The Library of Greek Mythology by Apollodorus

The Library of Greek Mythology Reviews

• 
  David Sarkies

  All the Greek myths we know and love - and then some
  19 July 2014
  
  This manuscript was a pretty good find, or at least the sections that we did find to complete the manuscript that was handed down to us, because it gives us all of those Greek stories that we know and love, from this:
  
  
  
  to this:
  
  
  
  and finishes of with this:
  
  
  
  but unfortunately it does not contain this:
  
  
  
  The book is actually only a brief overview of each of the legends and is divided into a number of sections which outline various Greek families, or tribes, so the book is not strictly chronological. What the library does is that it gives us a brief rundown of the legends that make up the mythology of the Ancient Greeks as it existed at the time of Apollodorus. In fact, it is the earliest complete outline of Greek mythology that we possess (though it is not necessarily complete because sections of the manuscript were lost, however a fortuitous discovery in the Vatican library allowed us to reconstruct most of it). This is not the only complete source that we have because we also have Ovid's Metamorphoses, however the difference between Apollodorus and Ovid is that Ovid writes from Roman point of view, so is a lot more sympathetic towards the Trojans. Ovid is also wrote the Metamorphoses as an epic poem (which excludes the genealogies) as opposed to an outline, which is how Apollodorus wrote the library.
  
  The library is full of genealogies, which outlines the parentage of many of the Greek heroes and demigods, and it also divides them into a number of tribes, being the Deucalionids (from which comes Jason and the Argonauts), the Argives (from which comes Heracles), the Anegorid, the Inachids, the Asopids, and the Pelopids. Each of these tribes (the members all have a common ancestry) come from different parts of Greece, which suggests that the myths that come out of the tribes originated from this part of Greece (and Ancient Greece was not a unified country, but rather a loose collection of city states that shared a common language and culture, and even then the various city states would war against each over because of an accent or a disagreement that originated in mythology – which is what still seems to be happening today, except on a much larger scale).
  
  There is an interesting distinction between history and myth that comes out in Herodotus. The common understanding of myth is that it is a story that suggests an origin, and it does not necessarily mean that the story is not true. Herodotus takes a different position in that history is written down, where as myth is passed down by word of mouth. As such the writings that create history are written down while still within living memory, while myth comes about after generations of passing the story down, which suggests that the story may have been true, however it has become corrupted as it has been passed down from generation to generation.
  
  Take for instance the story of Achilles. In the Illiad there is no mention of his invulnerability due to being dipped into a river. This is not even the story that occurs in the library as the story that occurs
  here is that Achilles' mother would bury him in fire at night and rub him with ambrosia during the day. The story about Achilles being dipped into the River Styx did not appear until the 1st Century AD, in a book (now lost) known as the
  Achilleid. As you can see, as time passes, the stories become more and more corrupted (and that occurs even with an original story having been written down).
  
  This book gives me a lot of opportunities to speculate on the truth behind many of these tales, though we also have earlier sources which we can also refer to, being the tragic plays and the epic poems, however these sources tend to focus mainly on the Trojan War, with the other stories only touched upon (and I believe that the Library is the earliest source for the story of Perseus, though he does receive a mention in Herodotus, but there we are only told that he married Andromeda and that he because the ancestor of the Persians).
• 
  E. G.

  Introduction
  Note on the Text and Translation
  Select Bibliography
  
  Contents
  Genealogical Tables
  Map
  
  --The Library
  
  Appendix: Some Interpolations and an Unreliable Passage from the Epitome
  Explanatory Notes
  The Twelve Gods
  References to Animals and Transformations
  Index of Names
• 
  Lucy

  3.5***
  
  There were just so many names to keep up with, even with the genealogical tables!
  This was packed full of all the myths and the retelling of the odyssey was fantastic. It is definitely a book I’ll have to reread in future in order to clarify some of the myths/names.
• 
  Barbarroja

