It has been assumed in the foregoing pages that the poems of the Trojan Cycle are later than the Homeric poems; but, as the opposite view has been held, the reasons for this assumption must now be given. (1) Tradition puts Homer and the Homeric poems proper back in the ages before chronological history began, and at the same time assigns the purely Cyclic poems to definite authors who are dated from the first Olympiad (776 B.C.) downwards. This tradition cannot be purely arbitrary. (2) The Cyclic poets (as we can see from the abstract of Proclus) were careful not to trespass upon ground already occupied by Homer. Thus, when we find that in the _Returns_ all the prominent Greek heroes except Odysseus are accounted for, we are forced to believe that the author of this poem knew the _Odyssey_ and judged it unnecessary to deal in full with that hero’s adventures. 1112 In a word, the Cyclic poems are “written round” the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_. (3) The general structure of these epics is clearly imitative. As M.M. Croiset remark, the abusive Thersites in the _Aethiopis_ is clearly copied from the Thersites of the _Iliad_; in the same poem Antilochus, slain by Memnon and avenged by Achilles, is obviously modelled on Patroclus. (4) The geographical knowledge of a poem like 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_ 1113 as analysed by Proclus was very similar to Vergil’s version in _Aeneid_ ii, comprising the episodes of the wooden horse, of Laocoon, of Sinon, the return of the Achaeans from Tenedos, the actual Sack of Troy, the division of spoils and the burning of the city.
Lesches or Lescheos (as Pausanias calls him) of Pyrrha or Mitylene is dated at about 660 B.C. In his _Little Iliad_ he undertook to elaborate the _Sack_ as related by Arctinus. His work included the adjudgment of the arms of Achilles to Odysseus, the madness of Aias, the bringing of Philoctetes from Lemnos and his cure, the coming to the war of Neoptolemus who slays Eurypylus, son of Telephus, the making of the wooden horse, the spying of Odysseus and his theft, along with Diomedes, of the Palladium: the analysis concludes with the admission of the wooden horse into Troy by the Trojans. It is known, however (Aristotle, _Poetics_, xxiii; Pausanias, x, 25-27), that the _Little Iliad_ also contained a description of the _Sack of Troy_. It is probable that this and other superfluous incidents disappeared after the Alexandrian arrangement of the poems in the Cycle, either as the result of some later recension, or merely through disuse. Or Proclus may have thought it unnecessary to give the accounts by Lesches and Arctinus of the same incident.
The _Cyprian Lays_, ascribed to Stasinus of Cyprus 1114 (but also to Hegesinus of Salamis) was designed to do for the events preceding the action of the _Iliad_ what Arctinus had done for the later phases of the Trojan War. The _Cypria_ begins with the first causes of the war, the purpose of Zeus to relieve the overburdened earth, the apple of discord, the rape of Helen. Then follow the incidents connected with the gathering of the Achaeans and their ultimate landing in Troy; and the story of the war is detailed up to the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon with which the _Iliad_ begins.
These four poems rounded off the story of the _Iliad_, and it only remained to connect this enlarged version with the _Odyssey_. This was done by means of the _Returns_, a poem in five books ascribed to Agias or Hegias of Troezen, which begins where the _Sack of Troy_ ends. It told of the dispute between Agamemnon and Menelaus, the departure from Troy of Menelaus, the fortunes of the lesser heroes, the return and tragic death of Agamemnon, and the vengeance of Orestes on Aegisthus. The story ends with the return home of Menelaus, which brings the general narrative up to the beginning of the _Odyssey_.
But the _Odyssey_ itself left much untold: what, for example, happened in Ithaca after the slaying of the suitors, and what was the ultimate fate of Odysseus? The answer to these questions was supplied by the _Telegony_, a poem in two books by Eugammon of Cyrene (_fl_. 568 B.C.). It told of the adventures of Odysseus in Thesprotis after the killing of the Suitors, of his return to Ithaca, and his death at the hands of Telegonus, his son by Circe. The epic ended by disposing of the surviving personages in a double marriage, Telemachus wedding Circe, and Telegonus Penelope.
The end of the Cycle marks also the end of the Heroic Age.
The Homeric Hymns
The collection of thirty-three Hymns, ascribed to Homer, is the last considerable work of the Epic School, and seems, on the whole, to be later than the Cyclic poems. It cannot be definitely assigned either to the Ionian or Continental schools, for while the romantic element is very strong, there is a distinct genealogical interest; and in matters of diction and style the influences of both Hesiod and Homer are well-marked. The date of the formation of the collection as such is unknown. Diodorus Siculus (_temp_. Augustus) is the first to mention such a body of poetry, and it is likely enough that this is, at least substantially, the one which has come down to us. Thucydides quotes the Delian _Hymn to Apollo_, and it is possible that the Homeric corpus of his day also contained other of the more important hymns. Conceivably the collection was arranged in the Alexandrine period.
Thucydides, in quoting the _Hymn to Apollo_, calls it PROOIMION, which ordinarily means a “prelude” chanted by a rhapsode before recitation of a lay from Homer, and such hymns as Nos. vi, xxxi, xxxii, are clearly preludes in the strict sense; in No. xxxi, for example, after celebrating Helios, the poet declares he will next sing of the “race of mortal men, the demi-gods”. But it may fairly be doubted whether such Hymns as those to _Demeter_ (ii), _Apollo_ (iii), _Hermes_ (iv), _Aphrodite_ (v), can have been real preludes, in spite of the closing formula “and now I will pass on to another hymn”. The view taken by Allen and Sikes, amongst other scholars, is doubtless right, that these longer hymns are only technically preludes and show to what disproportionate lengths a simple literacy form can be developed.
The Hymns to _Pan_ (xix), to _Dionysus_ (xxvi), to _Hestia and Hermes_ (xxix), seem to have been designed for use at definite religious festivals, apart from recitations. With the exception perhaps of the _Hymn to Ares_ (viii), no item in the collection can be regarded as either devotional or liturgical.
The Hymn is doubtless a very ancient form; but if no example of extreme antiquity survive this must be put down to the fact that until the age of literary consciousness, such things are not preserved.
First, apparently, in the collection stood the _Hymn to Dionysus_, of which only two fragments now survive. While it appears to have been a hymn of the longer type 1115, we have no evidence to show either its scope or date.
The _Hymn to Demeter_, extant only in the MS. discovered by Matthiae at Moscow, describes the seizure of Persephone by Hades, the grief of Demeter, her stay at Eleusis, and her vengeance on gods and men by causing famine. In the end Zeus is forced to bring Persephone back from the lower world; but the goddess, by the contriving of Hades, still remains partly a deity of the lower world. In memory of her sorrows Demeter establishes the Eleusinian mysteries (which, however, were purely agrarian in origin).
This hymn, as a literary work, is one of the finest in the collection. It is surely Attic or Eleusinian in origin. Can we in any way fix its date? Firstly, it is certainly not later than the beginning of the sixth century, for it makes no mention of Iacchus, and the Dionysiac element was introduced at Eleusis at about that period. Further, the insignificance of Triptolemus and Eumolpus point to considerable antiquity, and the digamma is still active. All these considerations point to the seventh century as the probable date of the hymn.