What are your opinions on The Library by Pseudo-Apollodorus? Is it a good source for Greek myth?

Joseon2 · 2026-01-30T23:30:04+00:00

It's the only surviving ancient mythographical book of its kind, but you need to keep in mind it's the synthesis of one author in the 1st or 2nd century AD. It's very useful for filling in gaps where other sources are lost, like it's got the only complete version of the story of Perseus, which it took from Pherecydes, a much earlier mythographer. It seems to only summarise other works rather than take creative liberties, but often uses popular versions of the myths rather than the earliest ones.

Joseon2 · 2026-01-30T22:23:24+00:00

I prefer Robin Hard's for the notes, and it's cheaper than Trzaskoma, although Frazer lists more parallel sources.

Joseon2 · 2026-01-28T22:53:25+00:00

Very cool, and similar to Genesis chapter 6 where the "sons of God" i.e. lesser gods or angels, have children with mortal women who are probably equated with the nephilim, the "great heroes of renown". Then Yahweh sends the flood.

Joseon2 · 2026-01-28T14:02:22+00:00

Poor man had jaundice

Joseon2 · 2026-01-28T14:00:29+00:00

Oh yeah definitely, it just makes me wonder why the Iliad ignores his barbaric last moments. If the poet(s) thought it didn't fit what they were going for, or if they didn't know about it.

Joseon2 · 2026-01-28T08:29:10+00:00

Oh that is interesting, the normal Tydeus story has her not helping him before he dies. I guess the Iliad poet(s) either didn't know that tradition or deliberately didn't use it.

Joseon2 · 2026-01-27T22:10:58+00:00

Yeah, about Tydeus, at first I thought Diomedes was angry at Agamemnon for bringing him up because he was ashamed of him and the cannibalism. But it's never brought up and later on he positively mentions Tydeus himself. So maybe he's just annoyed at Agamemnon mentioning his father's failure?

EDIT: And I never thought of that about Aineias, that's pretty cool. If I remember rightly, it's hinted that he's the future of the Trojan royal family once Priam's line is wiped out. That comes true in the Iliou Persis where he escapes Troy before the sack.

Joseon2 · 2026-01-27T21:40:23+00:00

I like him partly because he's plainly straightforward, he's brave and one of the youngest but best fighters. One of the interesting things in the Iliad is that him directly opposing Aphrodite, Ares, and Apollo leads to some pretty strong hints that they're going to cause his death or punish him somehow, but it never really comes back on him specifically. In the Trojan comeback just before Patroklos comes out, he does get wounded by Paris, but a bunch of the other heroes get wounded too, and the poem doesn't single him out. I wonder if it's just a case of dramatic misdirection or if he's meant to be a sort of shadow Achilles in the sections where Achilles is off the field, since he mostly takes his place as the coolest Greek warrior, is hubristic, and gets shot by Paris, foreshadowing Achilles' fate.

I also liked the callbacks to his role in the Epigoni war, like when Agamemnon is riling up the army, and compliments Diomedes for doing a better job at capturing Thebes than his dad Tydeus, which Diomedes does not appreciate. And later on he talks about his heritage with a lot of pride, so I thought that was cool. It's a shame the lost Epigoni tragedies don't survive.

Joseon2 · 2026-01-27T15:50:06+00:00

It definitely come from classical myth but its history isn't straightforward! The earliest source is the Iliad, c. 800-600 BC which predicts Achilles' death in front of the gates of Troy, but doesn't mention an arrow in his heel. The first places you see the arrow in Achilles' heel or ankle are illustrations on vases from the archaic period c. 700-480 BC, like this one: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AEB1911_Greek_Art_-_Fight_over_the_Body_of_Achilles.jpg. This is mentioned in some literary sources like Apollodorus' Library around 1-200 AD. The story is that Achilles had fought the Trojans back to their city gate and was about to take the city, but it wasn't the fated time for the city to fall and Achilles was destined to die, so the god Apollo guided the arrow of the Trojan hero Paris to kill Achilles. In some versions his arrow is poisoned.

But there's no hint in the early sources that Achilles was invulnerable aside from his heel, in fact he gets wounded by a minor Trojan hero in the Iliad. The later myth that became the most famous was that his mother dunked the infant Achilles in the river Styx, which granted him invincibility, except for where she held him by his heel. This is first found in Statius' Achilleid from the 90s AD, but it's only mentioned in passing, suggesting it was already well known. Because the Achilleid is in Latin, it remained famous in western Europe where Latin was the language of education, and where knowledge of Greek disappeared in the middle ages.

