Текст книги "The Library of Greek Mythology"

Автор книги: Apollodorus

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

The question of sources concerns not only the origin of individual stories, but also the structure and organization of the various cycles of myth. The Greek mythological tradition, as summarized in a broadly representative manner in the Library, is in many respects a peculiar one. It is dominated to an unusual degree by heroic mythology, and the material from heroic legend is organized in such a way that it provides an unusually coherent pre-history of the regions covered. As has been remarked, stories are rarely located in an indeterminate past; each is fitted into its appropriate place, whether in relation to the history of a specific place and the successive generations of its ruling family, or to the development of a great adventure or the life history of a major hero. For the most part, this systematization was not the work of the scholarly mythographers of the Hellenistic era, but was achieved at a relatively early period by the epic poets and by prose writers who regarded themselves as historians rather than mythographers. Indeed, the beginning of the process by which the mass of often mutually inconsistent myths in the oral tradition was ordered into a coherent pseudo-historical pattern can be traced to the earliest Greek literature to be recorded in writing, the Homeric epics and Hesiod’s Theogony, and the process was brought to fruition in the works of the fifth-century mythographer-historians—precisely the sources most frequently cited in the Library. First we must consider the nature of these early sources and their contribution to this process, and then how the author of the Librarymade use of them.

Until the development of prose literature in the latter part of the sixth century, Greek literature was exclusively poetic, and the richest sources for myth and legend were the works of the epic poets. The earliest epics to survive, the two Homeric epics and Hesiod’s Theogony, were probably written about the same time towards the end of the eighth century. Although they belong to the same broad genre, the poems attributed to these authors are quite different in nature. Homer was a story-teller on a grand scale and each of the Homeric epics is constructed on the basis of an overall plot running through the whole poem. But Hesiod organized his Theogonyon a genealogical basis; and generally speaking, in a genealogical poem of such a kind the stories associated with the various figures are inserted successively as the figures are introduced in the genealogies, and the narratives are relatively brief and self-contained. These contrary approaches can be related to the two main ways in which the mythical material is organized in different parts of the Library, the narrative ordering in the histories of great adventures like the voyage of the Argonauts and the Trojan War (or in the life of Heracles), and the genealogical ordering in large stretches of the histories of the great families, where we find an alternation between genealogical sections and narratives recounting the stories associated with the heroes and heroines as they are successively introduced in the genealogies. We will examine first how the works of the epic poets who could be regarded as the successors of Homer contributed to the establishment of standard accounts of the greater mythical adventures, and then how the Hesiodic approach was extended in a later epic to cover heroic mythology, resulting in the development of an all-embracing genealogical system.

The main action of the Iliadcovers only a few days in the tenth and final year of the Trojan War, and the Odysseydescribes the return voyage of only one of the Greek heroes, although both poems assume a much broader background of Trojan myth and they contain many allusions to stories not directly covered in the poems themselves. The exceptional quality of the Homeric poems seems to have impressed itself on their audience from the beginning, and it is understandable that poets in the century following their composition should have wished to compose epics covering the elements in Trojan mythology not already covered by Homer, and, in effect, fill in the gaps. And so it came about that a cycle of epics was composed which, taken together, built up a sequence narrating the entire history of the Trojan War. Although only a few fragments have survived, we know their general contents from a series of summaries attributed to a certain Proclus, and can see how they were constructed around the Homeric epics. Thus the origins of the war and all events up to the angry withdrawal of Achilles which marks the beginning of the Iliadwere covered in a single long epic, the Cypria;and then three shorter epics (partly overlapping in content) continued where the Iliadleft off, covering the final period of the war and the sack of Troy. Then the Returnstold of the return voyages of the surviving Greek heroes, except for Odysseus, and last of all, the later history of Odysseus was recounted in the Telegonia, which formed an eccentric supplement to the Odyssey. Although there is reason to think that by Homeric standards the artistic quality of these poems was not high, they were of great importance from a mythographical viewpoint for the part that they played in the establishment of a canon of Trojan myth. By selecting and ordering material from the oral tradition and earlier lays, and ‘fixing’ it in long poems which were transmitted to future generations, the authors of such epics made a major contribution to the formation of standard histories of adventures like the Trojan War. The account of the war in the Libraryis ultimately dependent on these epics for its general structure and much of its contents. Other epics composed in the seventh century or somewhat later fulfilled a similar service with regard to other mythical episodes, such as the Theban Wars, or the voyage of the Argonauts (although, as we shall see, Apollodorus followed a Hellenistic epic for that adventure).

