Talk:Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)

Possible plagiarism

The first paragraph of the article as it stands at present appears to have been lifted and slightly modified from the synopsis of 'The Library of Greek Mythology (Paperback)' on Amazon. See [1]

I've removed the offending text. Paul August ☎ 16:34, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

when does it date to?

I know this is not a trivial thing to answer, but about when does it date to? In particular, did it come before or after Ovid's Metamorpheses?TCO (talk) 22:51, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Citing (and linking) the Bibliotheca

b a c k g r o u n d

I recently noticed that a few hundred pages which cite the Bibliotheca did so with a link to Apollodorus of Athens and no link here, with a good handful making explicit attribution to that scholar and few even calling the Bibliotheca the Chronicles, after Apollodorus of Athens' work. So the problem was two-fold: 1. the wlinks were going to a tangentially related article instead of the primary; and, 2. this misdirection was introducing errors of fact. To resolve this as quickly as possible, I simply went through and replaced citations of the form (e.g.) "Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.7.3" with "Bibliotheca 1.7.3". But now the question arises: how should the text be cited in WP? Four Five options are:

1. Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.7.3, with the author linked as "Pseudo-[[Apollodorus of Athens|Apollodorus]]"
2. Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.7.3
3. Bibliotheca 1.7.3
4. Pseudo-Apollodorus 1.7.3, [[Pseudo-Apollodorus]] redirects here
5. Apollodorus, 1.7.3, linking [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]] if a link is included. Added upon the input of the old dog below.

It's not as though we generally strive for absolute consistency like this, but since my edit imposed Option 3 everywhere, we should probably agree on a method, at least to bring the state of the citations I changed into a more consensus driven format. (I'll of course bear the brunt of the effort to introduce whatever format is preferred here, and try to introduce xlinks as I go along.) Thoughts?

Well my method for citing this work, is "Apollodorus, 3.9.1", for example see Lycurgus of Arcadia. I use this extensively and It'd take some powerful convincing for this old dog to learn any new tricks ;-). Paul August ☎ 16:47, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm only proposing to fix the leveling edit that I made, so since you don't link to Apollodorus of Athens (or any Wikipedia page) you don't have to worry about having your paw forced. — cardiff | chestnut — 17:13, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

OK. Let me add that In addition to a bare cite like "Apollodorus, 1.7.3", (usually enclosed in "ref" tags) I would normally somewhere include the complete bibliographic info for the edition of Apollodorus being linked to. In this case that would be: Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Paul August ☎ 18:01, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

The links to the author of The Library should go to this page and not to Apollodorus of Athens. The variations beyond that essential principle -- Apollodorus or Pseudo-Apollodorus or Apollodorus, Bibl. -- matter little. Wareh (talk) 21:35, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Of course it should link to "Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)", but I still think it makes sense to link to "Apollodorus of Athens" as well. When we indicate the author as "Pseudo-Apollodorus", this essentially means "the work was once attributed to Apollodorus but is now recognized as spurious". Why not provide the reader with an option to quickly find out who that Apollodorus was? I therefore support #1. The issue of the authorship of the Bibliotheca is addressed on Apollodorus of Athens' page anyway, so I don't think it should lead to any confusion.

#2 is also an acceptable option in my opinion, but I wouldn't support any option that completely omits the name "Apollodorus" because, as I've argued elsewhere, the work is likely going to be recognized by the name "Apollodorus" rather than by the title. Note that the popular online versions of the work still have Apollodorus as the author, without even the "pseudo-" prefix.

Linking to an external source is a useful method in terms of easier verification, but it can fail should the link get broken, so it doesn't seem preferable to rely on it alone. Phlyaristis (talk) 08:04, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Agree, that's another reason to include somewhere in the article the the complete bibliographic info for the edition of Apollodorus being linked to. Paul August ☎ 17:12, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that's only proper: I'll add that too whenever I expand a ref. — ^[dave] cardiff | _chestnut — 17:30, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Ignore what I've said before, I have just thought of a new linking style for Pseudo-Apollodorus:

*Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, 1. 1. 1

It may seem essentially the same as #4, yet it includes both the author and the title of the work, and thus follows the same pattern as, say, "Pausanias, Description of Greece, 1. 1. 1", which allows for the references to look uniform. At the same time it takes Wareh's arguments into account (and I do see now that linking to Apollodorus of Athens may actually be excessive, since the Bibliotheca page has a link to his page anyway). Besides, it is easier typed out than #1 or #2, which may be seen as a bonus by the editors.

I'm not removing my previous arguments either, so others may decide for themselves which ones they would rather agree with. But I think that from now on I will be using this pattern, unless we agree on a different one. Phlyaristis (talk) 09:02, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I think that sounds sound, and, like I said, I don't think we need to impose any pseudo-policy, just to find a way to make sure that the Bibliotheca situation doesn't return to what it was. I'll try each day to go back through my contributions and change at least a few of the "Bibliotheca 1. 7. 3"s that I inserted into Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, 1.7.3. It seems only right to introduce Phlyaristis' preferred method, since so many of the mythology articles I altered were either entirely or mostly his/her work, hence the shiny new Barnstar! — ^[dave] cardiff | _chestnut — 14:39, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad to see these final two suggestions from Phylaristis and Cardiffchestnut -- without any link to Apollodorus of Athens, which I would consider misdirected. Readers want reference to the author actually in question. That author is Pseudo-Apollodorus, and anyone who wants to know why Pseudo-Apollodorus has that name will be given an explanation at Pseudo-Apollodorus with further links to Apollodorus of Athens from there. I don't think we do or should link "Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite" when we want to refer to the author of the Theologia Mystica. Sorry if this is gratuitous repetition--it's not because I'll be up in arms if my advice isn't followed, but because I was so laconic the first time here. Wareh (talk) 21:05, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Should This Be Called "Pseudo-"?

Does the author name himself? Why would the author be "blamed" for the wrong id of him with the Athenian Apollodorus? If the author doesn't call himself "Apollodorus of Athens," IMHO the author should not be called pseudo-. Perhaps he should be called Apollodorus the mythographer or something neutral. Along with this, I think the dating of the document could be an improved and special section. (EnochBethany (talk) 23:33, 29 October 2014 (UTC))

Add a Section on the Mode of Greek Used

I would be interested in seeing added a section of the type of Greek employed: koine? Atticistic? mixed? I am in the process of buying the Loeb edition via Logos, and I expect to form an opinion; but as we know original research isn't desired here. Still an opinion could be posted on the Talk Page, even if it is not put in the article. (EnochBethany (talk) 23:36, 29 October 2014 (UTC))