Introduction

Robert Simms

The thematic interests of heroic epic are ‘kings and battles’ (reges et proelia), as Virgil has it at Ecologue 6.3. These interests dispose the genre toward a con- fident athanasia: that the great deeds of great men will endure into future ages and never perish. There is, however, another feature of heroic epic nar- ratives that goes largely unconsidered. As Aristotle observes in making his generic comparisons of epic and tragedy, where the latter should contain a sin- gle episode, the former is polumython, ‘replete with story’ (Poetics 1456a12). Epic is capable of containing several stories, a feature that facilitates an extensive ‘additive’ program, such that the enterprise itself is prone to incompleteness and indefiniteness. But while songs may live forever, singers do not. Lamentable circumstances have allowed mors immatura to claim the ends of several works, but even poets of successfully ‘finished’ epics frequently acknowledge or imply that the story is incomplete. Historically, the incompleteness of epic has en- couraged the production of continuations, observed as early as the cyclical epics of Archaic Greece, and Homer’s Iliad. The Odyssey and the Aeneid con- tinue the Iliad, Silius’ Punica continues the Aeneid, and so forth. There was also the Medieval and Renaissance vogue of continuing and elaborating unfin- ished classical epics, as well as the hybridization of Greco-Roman epic and courtly romance, which gave rise to further forms of continuation. The post- modern age also reveals an interest in the aggregation and serialization of epic. The present volume thus explores, in a decidedly interdisciplinary and trans- historical effort, the variety of ways that heroic epic narratives have been con- tinued in the Greco-Roman and western classical traditions through prequels, sequels, and retellings. As a glance at the table of contents will reveal, the lion’s share of the discus- sions contained herein concern the Trojan mythos, a theme with which poets and authors of continuations have been continually occupied. This volume divides into two parts. In the first part we take up works more or less related to the Trojan War and/or the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer. In the second part, we look beyond Troy and Homer; however, there is, naturally, observable overlap and interconnectedness, and the divisions should by no means be considered distinct. As slices from a larger whole of cyclic epics, which survive now only as epitomes and fragments, the Iliad and Odyssey by their nature offered gaps and points of departure to fill out and further a much larger and lengthier narrative

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004360921_002 2 simms picture. These Homeric redactions connect to a sequence that spanned from what the Archaic Greeks understood as the nascence of the world down to the close of the heroic age; however, as Elizabeth Minchin discusses in our opening chapter, the Iliad and the Odyssey are also tethered to one another. Minchin examines first how the Iliad speculates on future narrative events, external to its terminus, through the depictions of fate and prophecy; statements of conviction; threats, prayers, and wishes of characters; and the explicit words of the Iliadic narrator. Minchin then turns her attention to the ways in which the Odyssey does and does not pick up the offered strands of its predecessor. Reinhold Glei then provides an examination of the Ilias Latina, a short Latin hexameter poem of 1070 lines attributed, with some controversy, to Baebius Italicus, and written in the Neronian 60’s.The poem heavily influenced medieval literature and endured as a popular standard in Latin education.Were one to read of the Trojan conflict in the Middle Ages it would more likely have been in the Ilias Latina than in Homer’s original. While Baebius’ work presents itself as a condensation and summary, it also reveals, as Glei examines, features that suggest a Roman rereading and continuation of the Homeric Iliad, one informed by post-Augustan critique and influence. The Hellenistic period enjoyed a particular vogue for extending Homeric material. The somewhat lesser known epyllia of Triphiodorus’ The Sack of Troy and Colluthus’ The Rape of Helen offer the subject matter for Orestis Karavas’ chapter. Of the former we have a sequel composed in 691 verses in roughly the 3rd century that offers a continuation of Homer’s Iliad and treats similar events to the second book of Virgil’s Aeneid. Of the latter we have Colluthus’ The Rape of Helen in 392 hexameters, which visits the seeds of theTrojan conflict. Karavas explores the ways in which these later poets drew their inspiration from other poets besides Homer. As the font of much narrative material it was a particular challenge to create original works within this Homeric dominance. Calum Maciver’s discussion then turns our attention toward Quintus of Smyrnaeus’ Posthomerica where he explores Quintus’ construction of a Homeric identity that draws on the hexametric poetry of Hesiod and Apollonius as well. In this way, Homer is read through a Hellenistic lens. The Byzantine poet and scholastic John Tzetzes also sought to enclose the open ends of origin and conclusion to Homer’s Iliad. Marta Cardin’s contri- bution addresses the Carmina Iliaca, or Little Great Iliad, of John Tzetzes. This poem treats the Trojan War from the origins of the conflict through to the fall of the city. As a teacher, Tzetzes’ poetic efforts have strong didactic qualities that incorporate a variety of sources. In addition, Tzetzes creates his own myths, offers learned annotations to his own verses, and incorporates a style of alle- goresis. Not long after after Tzetzes’ death, the English poet Joseph of Exeter,