  Excelente compendio de los principales mitos griegos, que sirve como enciclopedia básica y útil para cualquiera que quiera introducirse en la materia. Se hace patente que ya en la Antigüedad se vieron necesitados de resumir y ordenar los complejos relatos de la mitología helénica, y de ahí surgió esta Biblioteca, que cumple magníficamente con su cometido.
• 
  Lucy

  finished this yall 😎😎😎 so 💪ima 💯 just 👅 flex 😩 for 😤 a 💪 sec 🙌 cuz 😍 we 😈 always 😜 grinding 💁
  
  anyways lmao this was Really like dumb dry for the first quarter/third and then all of the heroes and gods started doin nasty shit so it got Interesting, i particularly liked (reading about mostly Not Them As A Person) heracles, hera, zeus, theseus, odysseus and athene (off the top of my head (💪) but i probs forgot some) because they were crazy lmao and interesting to read, zeus didn't really have any interesting like Long Passages like theseus heracles and odysseus but he was like Scattered Around but he was good to read about, i liked his kids (lmfao @@@@@hera) better than poseidons kids from what i remember of them they were Boring and Annoying. poseidon was wild sometimes tho lmao when he killin ppl bc it was always dramatic at this point
  
  i really liked theseus because he was like heracles chapters except he had no personality Only To The Point which i liked bc he wasn't off raping ppl and Ensnaring Women heracles was good until he kept doing that shit he was also Too Dramatic, but theseus was killin like the Right Shit when he went down that road thingo that was a Action Pack'd section
  
  also the Deeply Entrenched Entangled Every 1 Sentence Misogyny was Extremely wearing and tearing on my Soul not everyone need to rape ppl and women don't need to be Prizes and Passed Around i'msickofit
  
  pasiphae was good when she had some time too but her and minos were just Toxic basically like if u get to the point where u need ur man to nut snakes and millipedes, maybe stop seein ur man?:) minos was a Beast tho lmao like when he made the architect man create the Labyrinth for the minotaur and then stuck him in it later like:) savage and all the smol kiddos to Feed It but minos lookin after his kid at least so:))))))
  
  also,, ✋Stop✋ the incest and bESTIALITY for Goodness Sakes
  
  also everyone Don't eat pomegranates you will be Stuck in hades, Left Is An Ill-Omen and So Are Screech Owls
  
• 
  Ashley

  whoop! whoop! I'm done and I really enjoyed this but now it's time to move into Norse Mythology.
• 
  Cymru Roberts

  Brutal. Dense. Informative. Essential.
• 
  Eadweard

  A pretty straightforward "who's who", not as artful as Ovid or Homer but hey, it was still fun to read.
  
  I try not to think about all those lost works I will never get to read, I still have hope that we will some day find some more hidden somewhere...
• 
  Mison Chéwl

  Apollodorus' 'Library' is frustrating to read; even for an ardent lover of Greek Mythology. It is written in a very perfunctory style, devoid of anything resembling standard literary prose. This is, of course, understandable given the time in which it was written, but nevertheless, it's a bit tedious and very heavy on the genealogy - which starts to make you feel dizzy after a while. I take my hat off to anyone who can accurately recount even a third of the characters listed. By their very nature, the Greek myths necessitate being retold with colour and vivacity. However, Apollodorus writes with little flair or flamboyance; so, if you are expecting something akin to Ovid, I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed. I will give it 3-stars due to the fact that some of the stories contained are undeniably brilliant. I would recommend ‘Library’ mainly for academic/reference purposes.
• 
  Ashleigh (a frolic through fiction)

  Actual rating 2.5/5 stars!
• 
  sofia

  i'll admit i thought this one would have been a lot denser to read than what it actually was. that said, i'm not a classist, i've said that before, but all that to say that i just read these for fun (and to see what versions were told when this book was written. it is all very fun actually, i had fun)
• 
  Jesús De la Jara

  La biblioteca mitológica es muy fácil a leer aunque es relativamente amplia. Lo mejor que tiene es la capacidad de ordenar toda la mitología desde un punto de vista no sólo cronológico sino también espacial, con las principales "familias" de dioses y héroes establecidas en cada lugar de Grecia y el mundo. Es una obra obligatoria para todos los que nos encanta la mitología griega. Si alguna vez te preguntaste qué pasaba con algún personaje como Aquiles, Edipo y qué pasaba con sus hijos, éste es el libro que mejor puede responder a cuanta interrogante te surja.
• 
  roibean

  lots of words brain explosion purr
  HOWEVER HE CONFIRMED ACHILLES AND PATROCLUS WERE LOVERS WOOOO
• 
  Regular Luigi

  Ingenuo de mi cuando pensé que esto iba a ser lectura ligera.😅
  
  Si no se te ocurren nombres griegos para poner a tus hijos, agárrate porque en este libro tienes para rato.
  