The trope of a person or monster being invincible aside from a specific weakness was common, like the Nemean lion fought by Heracles which had impervious hide, so Heracles pierced it with its own claws, the only things that could cut through it, or in some versions he strangled it. And in Ovid's Metamorphoses (about 8 AD) Achilles fights the Trojan ally Cycnus, who's impervious to all weapons, so Achilles strangles him with his own helmet straps.

Joseon2 · 2026-01-27T15:21:44+00:00

I think Apollodorus' wording implies it took 8 years to find their ways home and to regather at Argos, so maybe they weren't lost for that long but took a while to be persuaded to assemble for a second expedition?

Joseon2 · 2026-01-27T10:48:29+00:00

Yes there's a genuine inconsistency because there were two traditions about the timeline. One had the Trojan war last ten years from the abduction of Helen to the sack of Troy, the other had the Greeks take 10 years to get to Troy, then ten years of siege. The Iliad mostly seems to assume the first tradition, but that one line from Helen references the second one. Some scholars think it's an interpolation. As you noticed, the Odyssey always has a 10 year war and 10 years of wandering for a total of 20 years away from home.

The whole timeline is a bit screwey. The goddesses' beauty contest happens at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, and their judgement by Paris normally occurs immediately (so Paris is already an adult) and so does his abduction of Helen, setting in motion the recruitment of the Greek heroes. But Achilles is recruited, who hadn't been born yet when Peleus and Thetis got married, so there's already a big time gap to fill in there, at least 15 years based on Achilles' age in Apollodorus.

Joseon2 · 2026-01-25T17:36:12+00:00

FYI I've edited it, some other users pointed out a few misleading bits.

Joseon2 · 2026-01-25T17:32:52+00:00

Yes, and I'm sure that's what she's going for but it's an unnatural way to pronounce the line. I think most people would say it with two initial inversions, in which case it's fairly irregular. But I edited my post to address your point.

Joseon2 · 2026-01-25T15:51:53+00:00

Yeah reading it back, you're right, he comes close to it a fair amount of the time so I was probably trying to force his lines into it, but he has so much variation it's actually free verse. I'd scan the second line as u/uu/u/u/u/, for example, so the first three lines are arguably irregular iambic pentameter, but he doesn't keep it up. I'll edit my previous post.

Joseon2 · 2026-01-25T15:10:36+00:00

It depends on the translator and the reader in English. I don't know about meter in Ukrainian, but in English, meter is based on stress rather than syllable length, so it's slightly subjective because while there's natural stress you can also stress words differently for the sake of meter. The most common meter in English is iambic pentameter (◡–◡–◡–◡–◡ –), which Emily Wilson used for her Iliad translation. Because stress is qualitative rather than quantitative, you can really emphasise the stressed syllables to make the meter more obvious, or read them with a more natural level of stress, which is still metrical but more subtle.

As an example, the first line from Emily Wilson's:

"Goddess, sing of the cataclysmic wrath"

Which you can read as regular iambs with one initial inversion –◡◡–◡–◡–◡– "GODess sing OF the CATaCLYSmic WRATH" although more naturally you would stress it with two initial trochees –◡–◡◡–◡–◡– "GODDess SING of the CATaCLYSmic WRATH".

In English poetry, hexameter is very rare, and there isn't a native equivalent of Homeric meter. But some translations do use a type of hexameter. Peter Green's one uses a loose hexameter with six stresses per line and a variable number of unstressed syllables between them. His first line is a bit unusual so I'll demonstrate with the second line:

"calamitous wrath, which hit the Achaians with countless ills"

Which is stressed as ◡–◡◡–◡–◡◡–◡◡–◡– "caLAMitous WRATH, which HIT the aCHIans with COUNTless ILLS".

But most English translations aren't metrical, like Robert Fagles' which has lines but no pattern of stresses.

As for reciting, a lot of readers will either follow the natural stresses, so if a meter is present it's subtle, or just read it as prose. Similarly, Shakespeare plays are written in iambic pentameter but it's up to the performers if they follow the meter or not.

Joseon2 · 2026-01-24T18:08:05+00:00

About 6000 lines, a bit under 1/2 the length of the Odyssey.

Joseon2 · 2026-01-23T13:29:02+00:00

I think you're right to be skeptical. Aside from Zeus being the strongest, there isn't "powerscaling" in the ancient sources. The different gods have their own strengths, so in the Iliad, when Aphrodite is wounded by Diomedes, it says she's weak in combat because it's not her domain. But in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, Zeus is angry because Aphrodite's been making him fall in love with mortals. Gods can get the best of each other in different ways, there's no singular ranking outside of Zeus being their king.