In his Theogony, Hesiod sought to organize the traditions concerning the gods into a coherent pattern by developing the comprehensive genealogical system which forms the basis of his poem. Beginning with a mythical cosmogony presented in genealogical terms, he tells of the origin and descent of the earlier gods and the establishment of Zeus as supreme ruler, and concludes with a catalogue of Zeus’ marriages and his offspring by his wives and other women. A supplement was added later which includes a catalogue of the children born to goddesses by mortal men. As a story-teller, Hesiod is short-winded and often clumsy, although his material is naturally of great interest. The approach adopted by Hesiod is largely determined by the peculiar nature of his subject matter; but later, probably in the sixth century, another poet composed a continuation to his poem extending the same approach to heroic mythology. This epic, which survives in fragments only, is known, somewhat misleadingly perhaps, as the Catalogue of Women, because the origin of each line is traced to the offspring of a god by a mortal woman. Its importance for Greek mythography cannot be emphasized too strongly; for it was here that the heroic genealogies were first ordered into a coherent pan-Hellenic system. The pattern of heroic genealogy which we find in the Libraryis still similar in general outline (although, of course, it often reflects later developments). And the Catalogueoffered far more than sequences of names; for most names suggest a story, and the relevant narratives were inserted at the appropriate points in the presentation of the genealogies. This approach was subsequently adopted by prose mythographers and, as we have observed, it is in evidence in many parts of the Library.

Historians were prominent amongst the earliest prose writers. Some concerned themselves with purely local matters, but others (including those mentioned amongst the authors most frequently cited by Apollodorus) had broader ambitions and covered the traditions associated with many parts of the Greek world. They could not extend their researches any distance into the past without engaging with what we would regard as myth; and in the present context, it is their contribution to mythography which interests us. But they regarded themselves as historians, and while they were not always totally uncritical, they were willing to accept myth and legend as reliable sources of historical truth. In this respect, they differed from the scholarly mythographers of the Hellenistic era, who were critical in their attitude to myth and regarded mythography as a separate area of investigation. These earlier authors, whose qualities must be judged from fragments and testimonies, are sometimes referred to as logographers to distinguish them from more critical historians like Herodotus and Thucydides; but since this term (which simply meant ‘prose writers’ in ancient usage) can be misleading if it is thought to describe a specific school of historians, it is safer to describe them merely as historians (or mythographer-historians or chroniclers).

If these mythographer-historians were uncritical with regard to the basic nature of their material (and were rarely worried by the fabulous element in myth), they were by no means uncritical regarding the historical implausibilities which can arise from deficiencies in chronology and internal inconsistencies within the mythical narratives. With regard to chronology, they continued the enterprise begun in the Hesiodic Catalogueby refining and further developing the heroic genealogies, and trying to improve the synchronisms between families. In other respects, these authors could also be seen as heirs to the epic poets in the Homeric tradition. Many composed extensive narratives and most undertook to collect together the myths associated with the various cycles, and where necessary reconcile or choose between conflicting versions, and iron out contradictions to establish a convincing narrative.

The works of the two mythographer-historians explicitly cited by Apollodorus were complementary in character. Acousilaos of Argos probably wrote at the end of the sixth century, as a contemporary of Hecataios (although some would place him somewhat later). He aimed to provide a systematic account of the entire mythical tradition, rigorously organized on a genealogical basis. The material was ordered in much the same way as in the Library, although on a far larger scale; as in the Library, most of the figures in heroic mythology were assigned to one or other of a small number of important families, and the history of each of these families was narrated separately from beginning to end. In this regard, Acousilaos used the Hesiodic Catalogueas his model, developing or modifying the genealogies as he thought necessary. As might be expected in an author of Argive birth, Acousilaos seems to have stressed the centrality of the Argive traditions in his account of Peloponnesian mythology.

