Unknown Greek mythographer of the Roman imperial period; the Library was once wrongly ascribed to Apollodorus of Athens
About Apollodorus (attributed)
Nothing is known of the author of the Library beyond the book itself. The manuscripts name Apollodorus, and from the Renaissance he was identified with Apollodorus of Athens, a scholar of the 2nd century BC who wrote on the gods; but the Library cites the chronicler Castor of Rhodes, who wrote in the 1st century BC, so most scholars place it in the 1st or 2nd century AD and call its author pseudo-Apollodorus. The translator, Sir James George Frazer (1854-1941), was a Scottish classicist and anthropologist best known for The Golden Bough; his two-volume Loeb edition of the Library appeared in 1921.
The Library is the only complete handbook of Greek mythology to survive from antiquity. In plain, compressed prose it tells the traditional stories of the gods and heroes in order, from the beginning of the world to the death of Odysseus, organized chiefly by family lines.