manuscript Tradition, (Amsterdam) pp. 199-216. Originally as "The Text History of the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus", in Transactions of the American Philological Association 66 (1935), pp. 296-313.
• Hard, Robin (1999). The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford University Press).
• Smith, R.S. and S. Trzaskoma (2007). Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology (Hackett Publishing).