Over a millennium has passed since Photius suggested that the Librarywas not without its value to those who attach some importance to the memory of the ancient stories. Does this still apply for the modern reader? And even if the Libraryis of some practical use for its summaries of the main myths and the other information that it provides, is that the most that can be said for it?
As the only comprehensive mythical history of Greece to survive from antiquity, it is certainly the case that it has been used extensively by scholars and amateurs of myth in modern times. It is no accident that the major mythographical work of C. G. Heyne, the founder of modern scholarly mythography (who was responsible for introducing the word ‘myth’ into modern usage), should have been an edition of the Libraryaccompanied by an exhaustive commentary. And ever since, authors of mythological dictionaries and compendia have relied heavily on the Libraryfor their accounts of the main myths. This will be readily apparent if relevant passages from Robert Graves’ Greek Myths, for instance, or Pierre Grimal’s dictionary of classical mythology are checked against the text of the Library. It must be said, however, that despite the undoubted usefulness of the Library, writers on Greek mythology tend to refer to it with condescension or even disdain, and the neglect of it in the scholarly literature confirms that it is generally regarded as a work of no great substance.
In reaching a judgement on the value of the Library, we must take due account of the genre that it belongs to; for a summary handbook of this kind, compiled by collecting and epitomizing material from earlier sources, belongs to a mediocre, or at least a secondary, genre. The value of such a work will not derive from any originality or serious scholarship on the author’s part. He is simply an editor. Nor should we expect such a work to have any literary merit (beyond a tolerably clear presentation of the mythical narrative, which is generally the case with the Library). If Apollodorus’ main sources had survived, the Librarywould be no more than a historical curiosity, and the work as a whole would possess no greater value than the summary of the Iliadon p. 153. But if his main sources are taken to be primarily the works of the early mythographer-historians, very little of them has been preserved, so we must ask: can a compilation of this kind convey anything of value from them, and in the present case, is it reasonable to assume that it does? Now this is surely an area in which a writer of very modest capabilities could perform a useful service. Mythology is not at all like philosophy, for instance, where subtleties of thought and essential points in the reasoning can easily be lost in the process of summarization. If a mythical epitomist shows reasonable discrimination in the selection of resources, he merely needs the ability to summarize the stories clearly and accurately, and to be thorough in transmitting genealogical and other information which may be of less immediate appeal but is essential if the individual stories are to be ordered into a coherent mythical history. In this respect, the author of the Librarycertainly demonstrates the necessary thoroughness, and where his narratives can be compared with surviving sources, we can see that his summaries are generally reliable.
Furthermore, a lack of originality and of scholarly and literary ambition are not necessarily defects in an epitomist; for the mediocrity of his aims prevents our author from ever standing in the way of his sources. He never tries to rationalize the myths or impose his own ideas on them, or to alter and embellish them for literary or rhetorical effect. And he willingly accepts conflicting traditions without attempting to reconcile them.
If the author had modest aims, he can be said to have fulfilled them in a satisfactory manner. Of its kind, and allowing for its brevity, the Libraryis a work of surprisingly high quality. It is founded for the most part on good authorities of early date, and reports them with a high degree of accuracy. Naturally we would prefer to have the works of Pherecydes and Acousilaos (and the early epics too), but we should be grateful to fortune that at least we have this little summary of the mythical history of Greece as it would have been depicted in the works of the earliest mythographers. If only because so much else has been lost, it is indispensable to anyone who has more than a passing interest in Greek mythology.
NOTE ON THE TEXT AND TRANSLATION
ALL surviving manuscripts of the Libraryare descended from a single original, a fourteenth-century manuscript in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. Unfortunately this breaks off before the end of the work, during the section on Theseus (p. 138), which meant that, until quite recently, the valuable account of the Trojan cycle was entirely lost. But the situation was improved at the end of the last century by the discovery of two epitomes, or abridgements, of the Library, which provide a very serviceable summary of the end of the work. They were found quite independently, in the Vatican Library (the Vatican epitome) and the monastery of Saint Sabbas in Jerusalem (the Sabbaitic epitome), in 1885 and 1887 respectively.
The standard modern text, that of Richard Wagner in the Teubner series (1926 edn.), has been used for the present translation, although alternative readings have sometimes been preferred, and account has been taken of the more recent literature mentioned in the Select Bibliography. The Greek text in Frazer’s edition in the Loeb series is largely based on that of Wagner.
The two epitomes are not identical either in content or, where they cover the same episodes, in expression, and Wagner prints both texts, using parallel columns where necessary; but in a translation, Frazer’s procedure of combining the two to provide a single continuous narrative is clearly preferable. In practice this raises few problems, except occasionally when both epitomes tell the same story but express it in a slightly different way. Only at a very few points have I felt it necessary to question Frazer’s judgement on the selection of material (and it was considered desirable in any case that the translation should correspond as far as possible to Frazer’s Greek text).
This is a utilitarian work which offers no promise of literary delight. The prose of Apollodorus is plain and colourless, and so simple in expression that a translator has little latitude. Without misrepresenting the original, it is hard to prevent a translation from reading like a story-book for young children; but I have tried to bring out the possible advantages of a plain style, and hope that the reader will find the mythical narrative brisk and clear, and if ingenuous, at least agreeably so.
I have benefited from a long familiarity with the translation by Sir James Frazer. Despite the archaisms and a tendency to euphemism on sexual matters, it is a work of quality. I have also consulted the elegant and precise French translation by Carriere and Massonie.
According to the traditional arrangement, the work is divided into three books followed by the Epitome. Each of these is further divided into numbered chapters (here indicated in the margin) and subsections (indicated within the text); and correspondingly, three figures (or two for passages from the Epitome) are cited in references in the scholarly literature (e.g. 2, 4, 6, or Epitome 7, 18). The paragraph numbering found in some editions has been omitted to avoid confusion; I have added italicized headings to make the work easier to consult.
Greek names. These present a real problem because the Latinized forms are not only more familiar, but in many cases have become part of our language and culture. Nevertheless, in a comprehensive work of this kind, containing so many genealogies, it is surely preferable that the original Greek forms should be used. If the Greek names can look strange and unattractive in an English text, this is largely because of the ks(e.g. Kanake, Kirke, Lakonia); but there seems to be no particular disadvantage in using a c(properly a hard c)for Greek kappa, and I have followed that course in the present translation. For very familiar figures, however, like Oedipus and Achilles, the traditional forms have been preserved (except in some cases where the Latin form differs markedly from the original); and for place names, modern or Latinized forms have been used much more frequently. Some guidance on pronunciation and possible sources of confusion is offered at the beginning of the Index. The Greek forms differ most frequently from the Latin in the use of -osinstead of -usat the end of masculine names, and of aiand oiinstead of aeand oe(thus Aigimios and Proitos rather than Aegimius and Proetus).