Square brackets are used to indicate (1) additions to the original text, and (2) passages where the surviving manuscripts may misrepresent the original text.
1. Additions . Short gaps
in the surviving text are usually filled by the insertion of an invented phrase (if the content of the missing passage can be inferred from the context, or from another source) or of a brief passage from another source which can be reasonably assumed to be related to, or dependent on, the original text of the Library . For the most part, the added passages correspond to those in Wagners and Frazers texts. Again, significant additions are explained in the notes.
Very occasionally, I have added a phrase for the sake of clarity. For minor additionswhere it has been indicated, for instance, that a particular place is a mountain, or that a child is a son or daughter, although this is not stated explicitly in the original textsquare brackets have not been used.
2. Dubious passages . These are of two main kinds. Something in the content of a passage may give reason to suspect that the text has been corrupted in the course of transmission and no longer corresponds with the original; or occasionally, for reasons of style or content, we may suspect that a passage is a later interpolation (typically a marginal note which has found its way into the main text). Significant instances are discussed in the notes.
NB. Some interpolations which interrupt the narrative (and also a dubious passage from the Epitome) have been segregated to the Appendix. A dagger () in the text indicates where each was inserted. Each of the passages is discussed in the accompanying comments; although not part of the original text, four of them contain interesting material.
Etymologies . The ancient mythographers liked to explain the names of mythical figures, or of places involved in mythical tales, by etymologies which were sometimes valid, but often fanciful or even absurd. Because these depend on allusions or wordplay in the original Greek which cannot be reproduced in a translation, the presence of such wordplay is indicated in the text by the appropriate use of italics (see, for instance, p. 88) and explained afterwards in the Notes.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Editions and Translations of the Library
There have been three English translations:
J. G. Frazer, Apollodorus, The Library , 2 vols., Loeb Classical Library, London, 1921. (The extensive notes give full references to the ancient sources, and contain a mass of disordered information, mythographical and ethnographical; thirteen appendices on specific themes and episodes, citing parallels from the folklore of other cultures.)
K. Aldrich, Apollodorus, The Library of Greek Mythology , Lawrence, Kan., 1975. (With accompanying notes; the translation is more modern in idiom than Frazers.)
M. Simpson, Gods and Heroes of the Greeks: The Library of Apollodorus , Amherst, Mass., 1976. (The translation is not always reliable.)
A recent French translation should also be mentioned:
J.-C. Carrière and B. Massonie, La Bibliothèque dApollodore , Paris, 1991. (Excellent translation; the copious notes concentrate primarily on textual and linguistic matters, but many mythological points are also discussed; relevant passages from the scholia are often cited in translation.)
The best edition of the Greek text is:
R. Wagner (ed.), Apollodori Bibliotheca {Mythographi Graeci , vol. 1), Leipsig, 1926 (2nd edn. with supplementary apparatus).
On the text, two subsequent articles should also be consulted, along with Carrières notes:
A. Diller, The Text History of the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus, TAPA 66 (1935), 296313.
M. Papathomopoulos, Pour une nouvelle édition de la Bibliothèque dApollodore, Ellenica , 26 (1973), 1840.
Secondary Literature
The scholarly literature on the Library is very scanty. The only full commentary was written in the eighteenth century:
J. G. Heyne, Apollodori Atheniensis Bibliothecae libri tres et fragmenta , 2 vols., Göttingen, 1803, 2nd edn. (Text, with accompanying notes in Latin; a landmark in the scholarly study of myth, and still of more than historical interest.)
As it happens,
the most comprehensive modern study is in English:
M. Van der Valk, On Apollodori Bibliotheca, REG 71 (1958), 10068. (Primarily on the sources of the Library , arguing in particular that the author often referred directly to his main early sources, rather than relying on a Hellenistic handbook; much of the argument is technical, and citations in Greek are not translated.)
Otherwise the following should be mentioned:
C. Jourdain-Annequin, Héraclès aux portes du soir , Paris, 1989. (Contains some suggestive observations on Apollodorus, and his treatment of the Heracles myths in particular.)
C. Robert, De Apollodori Bibliotheca , Inaugural diss., University of Berlin, 1873. (The work that first established that the Library was not written in the second century BC by Apollodorus of Athens. Robert argued that it should be dated to the second century AD.)