The "Epic Cycle"

• First, a quick summary of the backstory of the Trojan War:
• Prophecy to Zeus said that Zeus would be overthrown by a son, and also that Thetis' son would be greater than his father. So, Zeus couldn't have Thetis, and it was decided that Thetis had to marry a mortal.
  
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• By Douris - Jastrow (2007). Image renamed from Image:Thetis Peleus CdM.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2180616
  
• Peleus and Thetis got married. Their son is Achilles, whose mother did various things according to various stories, one of which was to dip him in the Styx while holding him by the heel (hence he remained vulnerable in the heel, but was invulnerable everywhere else).
• 
• Marriage of Peleus and Thetis By Bartolomeo di Giovanni (1458-1501)- louvre, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25191211
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• By upload by muesse - www.focus.de, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8328492
• The Education of Achilles by Chiron, fresco from Herculaneum, 1st century AD (Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples).
• Athena, Aphrodite, and Hera were guests at the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, but Eris (Strife) was not. So she threw an apple "for the fairest" into the mix, and the three goddesses all claimed it. They decided that the shepherd Paris/Alexander should decide. He chose Aphrodite, b/c she promised him the most beautiful mortal woman (Helen). NOTE: that puts Hera and Athena against Troy!
• Wtwael's copperplate in the National Gallery of Art
  
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• Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Helen of Troy: late 19th c.: wikimedia commons
  
• Meanwhile, Helen was born from Zeus and Leda (swan). She had tons of suitors: Odysseus suggested that they all swear an oath that they would defend her marriage no matter who got her.
  
• Paris/Alexander went across the sea to visit Menelaus and, sure enough, he and Helen left together and went back to Troy.
• And all the former suitors were required to defend the marriage, so they joined suit and went off to Troy.
• Enough of that: the story is told in bits and pieces in many different places in many centuries, and has many versions, some contradictory.
• On to the Epic Cycle.
  
• There was a group of written works that existed in antiquity called the epic cycle, none of which survived entire, and none of which even resemble parts of something in the full glory of Iliad and Odyssey.
• They were songs in dactylic hexameter, just like the Iliad and Odyssey were dactylic hexameter songs.
• They were much shorter than Iliad or Odyssey.
• They are lost? First question: why should I care about them?
• Each one told part of the Trojan War cycle, by which is meant the entire story of the Trojan War, from the way-back backstory to long-after aftermath.
• They offer:
• Backstory
• Parallel stories, each of which is a huge set of stories
• Theban Epic cycle--think Oedipus, Seven against Thebes;
  
• Argos and Argonautica;
  
• Hercules stories: Hercules even sacked Troy once
• They report stories which reappear in tragedy and other poetry and later Roman poets such as Ovid and many others.
  
• OK, then, when are they from? Scholars think they were written down after "Homer."
• But the stories, the plot lines, are clearly part of the Homeric fabric: the stories are not fan-fiction made up after the fact.
• They contain variants
  
• They don't always follow the Homeric version: fan fiction usually follows what it is based on: so they are not likely to be dependent on and derived from Iliad and Odyssey
  
• The idea is that they were written down after "Homer" was written down, but arose from the same oral/mythological story soup.
  
• Before they were frozen by particular people in particular written forms, they were probably songs that existed in many forms in many singers' and audiences' minds.
  
• They overlap with each other and Homer, but they also have inconsistencies (of many sorts: think of the Catalog of Ships in Iliad 2, which is somewhat mismatched to the army we find elsewhere).
• One good theory is that the version of the cycle which we have was created much later than Homer, in the Hellenistic Period (322BC onward).
• "Evidence" for that theory is the fact that overall, in spite of discrepancies, they seem to fit so neatly around the Iliad and the Odyssey, and by Hellenistic times those two were THE major epics.
  
• Yes, this seems at odds with, or at least in tension with, what was said above about the cycle not being fan fiction.
• But in spite of the tension, they offer so much that is so different from Homeric Epic, it is clear that there were songs and poems that told the epic cycle parallel to at the same time as the Homeric Epics.
  

• What is included in the "Epic Cycle"?
• There is the larger cycle, and the more narrow cycle that centers on the Trojan War
• The more narrow Trojan War "Epic Cycle" concerns us most: we have titles of works and in some cases, larger bits.
  
• Cypria: early years of war
• Aithiopis: last year of war
• Little Iliad: and Sack of Ilium: fall of Troy.
• Nostoi (also called Returns): some Greek heroes' returns home.
• Telegony: Odysseus' life after he returned home to Ithaka.
  
