The Poems of the Epic Cycle

Abstract

In an article published in the last volume of this Journal I endeavoured to show (1) that the extant fragments of the ‘chrestomathy’ of Proclus represent the Trojan part of the ‘Epic Cycle’ more completely than has been maintained by eminent scholars; and (2) that, on the other hand, they are less trustworthy than they appear to be as a source of knowledge of the so-called ‘Cyclic’ poems. That is to say, the notion of a considerable lacuna in Proclus' abstract is not borne out by a more thorough examination of the only extant manuscript. But that abstract does not always give a full or accurate account of the several poems from which the Epic Cycle was made up. And this incompleteness is found (1) when two of the poems dealt with the same part of the story—in which case the abstract leaves out one of the two versions altogether;—and also (2) when the incidents of a poem are not in harmony with the accepted mythological narrative. In the latter case the abstract gives the version which was recognised as historically true. We have, in short, an account, not of the original poems, but of so much of their contents as served for a continuous and complete history of the world.