The fragments of the Oxyrhynchi papyri 2619 and 2803, [1] first published by E. Lobel, [2] are attributed to the Ἰλίου Πέρσις of Stesichorus on account of their meter, language, style and subject matter. [3]… Read more
What follows suggests an interpretative approach to the causes of the Trojan War in the Epic Cycle. Among the themes of the Epic Cycle, the Trojan mythical narratives are those of which we possess the fullest account and the richest literary evidence. This is, of course, mainly due to the… Read more
This presentation centers on the concept of the epic Cycle as understood by Aristarchus of Samothrace, who was director of the Library of Alexandra in the mid third century BCE. The work of Aristarchus survives only indirectly, through the reportage of various ancient sources preserved mostly in scholia or notes… Read more
Inset narratives—the reminiscences by characters, extended similes, descriptions of artworks and weapons, mythological exempla, editorial comments and so on that add bulk and depth to the Homeric and Hesiodic epics and Homeric Hymns—are of course precisely the kind of material that was usually omitted when the poems of the Epic… Read more
It is, or at least once was, a standard joke among English-speaking classical scholars to recall the words of a headmaster to his pupils: “Boys, this term you are to have the privilege of reading the Oedipus Coloneus of Sophocles, a veritable treasure-house of grammatical peculiarities”. [1]… Read more
Athenaeus in his Deipnosophistai remarks that “Sophocles took great pleasure in the Epic Cycle and composed whole dramas in which he followed the Cycle’s version of myths” [1] (ἔχαιρε δὲ Σοφοκλῆς τῷ ἐπικῷ κύκλῳ, ὡς καὶ ὅλα δράματα ποιῆσαι κατακολουθῶν τῇ ἐν τούτῳ μυθοποιίᾳ, Deipnosophistai… Read more
