The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World's Classics) Read online

  Historians were prominent amongst the earliest prose writers. Some concerned themselves with purely local matters, but others (including those mentioned amongst the authors most frequently cited by Apollodorus) had broader ambitions and covered the traditions associated with many parts of the Greek world. They could not extend their researches any distance into the past without engaging with what we would regard as myth; and in the present context, it is their contribution to mythography which interests us. But they regarded themselves as historians, and while they were not always totally uncritical, they were willing to accept myth and legend as reliable sources of historical truth. In this respect, they differed from the scholarly mythographers of the Hellenistic era, who were critical in their attitude to myth and regarded mythography as a separate area of investigation. These earlier authors, whose qualities must be judged from fragments and testimonies, are sometimes referred to as logographers to distinguish them from more critical historians like Herodotus and Thucydides; but since this term (which simply meant ‘prose writers’ in ancient usage) can be misleading if it is thought to describe a specific school of historians, it is safer to describe them merely as historians (or mythographer-historians or chroniclers).

  If these mythographer-historians were uncritical with regard to the basic nature of their material (and were rarely worried by the fabulous element in myth), they were by no means uncritical regarding the historical implausibilities which can arise from deficiencies in chronology and internal inconsistencies within the mythical narratives. With regard to chronology, they continued the enterprise begun in the Hesiodic Catalogue by refining and further developing the heroic genealogies, and trying to improve the synchronisms between families. In other respects, these authors could also be seen as heirs to the epic poets in the Homeric tradition. Many composed extensive narratives and most undertook to collect together the myths associated with the various cycles, and where necessary reconcile or choose between conflicting versions, and iron out contradictions to establish a convincing narrative.

  The works of the two mythographer-historians explicitly cited by Apollodorus were complementary in character. Acousilaos of Argos probably wrote at the end of the sixth century, as a contemporary of Hecataios (although some would place him somewhat later). He aimed to provide a systematic account of the entire mythical tradition, rigorously organized on a genealogical basis. The material was ordered in much the same way as in the Library, although on a far larger scale; as in the Library, most of the figures in heroic mythology were assigned to one or other of a small number of important families, and the history of each of these families was narrated separately from beginning to end. In this regard, Acousilaos used the Hesiodic Catalogue as his model, developing or modifying the genealogies as he thought necessary. As might be expected in an author of Argive birth, Acousilaos seems to have stressed the centrality of the Argive traditions in his account of Peloponnesian mythology.

  Pherecydes of Athens composed his history somewhat later, probably in the first half of the fifth century. His writings were more copious than those of Acousilaos, and it seems that his prime concern was to gather together as complete a collection as possible of the traditional myths. He was correspondingly less interested in genealogical matters, and the organization of his works would necessarily have been much looser in view of the quantity of diverse material collected within them. Indeed, the principles that he followed in this respect are not at all clear from the surviving evidence. He is the mythographer-historian most frequently quoted by the scholiasts, who (like Apollodorus) clearly valued him for his copious records of early myth, narrated in a pleasantly ingenuous style. Since the narratives preserved from the works of later mythographers are generally so lacking in charm, it is a particular shame that the works of this mythographical Herodotus should have been lost. Sometimes we detect something of their flavour in the summaries in the Library.

  Another mythographer-historian should also be mentioned who was certainly consulted by the author of the Library although he is not cited by name. Hellanicos of Lesbos, who wrote in the second half of the fifth century, was closer in spirit to Acousilaos than to Pherecydes, for he was important above all for his contribution to the fine-tuning of the genealogical system. He was less interested in the narration of myth, and the passages preserved by the scholiasts suggest that his writings were marked by a certain dryness and a rationalizing tendency rarely in evidence in the works of his predecessors. He was nevertheless an important authority on certain aspects of mythical history, notably the Trojan War.