Pherecydes of Athens composed his history somewhat later, probably in the first half of the fifth century. His writings were more copious than those of Acousilaos, and it seems that his prime concern was to gather together as complete a collection as possible of the traditional myths. He was correspondingly less interested in genealogical matters, and the organization of his works would necessarily have been much looser in view of the quantity of diverse material collected within them. Indeed, the principles that he followed in this respect are not at all clear from the surviving evidence. He is the mythographer-historian most frequently quoted by the scholiasts, who (like Apollodorus) clearly valued him for his copious records of early myth, narrated in a pleasantly ingenuous style. Since the narratives preserved from the works of later mythographers are generally so lacking in charm, it is a particular shame that the works of this mythographical Herodotus should have been lost. Sometimes we detect something of their flavour in the summaries in the Library.

Another mythographer-historian should also be mentioned who was certainly consulted by the author of the Libraryalthough he is not cited by name. Hellanicos of Lesbos, who wrote in the second half of the fifth century, was closer in spirit to Acousilaos than to Pherecydes, for he was important above all for his contribution to the fine-tuning of the genealogical system. He was less interested in the narration of myth, and the passages preserved by the scholiasts suggest that his writings were marked by a certain dryness and a rationalizing tendency rarely in evidence in the works of his predecessors. He was nevertheless an important authority on certain aspects of mythical history, notably the Trojan War.

In the main, and allowing for a few important contributions from tragedy and later sources, the Librarysummarizes the canon of myth as it was defined in the works of these mythographer-historians and in early epic poetry; and for much of its organization, the Libraryrelies on the genealogical system developed in the Hesiodic epics and further refined by the early prose mythographers. The author’s dependence on epic (and other poetic sources) would often have been indirect. Most of the stories from early epic would have been summarized in prose in the works of the mythographer-historians, and collections of summaries of epic and tragic plots became widely available in the Hellenistic era. These would have provided our author with the models for his own summaries, and would usually have served as his immediate sources. Indeed, it can be assumed that he would rarely have worked directly from a poetic source. He seems, however, to have had a thorough knowledge of the Hesiodic Catalogue, and, as would be expected, of the Homeric epics. Although the theogony at the beginning of the Libraryis largely based on Hesiod’s Theogony, the author preferred to follow other sources on some significant points (as is remarked in the Explanatory Notes).

In many parts of the Library, the narrative can be regarded as being, in all essentials, a brief epitome of relevant sections from the works of the mythographer-historians (and much of its interest and value could be said to have derived from that). Pherecydes seems to have served as the author’s main model, although he also followed other historians when they were the main authorities on a particular area, as was Acousilaos on Argive myth, or Hellanicos on the myths connected with Troy. Not all scholars have agreed, however, that the author of the Librarydrew his material directly from these early prose sources, even where we can be certain that it was ultimately derived from them. For he had all the resources of Hellenistic mythography available to him, including handbooks which would have contained summaries of material from such writers. In his influential study, Carl Robert argued that the Libraryis little more than a precis of an earlier handbook by a Hellenistic author; and amongst German scholars at least, such a view came to be widely accepted in the early part of this century. Because we have to rely on fragments for our knowledge of most of the Library’searlier sources, this is by no means an easy question. Nevertheless, the most detailed examination of the evidence hitherto (in the article by M. Van der Valk cited in the Select Bibliography) gives reason to suppose that the author referred directly to the writings of the mythographer-historians when he was following one of them as his main source in a particular part of the work.

The author of the Libraryalso drew on a variety of other sources. Besides epic poetry, his earlier sources would naturally have included lyric and elegiac poetry, and the ‘tragic Muse’, as was stated in the little poem attributed to him. The great Attic dramatists of the fifth century generally relied on heroic mythology for their plots, in particular the stories associated with the Argive and Theban royal families and the Trojan War. But they adapted the traditional stories with considerable freedom, whether for dramatic effect or to develop a moral of their own, and were thus responsible for some striking innovations which had a marked influence on the development of the tradition. In certain cases the tragedians contributed the canonic version of a particular story, while in many others they provided appealing variants. Both aspects of this influence are evident in the Library. Thus the account of the life of Oedipus is in the main a summary of Sophocles’ version in his Oedipus plays, for this became the canonic version, largely displacing the very different accounts in early epic; but the plot of a play by Euripides on Alcmaion (p. 114) is included merely as an interesting variant, in a supplement to the main account based on the earlier tradition.

