INTRODUCTION
the Returns is far wider and more precise than that of the Odyssey. (5) Moreover, in the Cyclic poems epic is clearly degenerating morally — if the expression may be used. The chief greatness of the Iliad is in the character of the heroes Achilles and Hector rather than in the actual events which take place: in the Cyclic writers facts rather than character are the objects of interest, and events are so packed together as to leave no space for any exhibition of the play of moral forces. All these reasons justify the view that the poems with which we now have to deal were later than the Iliad and Odyssey, and if we must recognize the possibility of some conventionality in the received dating, we may feel confident that it is at least approximately just.
The earliest of the post-Homeric epics of Troy are apparently the Aethiopis and the Sack of Ilium, both ascribed to Arctinus of Miletus who is said to have flourished in the first Olympiad (776 B.C.). He set himself to finish the tale of Troy, which, so far as events were concerned, had been left half-told by Homer, by tracing the course of events after the close of the Iliad. The Aethiopis thus included the coming of the Amazon Penthesilea to help the Trojans after the fall of Hector and her death, the similar arrival and fall of the Aethiopian Memnon, the death of Achilles under the arrow of Paris, and the dispute between Odysseus and Aias for the arms of Achilles. The Sack of Ilium[1] as analysed by Proclus was very similar to Vergil's version in
- ↑ MM. Croiset note that the Aethiopis and the Sack were originally merely parts of one work containing lays (the Amazoneia, Aethiopis, Persis, etc.), just as the Iliad contained various lays such as the Diomedeia.
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