  En la segunda parte se vuelve más denso. En vez de terminar con un mito, mete otro entre medias porque aparece tal héroe, dios o monstruo y tiene que explicarte su procedencia. Es un poco caótico para mi gusto.
  
  En fin, si te interesa la mitología griega igual este es un buen punto de partida para empezar a saber algo más.🤷🏻‍♂️
• 
  Angela

  Apollodorus' Library of Greek Mythology is a very informative overview of who's who in Greek mythology and the legends surrounding the various different gods, demigods, and heroes. It is in no way written to be as enthralling as, let's say, Homer's epics but still very fun to read nonetheless. Would highly recommend to those who are Greek mythology fans like me, or to those who would simply like to read an abridged version of the myths.
• 
  Erik Graff

  We don't actually know when the author of the Bibliotheca lived. The earliest source is ninth century, but most agree to Greek origins of an earlier date, possibly in the late first or early second centuries. We don't know who the author was either. The attribution to Apollodorus, while old, is mistaken, so purists assign the text to an unknown Pseudo-Apollodorus.
  
  This is more an encyclopediac geneology than just a literary collection of stories. Consequently, it's not an easy or very pleasant read. I skimmed it more than read it myself, using it as a resource for other works.
  
  My particular edition was done in 1975 and includes a great deal of critical apparatus.
• 
  Celia

  Como digo en comentarios anteriores, este libro es más como un árbol genealógico.
  Te dice los hijos de los dioses en hilera y hace que te confundas un montón, luego te cuenta por encima resúmenes de sus mitos... No era lo que esperaba sinceramente.
  
  Pdt: No tengo exactamente esta edición, es otra pero dice mismo autor y título así que creo que está bien.
• 
  Thrasymachus

  Who knew 2nd century Greeks had Sparknotes, too?
• 
  Artur Coelho

  Um enorme resumo, que nos introduz aos mitos gregos, às histórias que estão por detrás das tragédias, das comédias e dos poemas épicos que nos chegaram aos dias de hoje. Ler esta Biblioteca é ler um catálogo seco de personagens míticas e das suas principais histórias. Falta a poesia, o langor de contos milenares, mas permite mergulhar no longo historial destes antigos mitos. Cujo fascínio de terem sido tão duradouros, de um imaginário criado por homens que viveram há milénios e que ainda hoje nos intriga, é uma sensação extraordinária.
• 
  Lauren Alexandra

  This book was informative, accurate, and detailed. I think going into it I expected something more like a short story format, but it was incredibly academic…a little bit too much for me and my brain. There are so many names to keep track of! But I still really enjoyed it, and I think as I read more Greek mythology retelling novels having read this will come in handy.
• 
  saïd

  In dieser Zusammenschau der griechischen Mythologie stellt Apollodor den griechischen Mythos von der Schöpfung der Welt bis hin zu den Taten der Heroen in einen erzählerischen Zusammenhang und reichert ihn durch Varianten an, die aus zahllosen und für uns heute verlorenen Werken der Poesie und Prosa stammen. Die Übersetzung beruht auf der 2010 publizierten kritischen Neuausgabe des Textes von Kai Brodersen, Professor für Alte Geschichte und Präsident der Universität Erfurt.
  
  The Bibliotheke (Βιβλιοθήκη) is a compendium of ancient Greek myths and legends, generally dated somewhere during the first or second centuries CE. Some surviving manuscripts identify an author as "Apollodorus," leading scholars to assume the author was Apollodorus of Athens, a student of Aristarchus of Samothrace, compounded by various references in minor scholia on Homer that the Athenian Apollodorus did write a similar comprehensive repertory on mythology; however, modern scholarship agrees that the author could not have been the Athenian Apollodorus for primarily chronological reasons, and so the author is often distinguished by the prefix "Pseudo-," i.e., Pseudo-Apollodorus. Sometimes the author is still referred to as simply "Apollodorus," although many, myself included, are of the opinion that this is needlessly confusing and unhelpful.
  
  The text is typically trisected, although the original manuscripts were not. A not-inconsiderable portion of what is identified as the third book has been lost, sometime after the 9th century CE, and is assumed to have contained (at least in part) stories of the Trojan War and their Nostoi (Νόστοι), based on details mentioned in the writings of Photios I of Constantinople.* The Bibliotheke is best read as a much-later companion to Hesiod's
  Theogonia, although I wouldn't really recommend reading it at all if you don't have to, because it is incredibly boring. This translation, by Kai Brodersen, is completely fine, but not even a good translation can salvage an uninteresting text.
  
