{"id":1127,"date":"2019-07-26T22:05:07","date_gmt":"2019-07-26T22:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/imaginingancientcorinth.com\/?page_id=1127"},"modified":"2023-12-21T14:26:02","modified_gmt":"2023-12-21T20:26:02","slug":"apollodorus","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/imaginingancientcorinth.com\/?page_id=1127","title":{"rendered":"Apollodorus of Athens, 180-120 BCE"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"q-container\" align=\"center\"><div class=\"q-wide-margins\"> \r\n\r\n<p><strong>Apollodorus of Athens<\/strong> was the last in the great tradition of scholars connected with the Library of Alexandria, Egypt.\u00a0 Born around 180 BCE, he studied under the Stoic Diogenes, moved to Alexandria where he collaborated with Aristarchus, extended Eratosthenes\u2019 <em>Chronicles<\/em> (\u03a7\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u03ac) to his death in 120 or 110 BCE, wrote a commentary on Homer\u2019s Catalogue of Ships (\u03a0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03bd\u03b5\u1ff6\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5) that offered a geographical account of the Homeric age, and authored an extensive account on Homeric religion called <em>On the Gods<\/em><em> (\u03a0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03b8\u03b5\u1ff6\u03bd)<\/em>.\u00a0 In deference to his immense learning, a number of works were later attributed to Apollodorus, most famously the mythological handbook known as the <strong><em>Library<\/em><\/strong> (\u0392\u03b9\u03b2\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03b8\u03ae\u03ba\u03b7).\u00a0 Organized around extended family relationships of the gods and heroes, the <em>Library<\/em> utilizes these genealogical links to clarify how the vast number of <em>muthoi<\/em> fit together in a coherent way and to connect various <em>poleis<\/em> through their divine and heroic family networks.\u00a0 The straightforward storytelling of the <em>Library<\/em> made it popular as a handbook to students learning Greek myths in antiquity, just as it does today.\u00a0 The last half of Book 3 breaks off after the first two Labors of Theseus and an <em>Epitome<\/em> provides a shorter account of the last four labors.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>The <em>Bibliotheca<\/em>\r\nis an example of a larger genre known as mythography, the collection and\r\norganization of mythical stories, often geographically or chronologically.&nbsp; By definition, mythography encompasses a wide\r\nrange of material, beginning with the Homeric Catalogue of Ships and Hesiod\u2019s <em>Theogony<\/em>.&nbsp; Mythography is often organized through the\r\nuse of catalogues, genealogies, theogonies, cosmogonies, and chronological\r\n\u201ccycles.\u201d&nbsp; The earliest examples of mythography\r\ncan be found in the scholia (notes on canonical texts by ancient scholars), the\r\nhypotheses (summaries) of tragic drama, or as digressions in geographical or\r\nastronomical works, but by the first century BCE, the most common form becomes\r\nmanuals or handbooks for the reading public, such as the <em>Library<\/em>.&nbsp; The <em>Library<\/em> is organized both\r\nchronologically and genealogically, beginning with the creation of the cosmos\r\nand then by various family trees.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Apollodorus of Athens was the last in the great tradition of scholars connected with the Library of Alexandria, Egypt.\u00a0 Born around 180 BCE, he studied under the Stoic Diogenes, moved to Alexandria where he collaborated with Aristarchus, extended Eratosthenes\u2019 Chronicles (\u03a7\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u03ac) to his death in 120 or 110 BCE, wrote a commentary on Homer\u2019s Catalogue [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imaginingancientcorinth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1127"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imaginingancientcorinth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imaginingancientcorinth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imaginingancientcorinth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imaginingancientcorinth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1127"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/imaginingancientcorinth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1726,"href":"https:\/\/imaginingancientcorinth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1127\/revisions\/1726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imaginingancientcorinth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}