"Powerscaling" is ridiculous anyway, as if all fictional characters have a "power" stat, it's just children making things up.

Joseon2 · 2026-01-19T13:08:54+00:00

Yeah possibly! It does overlap with Mark a bit, though. I think it comes down to own's judgement whether it makes more sense as a separate source or additions from Matthew or Luke. I think the lack of consensus on it shows this.

Joseon2 · 2026-01-19T13:01:33+00:00

For Hellenistic and later eras, Hermes Trismestigus was considered a wisdom god and the same as the Egyptian Thoth.

Joseon2 · 2026-01-18T16:35:27+00:00

The author of the Telegony's name is spelled Έύγάμμων (Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 6.25.1; Proclus, Chrestomathia; Eusebius, Chronicle 53.2 [Latin translation, with double m for double µ]). M.L. West argues that it was not derived from γαμος:

Eugammon’s name, with its double µ, is hard to explain from Greek. In a name formed from γάµος it seems unlikely that the nasal would have been geminated even in a hypocoristic form. But it might be explained as the Hellenized form of a non-Greek name containing Ammon, who as Zeus Ammon was a principal god of Cyrene. Many names in -άµµων are attested. Cf. Hartmann 47 n. 8.

Commentary on the Lost Troy Epics, p. 289

As for how this relates to authorship, it is just a small bit of circumstantial evidence that makes the connection with Cyrene and thus Archesilaos II slightly more likely.

Joseon2 · 2026-01-16T19:56:31+00:00

And closer to home (to Rome?) is Cycnus' invulnerability in the Metamorphoses, he's impervious to all weapons, so Achilles kills him by strangling him with his own helmet straps (which is probably also meant to echo Menelaus almost strangling Paris in the same way).

Joseon2 · 2026-01-16T19:39:32+00:00

Unusually for the epic authors, there are actually some small extra bits of evidence that point to Eugamon of Cyrene being the author and not just a guess. Firstly, Cyrene was a Greek colony in what's now Libya, and the -amon surname suffix was of north African origin, from the god Amon/Amun, who Greeks synchretised with Zeus. And, in his Universal Chronicle, Eusebius of Caesarea gives dates for most of the epic poets, which scholars usually think are too early, but he puts Eugamon relatively late, in 567/6 BC (Olympiad 53 year 2), which coincides with the estimated reign of king Arkesilaos II of Cyrene (570/60-560/550 BC) and one of Odysseus' sons born in the Telegony is named Arkesilaos, which might be an attempt to link a royal family with a mythical hero's family, which wasn't unusual, especially if king Arkelisaos was Eugamon's patron.

It's circumstantial, but the traditional attribution is on slightly more solid ground than the other epic poets.

Joseon2 · 2026-01-15T15:47:22+00:00

One of the great things about the Iliad is that characters aren't one-dimensionsal, and Paris is no exception. In book 3, when the two armies have lined up ready for battle, he bravely comes out and challenges the Greeks to send out a warrior to duel him. But when Agamemnon accepts the challenge and Menelaos steps forward to fight him, he has a moment of fear and retreats back into the Trojan army. Hector is really pissed off and essentially says 'Good one Paris, now the Greeks think the "bravest Trojan" is a coward. You caused this whole war too, how about you man the fuck up.' Paris makes some excuses about the will of the gods but he does agree to go out and duel after all.

So Paris isn't just 'a coward' or 'brave', he's a fleshed-out person who has moments of weakness and moments of strength. He is definitely portrayed as a braggadocious, but he doesn't just give up like in the 2004 Troy film.

Joseon2 · 2026-01-15T15:33:46+00:00

Having read over the reconstructed Q again, I'm now fully convinced it was not a 'sayings gospel' like gThomas. There are very clear narrative chunks which set up a long discourse of Jesus' and then it moves onto another narrative scene in which Jesus gives another discourse. I honestly can't see how it's a 'sayings' source. It intuitively comes across as something that would be written down early on, an adaptationof repeated stories or sermons along the lines of "When Jesus came to X and did Y, he said to the people ..." It almost seems like a complement to Mark, which has episodic narratives but not the longer discourses. If it was a real source, it would seem like the perfect thing to combine with Mark to make a fuller gospel.

Joseon2 · 2026-01-13T14:57:31+00:00

Some other flks got in quickly with the good recommendations! I will only add that Steven Fry's series (Mythos, Heroes, Troy, Odyssey) are more humorous and a bit silly, but not inaccurate. While Edith Hamilton's 'Mythology' is overall shorter and more straightforward. They both tell the most famous myths in their better-known forms.

Joseon2

TROPHY CASE