  *Photios I kept a record of what books he read, and what he thought of them, in his own version of a "library," known as the Myriobiblos (Μυριόβιβλος). Around half of the books no longer exist. May we all aspire to keep a record of the ten thousand books we've read. I mean, isn't that basically what I'm doing here?
• 
  Old-Barbarossa

  Not the most entertaining of reads as it is just a recitation of the bare bones of most of the myths.
  But very informative, good notes too. Ties most of the myths together into some semblance of order, puts them in context...and the notes point out the clashes and inconsistencies.
  However the tedious and passionless use of the phrase "had intercourse with" started to grate after a while...these are deities being talked about, surely a more poetic, or even earthy, phrase could have been used.
  Things I learned:
  1) Don't stand too close to anyone throwing a discus...if you know or are related to the thrower you will be killed.
  2) Zeus will hump (best I can do at the minute) anything or anyone...
  3)...and Hera will be very disappointed and angry with the humpee and any resultant offspring.
  4) Atalanta was nails...and probably hot too.
• 
  Mike Harris

  More like an ancient Wikipedia than a book, this book is a collection of epics and poems that make up most of Greek mythology. The work is readable and at times fascinating but ultimately it is rather boring. I think a modern reader would be better served by reading the Wikipedia entries on the same topics.
• 
  Julie

  I started reading this when I was about 100 pages from the end of Ovid's Metamorphoses. For me, the best part were the notes with their quirky asides and tangents.
• 
  Illiterate

  Useful but not particularly enjoyable.
• 
  P.D. Maior

  Photius I of Constantinople summarized this work well:
  
  “It has the following not ungraceful epigram [introducing it at it’s beginning]: 'Draw your knowledge of the past from me and read the ancient tales of learned lore...Seek not the vaunted verse of the cycle; but look in me and you will find in me all that the world contains.’”
  
  This is quite accurate. I believe what we have today is just an epitome of the original work though unfortunately. And it also shows signs of being intentionally scrambled in order of descriptions lest one unravel all the purported great ages of deep history easily in direct order that are otherwise so cleverly - may I say even religiously? - semi-veiled in all other poetic and mysterious works of the Ellene’s and Palatine’s such as Ovid, Homer, Virgil, Pindar, Hyginus and Hesiod.
  
  But this work here is an utterly unique work, what is left us even in epitome form, in that it plainly lays out the order of the Great Epochs of the forgotten past - at least in many sections unbroken still left in it - in this brief compendium, this “library” as it is titled.
  
  Why all the editorial intrigue that possibly occured to it and that surrounds it though - even as to when the Author lived (on that, by the way, there is an older Castor than the one in Cicero’s time the Author purported to mention dating this to be by some pseudo-apollodorus per moderns. So I believe such mention refers rather to he and therefore I take this work to be a bit older)? Yes why the editorial intrigue layed upon this work?
  
  It is good to remember Aeschylus was said to have been put to death for revealing the Eleusinian Mysteries which revealed the long epochs of the great ages. For some reason Archaic History was not divulged to the public but known only by certain groups then. Herodotus speaks of not being permitted to say certain things regarding Egyptian Mysteries he was initiated into which reveal long ages previous - see where he describes the great chronological figures of the Egyptian Pharaoh Kings and their statues depicting such; and Plato mentions having to be quiet too when speaking of which Zoroaster he was revealing when and what such title signifies.
  
  Here though we for once have a work that “almost” (especially near the beginning of this work) sequentially lays the epochs out all in clear order from beginning to end. This is the reason then for the intrigue, but this work somehow made it past the editors table “in part” amazingly.
  
  As such now, whether one take it though as children’s bedtime stories or a literal blow by blow account of the devolution of metaphysical, celestial, trans-dimensional beings unto man-form, going through various “metamorphic periods of appearance” in such periods then being personified by governing intellective powers later called gods (then “angels” by AD times) who also represent both the geography and houses of beinghood then of such times they resided as “Manu’s” over after a manner, coloring all such too then with their intellective presence, cosmologically apportioned power, and zeitgeist they had charge over then; either way that is for you to decide.
  
