The Epic Cycle

 The Epic Cycle

George Lucas, the creator of the Stars Wars franchise, was heavily influenced by Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey as well as by Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, published in 1949. In his book, Campbell explored the theory that mythological narratives frequently share a fundamental structure. He summarized a motif that he called the archetypal narrative or the monomyth with the following description of the hero’s adventure:

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

            You can see the influence of Joseph Campbell and Homer all over the works of George Lucas. It is easy to imagine Star Wars as a re-telling of the Iliad and The Return of the Jedi evokes images of the Odyssey. All the other movies in the Star Wars franchise are either prequels or sequels. Can the same be said of Homer’s works? Are the bard’s two lengthy epics parts of something bigger? That is indeed the case and that something bigger is known to classical scholars as The Epic Cycle. The Epic Cycle was a collection of ancient Greek works, all written in the same dactylic hexameter that Homer used for his poetry. They all dealt with the story of the Trojan War and some were prequels to the Iliad and some were sequels, like the Odyssey. The various works contained in the cycle included the Cypria, the Aethiopis, the Little Iliad, the Iliupersis, the Nostoi and the Telegony. Unlike the Iliad and the Odyssey which have survived in complete form, unfortunately the other works in the cycle are only fragmentary or contained in later summaries. In total there were eight works recognized by modern scholars as being part of The Epic Cycle, with several others being included by the 9^th century commentator Photius, but those are largely discounted by classicists today.

            Generally regarded as the first poem in The Epic Cycle, the Cypria was quite well known in classical antiquity, but its 11 books have now been totally lost, except for about 50 lines which have been quoted by other writers. The work was attributed to Stasinus of Cyprus and it is thought to have been written around the late 7^th century BCE. The Cypria was a prequel to the Iliad and reportedly covered the events leading up to the Trojan War, including the war of the Seven Against Thebes, the wedding of Peleus and Thetis and the Judgement of Paris, the events leading up to the capture of Helen, the story of Castor and Pollux, the slaughter of Iphigenia at Aulis, the snakebite suffered by Philocletes on Tenedos, the raiding of Trojan cities by the Greeks, the revenge death of Palamedes by Odysseus, as well as many other events occurring during the first 9 years of the war itself. The final book of the Cypria also contained the Trojan Battle Order and it is thought that the list of the Trojans and their allies that is found as an appendix to Homer’s Catalogue of Ships was actually abridged from the Trojan listing found in the Cypria.

            The Cypria was considered to be a lesser work than the Iliad and the Odyssey, despite the fact that some commentators attributed the work to Homer himself. Aristotle criticized it for lacking narrative unity and thought it to be a mere collection of events rather than a cohesive story. Instead of crafting a well-structured plot, he accused the author of the Cypria of focusing too heavily on just reporting events and thereby creating a lesser epic than Homer’s two masterpieces.

            Homer’s Iliad is always placed second in The Epic Cycle. The 24 books of the epic contain 16,000 lines of dactylic hexameter and the entire text has been preserved since antiquity. It is thought that the work was composed in the late 8^th or early 7^th centuries BCE. The timeframe of the events covered in the Iliad is very narrow, comprising a period of just a few weeks or about 50 days in the final 10^th year of the Trojan War. The major focus of the epic is on the wrath of Achilles, starting with his angry withdrawal from the battle over the Briseis affair and ending with the death of Hector, the return of the Trojan hero’s body to his father Priam and his subsequent funeral. The actual fall of Troy is not even included in the Iliad and for this reason, it is evident that the work was designed to be one part of a larger effort and hence the likelihood that The Epic Cycle indeed did exist.

            Another lost work of The Epic Cycle is the Aethiopis, attributed to Arctinus of Miletus who lived in the 8^th century BCE and likely written during the 7^th century. The work comprised 5 books of verse and only about 10 fragments and a summary by Proclus survive. The Aethiopis was another sequel to Homer’s Iliad and the poem opens shortly after the death of Hector, with the arrival of the Amazon warrior Penthesileia as well as the Ethiopian king Memnon, both fighting in support of the Trojans. The poem details the triumphs of Achilles, including his slaying of the Amazon. It goes on to describe the subsequent death of Achilles at the hand of Paris who shoots an arrow directly into the hero’s vulnerable heel. The poem ends with the fierce struggle over the body of Achilles, his funeral rites and the games which were staged to commemorate him, and then culminates with a dispute over his armour waged by the two heroes who had recovered his body, Odysseus and Ajax.

            The next work in the cycle has come to be known as the Little Iliad and the poem bridged the gap between the death of Achilles and the fall of the city of Troy. In particular the Little Iliad covered the death of Paris (Alexander) at the hands of Philoctetes who had been brought back from Lemnos where he was recovering from his snakebite, the awarding of the armour of Achilles, the bringing of Neoptolemus the son of Achilles into the war, the theft of the wooden image of Pallas called the Palladium, as well as the construction by Epeius and the deployment of the Trojan horse. A substantial fragment of the poem describes how Neoptolemus captures Hector’s Andromache and kills Astyanax the son of Hector by throwing him from the walls of the city. The work of four books was likely composed in the latter half of the 7^th century BCE and was attributed to Lesches of Pyrrha as well as several other ancient writers including Homer himself. Approximately 30 lines of the original work survive as well as an ancient summary of the text attributed to a commentator named Proclus. Aristotle criticized the Little Iliad by saying that it had more plot than an epic should have.

