 Though the "Metamorphoses" did not suffer the ignominious fate of the "Medea", no ancient scholia on the poem survive (although they did exist in antiquity), and the earliest manuscript is very late, dating from the 11th century.The poem retained its popularity throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and is represented by an extremely high number of surviving manuscripts (more than 400); the earliest of these are three fragmentary copies containing portions of Books 1–3, dating to the 9th century.Collaborative editorial effort has been investigating the various manuscripts of the "Metamorphoses", some forty-five complete texts or substantial fragments, all deriving from a Gallic archetype.