Jordi Pàmias (ed.), Apollodoriana. Ancient Myths, New Crossroads. Sozomena 16, Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter, 2017, vi+253 pp., € 109.95, ISBN 978-3-11-054074-1 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Changing Mythography: the Apollodorus’ Library and its so-called epitomes
Minerva Alganza Roldán & Álvaro Ibáñez Chacón (ed.) Mythographica Graeca. Transmisión, textos y contextos. Madrid, Dykinson., 2024
The purpose of this study is to examine the text of the two so-called epitomes of the Library in order to critically reconsider some of the assumptions based on Wagner’s presentation at the time of their discovery. Firstly, we will see how these two collections of excerpts are texts different to each other and how they cannot simply be considered preparatory material. They are two authentic mythographic works, derived from the Library, yet different from it. Both texts changed the form of Apollodorus’ work by eliminating its genealogical structure, which in the original text was the vehicle of the author’s aspiration for completeness. This fact invites us to reconsider the sharp difference sometimes drawn between works with a continuous form and works with a discrete form. These transformations can also change the mythical content of the work itself. Such modifications do not depend exclusively on the epitomist's inaccuracies, but in certain cases they are the result of a conscious desire to simplify the complexity of the tradition. Moreover, in some rare cases, it is even possible that the so-called epitomes have interpreted the text of the Library in an original way, creating new versions of ancient myths. These considerations, therefore, invite us to remain cautious against the common practice of using the Epitome Vaticana and Fragmenta Sabbaitica as if they were direct testimonies of the lost parts of Apollodorus’ work.
4. Lost in Tradition: Apollodorus and Tragedy-Related Texts
Apollodoriana, 2017
Note: This article was written with the support of a postdoctoral scholarship from the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia of Portugal, and by the Centro de Estudos Clássicos of the Universidade de Lisboa (SFRH/BPD/90803/2012).
Johanna Astrid Michels (2022), Agenorid Myth in the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus. A Philological Commentary of Bibl. III.1–56 and a Study into the Composition and Organization of the Handbook. Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 402. Berlin – Boston, MA: De Gruyter., 2022
The Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus, perhaps the best-known mythographic text, stands out for its comprehensive aim and state of preservation. The handbook has regularly been disregarded as a repository of 'standard' myths or as a primary witness to archaic stories, a reductive view at once underestimating and romanticizing the merits of the Bibliotheca. This monograph unlocks the Bibliotheca as a literary work in its own right by offering the first systematic commentary on an essential selection, the Cretan and Theban myths in Bibl. III.1-56, and by presenting an in-depth analysis of the text. In so doing, this volume closes a gap in current research, from which a philological commentary is entirely missing. The main part of the study focuses on various aspects of composition and organization by addressing structuring principles, narratorial interventions, and the author's method and sources. It lays to rest persistent misconceptions about the representative character of the Bibliotheca's myths, the author's merits, and his source use, all of which have divided the scholarship to this date. In addition, it provides an update on the author, date, purpose and readership, text history, and book division of the Bibliotheca.
The Sources of Ps.-Apollodorus's Library: a Case-Study
Quaderni Urbinati Di Cultura Classica, 2011
Although Ps.-Apollodorus's Library is just about the only comprehensive manual of Greek mythology which has stood the test of time in a more or less complete state, 1 no critical edition has been published since Wagner's Teubner text of 1926, which was only a revision of his 1894 edition. 2 Likewise, the existing commentaries usually comment on the translation only and are more concerned with mythological variants than with a full-fledged philological explanation, including textual criticism, source criticism, language, stylistic and literary analysis. 3 Hampered by this lack of basic research tools, philologists fail to reach agreement on the sources of this mythographic companion. Already in the late 19th and early 20th century, various leading German scholars have stressed the derivative character of the Library: for its knowledge of ancient Greek literature, the manual depended, either partially or entirely, on intermediary sources, mainly commentaries and hypotheseis. 4 Some more recent commentators, however, have tended to reassess Ps.-Apollodorus as a highly learned author who collated the original literary texts himself, including even the archaic poems of the Epic Cycle. Taking this view, they have argued that the manual was the result of a conscious nostalgic effort to revive the genealogically * This paper is based on research carried out within the framework of the project, entitled 'The Bibliotheca of Apollodorus the mythographer: synoptic edition, commentary and study of the sources', funded by the Flemish Research Foundation (FWO). I am most grateful to my supervisor, Professor Marc Huys (KULeuven), for encouraging me to write on this subject and for his extensive comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I also wish to thank Kirby Joris for amending the English text of the manuscript. 1 In addition to the Library, Ps.-Hyginus's Fabulae deal almost exclusively with Greek myth, even though they are written in Latin. Unlike Ps.-Apollodorus's continuous narrative, however, the Fabulae are organized into individual, self-contained entries.
Review: A New Edition of Apollodorus' Chronica
Rivista di Filologia e di Istruzione Classica, 2023
As a result of his work on Philodemus’ Index Academicorum found among the Herculaneum papyri, Fleischer presents an edition of the orig- inal verses of Apollodorus’ Chronica. The book, n. 19 in the De Gruyter series Sozomena, gathers a new edition of the verses with translation, a commentary, and an extensive introduction on the text, its author, and the relevant contexts. Although F. has done well to put such a poorly studied text back in the limelight, the work falls short of its stated goals.
Apollodorus' Bibliotheca and the Mythographus Homericus: An Intertextual Approach
Apollodoriana, 2017
The D-Scholia to the Iliad contain a set of mythic plots (historiae fabulares) attributable to the so-called Mythographus Homericus. Some of them appear to have undergone a complex process of rewritting along the textual transmission. Apollodorus' Library was used in some cases to fill some gaps, to the extend that good deal of these stories are almost a verbatim copy of some passages of the Library. The D-scholiast used Apollodorus's Library to mend the text of the Mythographus Homericus in some passages whose text had been irrevocably corrupted by textual transmission