An Introduction to Quintus Smyrnaeus’ Posthomerica

Abstract

At some point during the third century A.D., a poet called Quintus (Κόϊντος) wrote an epic poem in a strongly Homerising hexameter style in which he renarrated the final events of the Trojan War, beginning (without a proem) where Homer’s Iliad ends, and recounting all the post-Iliadic events up to the sack of Troy and the nostos of the surviving Greek heroes. Accordingly, the poem was called τὰ μεѳ ̓ ̔́Ομηρον (or τὰ μετὰ τὸν ̔́Ομηρον, or οἱ μεѳ ̓ ̔́Ομηρον λόγοι).1 Thus, it apparently competed with the texts of the Epic Cycle which told the same stories. However, we do not know with certainty whether these texts were still accessible or already (partially) lost in the third century A.D.2 If they were lost, Quintus’ Posthomerica may have had the primary function of fulfilling the ‘public need’ for an epic poem to bridge the gap between the Iliad and the Odyssey;3 on the other hand, even if the Epic Cycle was still in circulation at that time, Quintus could nevertheless have composed his ‘own version’. As to his biography, we know virtually nothing about our poet. The name Κόϊντος may or may not point to a Roman origin. In the first case, we might consider a possible parallel in Lucian of Samosata, who was of non-Greek provenance and whose native language was not Greek, but who was able to acquire Greek to such an extent that he wrote literature of the highest quality in this idiom. We may, however, view Quintus as one of the many Greeks who are known only by their Latin praenomen – a phenomenon which is characteristic not