Apollodorus
Apollodorus is the name loosely given to the author of a famous collection of myths. Apollodorus himself was a second century B.C. Greek scholar who studied under a Stoic philosopher Diogenes of Babylon. [This Diogenes was a student of Stoa scholarch Chrysippus, and was known for having been part of a philosophers' delegation, composed of Diogenes, the skeptic Carneades, and the Peripatetic Critolaus, that visited Rome in 156–155 B.C.
There he was the first Stoic to lecture [source: Dirk Obbink's "Diogenes of Babylon: The Stoic Sage in the City of Fools," Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 32:4 (1991:Winter) p.355].] The collection of myths formerly attributed to Apollodorus (and now usually attributed to Pseudo-Apollodorus) is thought to have been written around the second century of our era.
The second century B.C. scholar Apollodorus wrote a now fragmentary verse history (Chronika) based on the works of Eratosthenes, starting from the Trojan War, with dates from Greek history given by reference to the year's Athenian archon, an On the Gods (Peri theon), and a commentary on the Homeric catalogue of ships (from Iliad Book II). He may have written other pieces.
(Pseudo)-Apollodorus' collection of myths (bibliotheca ) is a useful source of information on the Greek myths partly for the same reason that some find it flawed: It simplifies.
"Apollodorus was a mythographer; he aimed to collect and collate as many
myths as he could, creating a definitive history of gods and mortals from the
creation of the cosmos until the end of the heroic age. Because of this, throughout
his Library, Apollodorus smoothes over any dissonances among what he
perceives as the various versions of stories he treats. When he has to pick and
choose, he favors those that are embedded in panhellenically famous poetry—
which very often means that he favors myths narrated by Attic authors."
"Demeter, Myths, and the Polyvalence of Festivals," by Sarah Iles Johnston
History of Religions, Vol. 52, No. 4 (May 2013), pp. 370-401.
In "The Vacillations of the Trojan Myth: Popularization & Classicization, Variation & Codification," (International Journal of the Classical Tradition , Vol. 14, No. 3/4 (December, 2007), pp. 482-534), Jon Solomon suggests the story of the Achilles Heel may have been familiar early on, possibly as early as Homer. Apollodorus doesn't mention this. Instead his story is like the one of the Earth-wandering Demeter's attempt to confer immortality on Metaneira's infant son [see Demeter Wants Her Daughter Back]:
[3.13.6] When Thetis had got a babe by Peleus, she wished to make it immortal, and unknown to Peleus she used to hide it in the fire by night in order to destroy the mortal element which the child inherited from its father, but by day she anointed him with ambrosia. But Peleus watched her, and, seeing the child writhing on the fire, he cried out; and Thetis, thus prevented from accomplishing her purpose, forsook her infant son and departed to the Nereids. Peleus brought the child to Chiron, who received him and fed him on the inwards of lions and wild swine and the marrows of bears, and named him Achilles, because he had not put his lips to the breast; but before that time his name was Ligyron.
Frazer translation.
Apollodorus doesn't necessarily ignore the variations. For instance, in his treatment of the blinding of Tiresias he specifies different versions:
[3.6.7] Now there was among the Thebans a soothsayer, Tiresias, son of Everes and a nymph Chariclo, of the family of Udaeus, the Spartan, and he had lost the sight of his eyes. Different stories are told about his blindness and his power of soothsaying. For some say that he was blinded by the gods because he revealed their secrets to men. But Pherecydes says that he was blinded by Athena; for Chariclo was dear to Athena . . . and Tiresias saw the goddess stark naked, and she covered his eyes with her hands, and so rendered him sightless. And when Chariclo asked her to restore his sight, she could not do so, but by cleansing his ears she caused him to understand every note of birds; and she gave him a staff of cornel-wood, wherewith he walked like those who see. But Hesiod says that he beheld snakes copulating on Cyllene, and that having wounded them he was turned from a man into a woman, but that on observing the same snakes copulating again, he became a man. Hence, when Hera and Zeus disputed whether the pleasures of love are felt more by women or by men, they referred to him for a decision. He said that if the pleasures of love be reckoned at ten, men enjoy one and women nine. Wherefore Hera blinded him, but Zeus bestowed on him the art of soothsaying. The saying of Tiresias to Zeus and Hera: "Of ten parts a man enjoys one only; but a woman enjoys the full ten parts in her heart." He also lived to a great age.
Main source: Kenneth S. Sacks' article in the Oxford University Press' Who's Who in the Classical World.
See some important Greek myths according to Apollodorus:
){kind=link}