  In the main, and allowing for a few important contributions from tragedy and later sources, the Library summarizes the canon of myth as it was defined in the works of these mythographer-historians and in early epic poetry; and for much of its organization, the Library relies on the genealogical system developed in the Hesiodic epics and further refined by the early prose mythographers. The author’s dependence on epic (and other poetic sources) would often have been indirect. Most of the stories from early epic would have been summarized in prose in the works of the mythographer-historians, and collections of summaries of epic and tragic plots became widely available in the Hellenistic era. These would have provided our author with the models for his own summaries, and would usually have served as his immediate sources. Indeed, it can be assumed that he would rarely have worked directly from a poetic source. He seems, however, to have had a thorough knowledge of the Hesiodic Catalogue, and, as would be expected, of the Homeric epics. Although the theogony at the beginning of the Library is largely based on Hesiod’s Theogony, the author preferred to follow other sources on some significant points (as is remarked in the Explanatory Notes).

  In many parts of the Library, the narrative can be regarded as being, in all essentials, a brief epitome of relevant sections from the works of the mythographer-historians (and much of its interest and value could be said to have derived from that). Pherecydes seems to have served as the author’s main model, although he also followed other historians when they were the main authorities on a particular area, as was Acousilaos on Argive myth, or Hellanicos on the myths connected with Troy. Not all scholars have agreed, however, that the author of the Library drew his material directly from these early prose sources, even where we can be certain that it was ultimately derived from them. For he had all the resources of Hellenistic mythography available to him, including handbooks which would have contained summaries of material from such writers. In his influential study, Carl Robert argued that the Library is little more than a precis of an earlier handbook by a Hellenistic author; and amongst German scholars at least, such a view came to be widely accepted in the early part of this century. Because we have to rely on fragments for our knowledge of most of the Library’s earlier sources, this is by no means an easy question. Nevertheless, the most detailed examination of the evidence hitherto (in the article by M. Van der Valk cited in the Select Bibliography) gives reason to suppose that the author referred directly to the writings of the mythographer-historians when he was following one of them as his main source in a particular part of the work.

  The author of the Library also drew on a variety of other sources. Besides epic poetry, his earlier sources would naturally have included lyric and elegiac poetry, and the ‘tragic Muse’, as was stated in the little poem attributed to him. The great Attic dramatists of the fifth century generally relied on heroic mythology for their plots, in particular the stories associated with the Argive and Theban royal families and the Trojan War. But they adapted the traditional stories with considerable freedom, whether for dramatic effect or to develop a moral of their own, and were thus responsible for some striking innovations which had a marked influence on the development of the tradition. In certain cases the tragedians contributed the canonic version of a particular story, while in many others they provided appealing variants. Both aspects of this influence are evident in the Library. Thus the account of the life of Oedipus is in the main a summary of S
ophocles’ version in his Oedipus plays, for this became the canonic version, largely displacing the very different accounts in early epic; but the plot of a play by Euripides on Alcmaion (p. 114) is included merely as an interesting variant, in a supplement to the main account based on the earlier tradition.

  To proceed to the Hellenistic poets, Apollodorus based his account of the voyage of the Argonauts on the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes, a relatively late epic written in the third century BC. As was common in that age, Apollonius was a scholar as well as a poet, and he made extensive use of the early sources in composing his poem. For certain stories, however, such as the murder of Apsyrtos (p. 54), the author of the Library prefers to report a more primitive version than was found acceptable in this late epic. Otherwise his interests diverge from those of the Hellenistic poets, who tended to concern themselves with the more recondite aspects of the tradition, and he draws on them only for the occasional learned variant. As to the mythographical literature of this period, it was observed above that he would have made use of the resources that it provided. It is likely that some of his narratives are based on Hellenistic summaries of epic or tragic plots; and mythical variants, collections of references, and alternative genealogies may often have been drawn from Hellenistic handbooks. Apollodorus would have valued such literature as a source of instant erudition, but there is nothing to indicate that the Library is marked in any deeper sense by Hellenistic scholarship, and the author had no interest whatever in the rationalistic interpretations favoured by many Hellenistic scholars.

  Over a millennium has passed since Photius suggested that the Library was 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 Library is 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 Library accompanied by an exhaustive commentary. And ever since, authors of mythological dictionaries and compendia have relied heavily on the Library for 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 Library would be no more than a historical curiosity, and the work as a whole would possess no greater value than the summary of the Iliad on 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 Library certainly 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 Library is 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 Library are 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 -os instead of -us at the end of masculine names, and of ai and oi instead of ae and oe (thus Aigimios and Proitos rather than Aegimius and Proetus).