  What is not for subjectivity to decide though, for the sake of the posterity of future generations, is the sequential order these epochs are laid out.
  
  Such is for mythographical science which may be more or less accurate and can be finalized using this work and a few more besides the one’s mentioned above with great accuracy. Such is just a matter of good textual study by means of which we are on the verge of clarifying myth’s order in these centuries. And this work is essential, key to such.
  
  Now whether Mythographers will have finalized the order of such just for the sake of better bedtime stories catagorized for people in the future or rather to clarify the missing data science now needs that initiates once had and encoded in myths that shall prove key to future generations regarding in fact their own cataclysmic rhythms, chronologies, major event astrological seasons, beinghood stages, flora and fauna changes and geographic shifts mentioned throughout all such lore - that will be for future generations to decide not critics of such Mythographers presently attempting to perfect this science that man may one day decide on either way.
  
  But it is my estimation the science of Mythographers today, at least in the Greco-Roman department, would be considerably more shoddy without this invaluable work, it is central; hence all the preamble above: to show it’s incommensurable value for man today.
  
  Having said this I will briefly now, to signify such and help fellow seekers, outline the order revealed in this book without giving away too many details.
  
  It shows first a
  
  Theogony
  then an Olympian Period
  then an Arimaspian Period
  then a Gigantomachy of Maiades
  then a Numakos Period wherein Atalantas is first mentioned
  then the Titanomachy
  then a Bronze Demi-god to Human period of increasing mortality
  (with an Achilles and Herculeid Cycle),
  and finally there comes the Iron Age Scruffulous Man period we are now in.
  
  Each Epoch is punctuated by a massive extinction event before and after and usually involving a battle then (the correspondence between societal tension and earth changes arising from the selfsame planetary tension cycles of changing vibration in our solar system is another matter too long to go into here).
  
  So that is it in a nutshell.
  
  This may all seem quite abbreviated and simple for a more in depth review as I like to usually give but I really feel one will find Apollodorus structure not only the most important for understanding the Great Ages of Deep History for you my fellow historians I have befriended (if that is what one is looking for) but also this brief abbreviation of such given by me here also is the clearest and most ordered structure to date in all known publications revealing the otherwise usually garbled, misordered, misunderstood delineations of these forbidden mysteries in Apollodorus regarding the order of the periods forgotten in our past - on whatever level you wish to take their meaning.
  
  Please feel free to contest or add questions to this order in the comments below and I will clarify how it is correct, in my estimation, and that perhaps you are just looking at a different sequential strand of the same thing (for example the Ouranus to Chronus to Zeus to Hermes sequential strand one sees in Greek Myth may seem contradictory at first to what is presented here until one sees how it is just a different way of describing the same lore sequence and fits in seamlessly with the above).
• 
  Alisha Billmen

  The Library of Greek Mythology is the only of its kind to survive from the Library of Apollodorus. The Library takes you through Greek Mythology and history from 3 great families, Deucalion, Inachos and Agenor.
  
  I have not read anything related to Greek myths except for animated movies such as Hercules. The Library was a particularly dense starting point with the appearance more of an encyclopaedia, with short stories in no particular time order making the book hard to read and not the most enjoyable. My reading experience felt much more academic, with The Library feeling like a textbook.
  
  The library took a lot of concentration, annotating, and backtracking to understand fully. Even so, I would not claim that I am versed in the Mythological histories of Greek from this one read. Due to the short story format, further reading into the topic and re-reading The Library is necessary.
  
  Although The Library was a particularly dense, tough, and dark read, it was enlightening. It was interesting learning about the different gods and important families in the myths, such as Zeus, Medusa, Hercules, Pegasus, Cyclops, Dragons and much more.
  
  The Library of Greek Mythology will remain an important source of further reference whilst I continue to read and delve into the subject of Greek mythology and its histories.
• 
  Roger Burk

  Very brief summaries of all the Greek myths and legends you've ever heard of, and many more that you haven't. If you want to know the names of Penelope's 129 suitors, they're here. This is Cliff notes from the quill-and-parchment era, not literature.
• 
  Cmoreglass

  rather dry...
• 
  Henna

  Great introduction text to Greek mythology, particularly excellent for combining myths from earlier sources. I'm sure I'll use The Library as reference in the future, it is perfect for that.