To proceed to the Hellenistic poets, Apollodorus based his account of the voyage of the Argonauts on the Argonauticaof Apollonius of Rhodes, a relatively late epic written in the third century BC. As was common in that age, Apollonius was a scholar as well as a poet, and he made extensive use of the early sources in composing his poem. For certain stories, however, such as the murder of Apsyrtos (p. 54), the author of the Libraryprefers to report a more primitive version than was found acceptable in this late epic. Otherwise his interests diverge from those of the Hellenistic poets, who tended to concern themselves with the more recondite aspects of the tradition, and he draws on them only for the occasional learned variant. As to the mythographical literature of this period, it was observed above that he would have made use of the resources that it provided. It is likely that some of his narratives are based on Hellenistic summaries of epic or tragic plots; and mythical variants, collections of references, and alternative genealogies may often have been drawn from Hellenistic handbooks. Apollodorus would have valued such literature as a source of instant erudition, but there is nothing to indicate that the Libraryis marked in any deeper sense by Hellenistic scholarship, and the author had no interest whatever in the rationalistic interpretations favoured by many Hellenistic scholars.

Over a millennium has passed since Photius suggested that the Librarywas not without its value to those who attach some importance to the memory of the ancient stories. Does this still apply for the modern reader? And even if the Libraryis of some practical use for its summaries of the main myths and the other information that it provides, is that the most that can be said for it?

As the only comprehensive mythical history of Greece to survive from antiquity, it is certainly the case that it has been used extensively by scholars and amateurs of myth in modern times. It is no accident that the major mythographical work of C. G. Heyne, the founder of modern scholarly mythography (who was responsible for introducing the word ‘myth’ into modern usage), should have been an edition of the Libraryaccompanied by an exhaustive commentary. And ever since, authors of mythological dictionaries and compendia have relied heavily on the Libraryfor their accounts of the main myths. This will be readily apparent if relevant passages from Robert Graves’ Greek Myths, for instance, or Pierre Grimal’s dictionary of classical mythology are checked against the text of the Library. It must be said, however, that despite the undoubted usefulness of the Library, writers on Greek mythology tend to refer to it with condescension or even disdain, and the neglect of it in the scholarly literature confirms that it is generally regarded as a work of no great substance.

In reaching a judgement on the value of the Library, we must take due account of the genre that it belongs to; for a summary handbook of this kind, compiled by collecting and epitomizing material from earlier sources, belongs to a mediocre, or at least a secondary, genre. The value of such a work will not derive from any originality or serious scholarship on the author’s part. He is simply an editor. Nor should we expect such a work to have any literary merit (beyond a tolerably clear presentation of the mythical narrative, which is generally the case with the Library). If Apollodorus’ main sources had survived, the Librarywould be no more than a historical curiosity, and the work as a whole would possess no greater value than the summary of the Iliadon p. 153. But if his main sources are taken to be primarily the works of the early mythographer-historians, very little of them has been preserved, so we must ask: can a compilation of this kind convey anything of value from them, and in the present case, is it reasonable to assume that it does? Now this is surely an area in which a writer of very modest capabilities could perform a useful service. Mythology is not at all like philosophy, for instance, where subtleties of thought and essential points in the reasoning can easily be lost in the process of summarization. If a mythical epitomist shows reasonable discrimination in the selection of resources, he merely needs the ability to summarize the stories clearly and accurately, and to be thorough in transmitting genealogical and other information which may be of less immediate appeal but is essential if the individual stories are to be ordered into a coherent mythical history. In this respect, the author of the Librarycertainly demonstrates the necessary thoroughness, and where his narratives can be compared with surviving sources, we can see that his summaries are generally reliable.

Furthermore, a lack of originality and of scholarly and literary ambition are not necessarily defects in an epitomist; for the mediocrity of his aims prevents our author from ever standing in the way of his sources. He never tries to rationalize the myths or impose his own ideas on them, or to alter and embellish them for literary or rhetorical effect. And he willingly accepts conflicting traditions without attempting to reconcile them.

If the author had modest aims, he can be said to have fulfilled them in a satisfactory manner. Of its kind, and allowing for its brevity, the Libraryis a work of surprisingly high quality. It is founded for the most part on good authorities of early date, and reports them with a high degree of accuracy. Naturally we would prefer to have the works of Pherecydes and Acousilaos (and the early epics too), but we should be grateful to fortune that at least we have this little summary of the mythical history of Greece as it would have been depicted in the works of the earliest mythographers. If only because so much else has been lost, it is indispensable to anyone who has more than a passing interest in Greek mythology.