The grandeur of Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey” has long captivated readers with the heroics, gods, and timeless narratives of the Trojan War. Yet, what many may not realize is that these two epics are mere fragments of a larger, mostly lost, poetic collection known as the Ancient Greek Epic Cycle. Spanning from the origins of the conflict to its far-reaching aftermath, the Epic Cycle filled in the vast spaces left by Homer, with poems like the “Cypria,””Aethiopis,””Little Iliad,””Iliou Persis,””Nostoi,” and the “Telegony.”
The Cyclical poems delved deeper into the legend, detailing events such as Zeus’ plot to start the war, the judgment of Paris, the gathering of Greek forces, and the fates of heroes post-siege. Sadly, unlike the enduring “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” the other poems survive only in tattered fragments and summaries from Late Antiquity and the Byzantine period. Aristotle, in his “Poetics,” expressed a less favorable opinion of the “Cypria” and “Little Iliad,” criticizing them for their episodic nature, yet it is this very breadth that provided material for numerous tragedies and other works of Greek literature, as well as Roman poets like Virgil and Ovid.
Our knowledge of the Epic Cycle largely relies on a broken summary from the preface of a 10th-century manuscript of the “Iliad,” known as Venetus A, attributed to a scholar named Proclus. Not much is known about Proclus, yet his “Chrestomathy” serves as a vital link to these lost works. Despite the paucity of direct sources, scholars have strived to piece together the narratives and influence of these epics. Martin West’s commentary on the lost Trojan epics illuminates the cyclic poems’ broad scope and their significant impact on the mythological tradition.
The cyclic poets are often seen as “neōteroi” (“later poets”) and their work as “kyklikos” (“cyclic” or “formulaic”), indicating their secondary status compared to the Homeric epics. Still, some argue that the Homeric epics may have been informed by these now fragmentary works. Intriguingly, tales from the Cycle persist through other ancient sources such as Virgil’s “Aeneid” and Quintus of Smyrna’s “Posthomerica,” suggesting that while the original texts have vanished, their stories continue to echo through time.
The complexity of the Trojan saga extends beyond just literary records. Ancient artifacts, including the Tabula iliaca inscriptions, reveal how deeply these narratives were intertwined with Greek culture and storytelling. Furthermore, later literary and artistic interpretations continue to shed light on elements of the lost epics, as West suggests in his commentary, with connections sometimes drawn from iconographic materials like vase paintings.
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– TIL Homer’s classic epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey, are only part of an eight story saga. The remaining parts have been lost to the ages.