Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)

The Bibliotheca (Ancient Greek: Βιβλιοθήκη, Bibliothēkē, "library"), in three books, provides a comprehensive summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends, "the most valuable,Aubrey Diller, "The Text History of the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus" Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 66 (1935:296-313) p. 296, 300. whose "stultifying purpose" was neatly expressed in the epigram noted by Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople: 
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 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 (born c. 180 BCE), a student of Aristarchus of Samothrace, 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, a contemporary of Cicero in the 1st century BCE. The mistaken attribution was made by scholars from Photius onwards. Since for chronological reasons Apollodorus of Athens could not have written the book, the author of the Bibliotheca is conventionally called the "Pseudo-Apollodorus" by those wishing to be scrupulously correct. Traditional references simply instance "the Library and Epitome".
One of his many sources was the Tragodoumena (Subjects of Tragedies) a 4th-century BCE analysis of the myths in Greek tragedies by Asclepiades of Tragilus, the first known Greek mythographic compilation.
==Manuscript tradition==
The first mention of the work is by Photios. The work was almost lost in the 13th century, surviving in one now-incomplete manuscript,Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. which was copied for Cardinal Bessarion in the 15th century; from Bessarion's copyBessarion's copy, deposited in the Biblioteca Marciana, Venice, found its way into the Greek manuscripts of Archbishop Laud and came with them to the Bodleian Library in 1636 (Diller 1935:308, 310). the other surviving manuscripts depend.
Unfortunately the Bibliotheca has come down to us incomplete. It is undivided in the manuscripts but conventionally divided in three books. 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 and the nostoi, missing in surviving manuscripts. Sir James George Frazer published an epitome of the book by conflating two manuscript summaries of the text,Frazer, Apollodorus Loeb Classical Library, 1913. which included the lost part.
==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,He based his division on attributions in the scholia minora on Homer to Apollodorus, in three books, as Diller noted in 1935 (p. 298 and 308f. but made many unwarranted emendations in the very corrupt text. Hieronymus Commelinus published an improved text at Heidelberg, 1559. The first text based on comparative manuscripts was that of Christian Gottlob Heyne, Göttingen, 1782-83.Diller 1935.
==Notes==
==Further reading==
* Diller, Aubrey (1983). Studies in Greek Manuscript Tradition, (Amsterdam: Hakkert ISBN 902560837X) pp. 199–216. Abstract. 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. Scott & Trzaskoma, Stephen M., trans. (2007). Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing ISBN 0872208214).
==External links==
*Apollodori Bibliotheca, edition by B.G. Teubner, Lipsiae (Leipzig), 1854. Original Greek text.
*Online Text: Apollodorus The Library translated by J. G. Frazer segmented English text with copious footnotes
*Apollodori Bibliotheca Electronica: searchable and annotated online bibliography: history of the text, printed editions,textual criticism, etc.
*Apollodorus the Mythographer
*Online Text: Apollodorus The Library translated by J. G. Frazer condensed text (4 pgs)
*Perseus Encyclopedia, "Apollodorus" (4)
Category:Books
Category:Greek Mythology