Leggere e scrivere le tradizioni mitiche : il lavoro del mitografo nella sezione teogonica della «Biblioteca» di Apollodoro

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The most recent studies on Apollodorus’ “Library” have noted that, despite its multiple contradictions, the work discloses an authorial conception of the overall project as coherent whole. This overall coherence becomes clear only if we carry out a continuous reading of the “Library” as a whole, so as to observe Apollodorus’ reworking of the mythical material he compiled. This article particularly focuses on analysing the theogonic section: it will be appreciated that the narrative of the succession and partition of sovereignty among Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, although composed on the basis of the Homeric and Hesiodic versions of the story, reflects an articulation of power that differs greatly from that of the ancient epic poems. The new values present in the “Library”, which reflect the political and religious forms of the Imperial age, were attributed to the theogonic narratives during the process of the gathering and systematizing of the mythical past that was carried out by Apollodorus, and which combined elements from different traditions in a single sequence. The mythographer’s adaptation of the mythical traditions he received can be partially understood by considering the material circumstances of the practice of reading and writing in Antiquity, as is also shown by the brief passage that Apollodorus devoted to the god Hephaestus.