            The next poem in The Epic Cycle was the Iliupersis, or the Sack of Ilium as it is known in English. It comprised 2 books and has been traditionally attributed to Arctinus of Miletus who likely composed it in the 8^th or 7^th century BCE. Once again the original text survives only in fragments and in a summary written by Proclus in his 5^th century CE work entitled the Chrestomathia. This commentator has provided us with summaries of most of the works in The Epic Cycle. The Iliupersis details the fall of the city of Troy including the stratagem of the Trojan horse, the actual sack of the city itself, the slaughter of King Priam, the killing of Astyanax, the sacrifice of the Princess Polyxena at the tomb of Achilles and the abduction of Cassandra by Ajax of Oileus. In Homer’s Odyssey, many of the same events were sung about by the bard who provided the dinner entertainment at the palace of King Alcinous in Phaeacia, his songs bringing Odysseus to tears. Like all the other pieces in The Epic Cycle, the Iliupersis was also composed in dactylic hexameter.

            Next in line in the cycle came the Nostoi or The Returns, which told the story of the return home of the Greek army after the Trojan War, with special emphasis on the events surrounding the returns of Agamemnon and Menelaus. The Nostoi comprised 5 books of dactylic hexameter and was attributed in ancient times to either Agias or Eumelos of Corinth, both from the 8^th century BCE, or alternatively to Homer himself by other commentators. It is thought that the text of the Nostoi was most likely finalized in the 7^th or 6^th centuries BCE and sadly only five and a half lines survive, along with the usual summary by the grammarian Eutychius Proclus. The Nostoi narrates several tales with which we are familiar from their telling in the Odyssey. These include Agamemnon delaying his return from Troy so that he can offer appeasement to Athena, the storm which hits Menelaus on his journey that drives him to Egypt, the safe return home of Nestor and Diomedes, the death of the prophet Calchas on Colophon and finally the return home and assassination of Agamemnon by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. The tale ends with the safe arrival home of Menelaus and the fact that Odysseus is the sole remaining Greek warrior hero who has yet to return from the battle at Troy.

            It is of course natural that the next work in The Epic Cycle is the Odyssey since it starts up where the Nostoi leaves off. All 24 books of the epic survive, detailing the 10 year voyage and struggles of the hero Odysseus as he makes his way from Troy back home to Ithaca and his waiting wife and son, Penelope and Telemachus. Homer’s authorship of the Odyssey was taken as true in antiquity and the work was dated to around the 8^th or 7^th centuries BCE. The Homeric Question casts significant doubt on the actual composer of the two epics attributed to Homer and whether or not such an individual actually existed. Both dual and plural authorships have been suggested by scholars and commentators and there are many arguments for and against such suggestions. The questions of composition and authorship notwithstanding, the fact remains that these two epics are the foundational works of western literature and all the other works that form part of The Epic Cycle can be viewed as simply prequels or sequels to the Iliad and the Odyssey.

            The final work in The Epic Cycle is the Telegony. The poem is sometimes attributed to Cinaethon of Sparta from the 8^th century BCE or stolen from Musaeus by Eugammon of Cyrene from the 6^th century BCE. Only 2 lines of the 2 book poem survive and we are left with relying on the ubiquitous Proclus for his summary in order to know anything about the content. The first book of the Telegony tells the story of Odysseus’ voyage to Thesprotia where he makes the sacrifices demanded by Tiresias when he visited him in the Underworld and then goes on to narrate how Odysseus weds the Thesprotian queen Callidice who bears him a son named Polypoetes. He fights a war on behalf of the Thesprotians and contends with the interference of the gods. After the death of Callidice, he makes his son Polypoetes the king of the Thesprotians and returns home to Ithaca.

            The second book of the Telegony tells the story of the boy for whom the work is named. Telegonus is the son of Circe and Odysseus and grew up in his mother’s home on the island of Aeaea. Circe tells the boy his father’s name and he sets off in search of him. For his protection, Circe arms him with a spear that has been fashioned by Hephaestus, which bears a special spear-point made from the stinger of a poisonous stingray. A storm stranded Telegonus on an unfamiliar island that, unknown to him, turns out to be Ithaca. Suffering from hunger, the boy steals some of the local cattle that he has come upon. In an attempt to defend his property, Odysseus attacks the boy and in the ensuing fight he is killed by the poison spear. Telegonus and Odysseus recognize each other as the father is dying and the son dearly laments the mistake that he has made. He takes Penelope and his half-brother Telemachus back to Aeaea where Odysseus is buried. The sorceress Circe makes them all immortal and in the end, Telegonus marries Penelope and Circe marries Telemachus.

            And so The Epic Cycle is complete. We are unsure who composed them, for there are some 20 authors listed in various sources as possible authors. In addition to the works mentioned above, there are also 4 works known as The Theban Cycle (Oedipodea, Thebaid, Epigoni, Alcmeonis) that are included in The Epic Cycle by some commentators, as well as 8 other epics that are sometimes considered as part of the cycle by others. These include Titanomachy, Heracleia, Capture of Oechalia, Naupatica, Phocais, Minyas, Danais, and Europia.

            The Epic Cycle was the embodiment in literary form of an oral tradition that had developed in the Geek Dark Age before the invention of a Greek writing system. Once that system had been invented, that oral tradition was transcribed into text. Other than for the Iliad and the Odyssey, very little of those original transcriptions of the oral works remain extant. The stories in the epic narratives were based in the main on localised hero cults. Composed in the Iron Age and later Greece, these oral literary epics reflected traditional stories and material from the Mycenaean Bronze Age culture. The Iliad and the Odyssey were at the heart of The Epic Cycle and all the other works served to act as prequels and sequels to the two main works. No doubt they all made interesting entertainment for listeners gathered around ancient campfires and in palatial banquet halls.