ABSTRACT
What happened after the Iliad finished? The events were recounted in a series of oral epics (termed the Epic Cycle and dated to the eighth, seventh, and sixth centuries). They survive only in an outline provided by the ninth century Byzantine grammarian, Photius (Davies 1989 provides a discussion of the Cycle). In fact the Cycle seems to have told also what happened before the Iliad. There was one poem, called the Cypria, which narrated why the gods caused the Trojan war. Much of the remainder of the cycle recounts events following the burial of Hector. We have already mentioned the Aethiopis: it told how the bare-breasted Amazon women came to help the Trojans and of Achilles’ death. Next is the Little Iliad (outlining events from the death of Achilles to the fall of Troy) and the Sack of Troy (covering much of the same ground: the building of the wooden horse, the sack of Troy, and the departure of the Greek forces). How heroes such as Odysseus, Menelaus, and Ajax returned home after the war is told in the Nostoi (Returns). The Odyssey comes in here. It retells the ‘return’ of Odysseus.