• The LARGER Cycle also includes:
  
• parts telling prequels to the Cypria, such as
  
• Titanomachy: divine strife of Titans with their offspring, the Olympians, origin of the divine order that we are familiar with.
• Possibly there was a work that explains earlier divine origins: a Theogony
• Not to be confused with the surviving work by Hesiod, called Theogony, which does contain an explanation of early origins of the gods and the strife.
• We see bits of, allusions to, references to part of the Titanomachy in Homer: when Hera tells Zeus she is going off to reconcile Okeanos and Tethys, who are their separated parents, those are Titans. Zeus confined them somewhere where they can't do any damage or interfere.
  
• The "Theban Cycle"
• Oidipodeia: Oedipus defeats Sphinx, marries Theban queen
• Thebais: Eteokles and Polyneikes fight over Thebes, Argos attacks Thebes.
• Epigoni: another attack on Thebes, successful this time, by the sons of those involved in earlier attack (compare the fact that Troy was twice attacked: once earlier by a force that included Heracles and then again at the time of our Trojan War).
  
• Alkmeonis: sketchy and uncertain, but perhaps tells further part of Theban Cycle.
• The stories in this cycle are found in many tragedies, including some that we still have.
  

• If they are lost, how do we know about them?
• Most complete account:
  
• Proclus (circa 5th c. AD/CE neoplatonic philosopher: 1200 years or more after Homeric Epic written down) wrote a summary of the war, including the epic cycle: it is found in its entirety in only one manuscript (Venetus A: although the Cypria is found in others)
• Gregory Nagy and Eugenia Lao's translation of Proclus' summaries
  
• Photius tells us in his Library (aka Bibliotheke) that the summary by Proclus is actually excerpts from a larger work of Proclus, the Grammatical Chrestomathy.
  
• But we have bits and pieces from elsewhere:
• Herodotus tells us that the Cypria says that Paris got home easily, but Proclus' summary says he was blown off course.
• Herodotus is MUCH earlier than Proclus, by roughly 1000 years! and so may be more reliable.
  
• This is the typical situation for fragmentary works and authors: maybe a vase inscription has a line of poetry, a few papyri have a bit, other authors quote a bit, etc.
• Fragmentary works and authors are VERY COMMON, but usually require Greek to read and really do any thinking about it.
• Another reason to learn Ancient Greek!
  
• And we have reports about the works' authors and dates of composition
• These are often vague, unreliable, and inconsistent.
• In some cases, the same poem is attributed to several authors, including Homer.
• In no case do we have much more than a name and a place of origin.
  

• Anything else? Just a couple instances of the many tantalizing facts about the cycle include:
  
• Telegony is attributed to Eugammon, a Cyrenean (i.e. from the now- Libyan coast North Africa.
• and a character in it is named Arkesilaus
• and there are historical kings named Arkesilaus who ruled over Cyrene during the "Battiads'" reign.
• Maybe it is a local Cyrenean epic? local tradition?
  
• Aithiopis locates Achilles in "Leuke" in his afterlife
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• By Damon Painter - User:Bibi Saint-Pol Own work, 21 July 2007, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2440966
  
• Miletus was the major mother-city for Black Sea colonies
• and there is an island calle 'Leuke' in the Black Sea, which Stephanus of Byzantium (6th c. CE) calls "the island of Achilles" or "the racecourse of Achilles": there was cult worship of Achilles there, reports Arrian: and the epitome of Arctinus of Miletus (8th c. BCE) reports that Achilles and Patroclus were buried there: lots of little snippets about it. There were ruins of a temple, but the Russians built a lighthouse right on top of them in the 19th c.
  
• maybe a Milesian epic? Maybe just a shoutout to Leuke?
  
• Overall, the epic cycle seems to have had a much swifter pace than Homer, had more divine elements and involvement (lots more prophecy, heroes made immortal after death, etc.)
  

• What was the ancients' attitude toward the Epic Cycle?
• few papyri fragments (by way of contrast, there are LOTS of them for Homer)
• so it was not reproduced anywhere near as much as Homer
  
• the fact that a summary was needed may indicate that they were not valued too much as well
  
• some ancients exhibit outright disdain for them (Callimachus and Aristotle)
• So overall, it was valued less than Homer.

• Recently, ML West, a renowned philological scholar, published a commentary on the bits and pieces we have of the Epic Cycle
• It is a "major event" in Homeric studies: a seismic event in that area.
  
• It provides very basic information and opinions about matters that have long been hard to access, because they require a truly extraordinary scholar to untangle.
• One must know Greek to understand the issues fully, and one must dive into it: I have not done so.
• But the long and short of it is that West's work may open doors for further studies. 50 years from now, we may think we know a lot more.