The Library 1, Books 1-3.9

by Apollodorus of Athens, James George Frazer (Translator)

The "Library" provides in three books a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends. Written in clear and unaffected style, the compendium faithfully follows the Greek literary sources. It is thus an important record of Greek accounts of the origin and early history of the world and their race. This work has been attributed to Apollodorus of Athens (born "c." 180 BCE), a student of Aristarchus. But the text as we have it was written by an author probably living in the first or second century of our era.

In his highly valued notes to the Loeb Classical Library edition (which is in two volumes) J. G. Frazer cites the principal passages of other ancient writers where each particular story is told and compares the various versions to those in the "Library."

Genres: Mythology, Classics, History, Greek Mythology, Literature

464 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 121

About the author

Greek: Απολλόδωρος
Apollodorus of Athens (Greek: Ἀπολλόδωρος ὁ Ἀθηναῖος, Apollodoros ho Athenaios; c. 180 BC – after 120 BC), son of Asclepiades, was a Greek scholar, historian, and grammarian. He was a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon, Panaetius the Stoic, and the grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace, under whom he appears to have studied together with his contemporary Dionysius Thrax. He left (perhaps fled) Alexandria around 146 BC, most likely for Pergamon, and eventually settled in Athens.

Reviews

[John Wiswell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A compact and wonderful synthesis of Grecko-Roman legends, shaped into a history for Apollodorus’ time. Myths merge with real world events like foundings and wars, and give a great sense of the cultural significance of figures like Hercules and Theseus. Frazer’s simple and beautiful translation can be read as escapist fantasy, curious history or profound anthropology. Frazer's annotations help explain several curious points and direct you to further study if you're interested. A joyous little book.

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Apollodorus compiled myths together, which is nice in that he gathers them all together. But it also means that he spends a ridiculous amount of time on genealogy and who married who or who fucked who, so lots of lists of nothing but names. The lists are pretty easy to skim over if you're not into mostly made-up genealogy and just want to get straight to the myths. The best part by far is the section for Hercules. Hercules is so overpowered to the point it's just plain hilarious. A lot of his section is basically just list upon list of everyone he killed. Sometimes he doesn't even mean to kill them, but he's just that much of a badass. And then after he dies and ascends to go hang out with the gods, this there's huge list of all the kids he has with all these different women, because he's just that manly. Oh Hercules, could you be anymore ridiculous?

[James Violand · Rating 5 out of 5]

You want to know where all the ancient Greek gods are described? How about the Heroes? They are all here in this two volume set. Appolodorus compiled the Greek myths here. Undoubtedly used by all subsequent (post 140 AD) compilers of ancient myth, this is the source. Although Hesiod and Pindar (and possibly Ovid) were his sources, you would have to read each of them to find but a quarter of the material on mythology.