thumb|The title page of [[Étienne Clavier's 1805 edition and French translation of the Bibliotheca]]
The Bibliotheca () is a compendium of Greek myths and heroic legends, genealogical tables and histories arranged in three books, generally dated to the first or second century AD. The work is commonly described as having been written by Apollodorus (or sometimes Pseudo-Apollodorus), a result of its false attribution to the 2nd-century BC scholar Apollodorus of Athens.
Overview
The Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus is a comprehensive collection of myths, genealogies and histories that presents a continuous history of Greek mythology from the earliest gods and the origin of the world to the death of Odysseus. The narratives are organized by genealogy, chronology and geography in summaries of myth. The myths are sourced from a wide number of sources like early epic, early Hellenistic poets, and mythographical summaries of tales. Oral tradition and the plays written by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides also factored into the compilation of myth in the Bibliotheca. The Bibliotheca was written in the first or second century CE by an author who is referred to as Pseudo-Apollodorus to differentiate from Apollodorus of Athens, who did not write the Bibliotheca. Most extant manuscripts of the text end during the narration of Theseus's exploits, with there surviving only two codices, discovered in the 19th century, which transmit the remainder of the work.
Manuscript tradition
The first mention of the work is by Photius, patriarch of Constantinople in 9th century CE, in his "account of books read". which was copied for Cardinal Bessarion in the 15th century. Any surviving manuscripts of the Bibliotheca are descended from a fourteenth-century manuscript in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, in Paris. published an improved text at Heidelberg, 1559. The first text based on comparative manuscripts was that of Christian Gottlob Heyne, Göttingen, 1782–83. Subsequent editions Jurgen Muller (1841) and Richard Wagner (1894) collated earlier manuscripts. which included the lost section.
Scholarship
The Bibliotheca has been referenced in scholarship throughout history. As a mythographical work it has influenced scholarship on Greek mythology. An epigram recorded by the important intellectual Patriarch Photius I of Constantinople expressed its purpose:
<blockquote>It has the following not ungraceful epigram: "Draw your knowledge of the past from me and read the ancient tales of learned lore. Look neither at the page of Homer, nor of elegy, nor tragic muse, nor epic strain. Seek not the vaunted verse of the cycle; but look in me and you will find in me all that the world contains".</blockquote>
Photius is one of the first surviving reviews of the use of the Bibliotheca in the field. The sources of information that may have informed the creation of the Bibliotheca are also studied in the modern scholarship. The question of authorship is another area of study that has shaped the interpretation of the work throughout history.