Little Iliad
The Little Iliad (
Date
The Little Iliad was probably composed in the latter half of the seventh century BCE, although there is much uncertainty. Ancient sources date Lesches to the seventh century BC; but it is typical for ancient writers to place archaic literary authors earlier (sometimes centuries earlier) than the period they actually lived.[citation needed]
Content
The Little Iliad is one of the better-attested epics in the Epic Cycle: nearly thirty lines of the original text survive. Nevertheless, we are almost entirely dependent on a summary of the Cyclic epics contained in the Chrestomatheia attributed to an unknown Proclus (possibly to be identified with the 2nd-century CE grammarian Eutychius Proclus). Numerous other references give indications of the poem's storyline.
The poem, "a fast-paced episodic epic with a lot of ground to cover"[1] — which opened it to Aristotle's criticism that it had more plot than an epic should have[2] — opens with the judgment of Achilles's arms, which are to be awarded to the greatest Greek hero: the contest is between Ajax and Odysseus, who recovered Achilles's body in battle. With the help of Athena, the arms are awarded to Odysseus, and Ajax goes insane and attacks the Achaeans' herd. Later, in shame, he commits suicide, and is buried without full heroic honours, in a coffin rather than cremated on a funeral pyre, "because of the anger of the king", Agamemnon.[3]
. Deiphobus wins and marries her. The defeated Helenus angrily abandons Troy in spite and moves to Mount Ida.Odysseus, who is a recurrent figure of interest in the Little Iliad,
While a ship of Mycenaeans sail to Pisa to bring back the bones of Pelops, Odysseus brings Achilles's son Neoptolemus to Troy and gives him his father's armor. Achilles's ghost appears to him. When the Trojan ally Eurypylus dominates the field in battle, Neoptolemus kills him.
Odysseus and Diomedes go into Troy disguised as beggars, where Helen recognises them but keeps their secret; they return safely with the
On the goddess
The emergence of the heroes from the horse, and the Greeks' destruction of Troy, seem not to be recounted in the Little Iliad, but are left for the
The Little Iliad does not seem to have been redacted in a single, authoritative version, according to varying accounts of its details that cannot securely be harmonised.[6]
Editions
- Online editions (English translation):
- Fragments of the Little Iliad translated by H.G. Evelyn-White, 1914 (public domain)
- Fragments of complete Epic Cycle translated by H.G. Evelyn-White, 1914; Project Gutenberg edition
- Proclus' summary of the Epic Cycle translated by Gregory Nagy
- Print editions (Greek):
- A. Bernabé 1987, Poetarum epicorum Graecorum testimonia et fragmenta pt. 1 (Leipzig: Teubner)
- M. Davies 1988, Epicorum Graecorum fragmenta (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht)
- A. Bernabé 1987, Poetarum epicorum Graecorum testimonia et fragmenta pt. 1 (Leipzig:
- Print editions (Greek with English translation):
- M.L. West 2003, Greek Epic Fragments (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press)