ABSTRACT
For Greece and Rome this is the simplest explanation: it is a long narrative written in hexameters (or a comparable vernacular measure) which concentrates either on the fortunes of a great hero or perhaps a great civilization and the interactions of this hero and his civilization with the gods (Merchant 1971: vii). A little more thought suggests a contrast between the type of epic which was passed from generation to generation by word of mouth (‘oral’ or ‘primary’ epic such as Homer’s Odyssey) and the epic which was composed with a pen (‘secondary’ or ‘written’ or ‘literate’ epic such as Virgil’s Aeneid). But such distinctions are very crude. Lucan (AD 39-65) wrote an epic poem entitled The Civil War. It is long, it is narrative, and it is in hexameters, but it has no hero, no gods, and its regard for ‘civilization’ is scant. Hesiod (c. 700 BC) may have written an epic poem entitled The Shield of Herades. It certainly has a hero, gods, and a narrative, and it is, in its way, about civilization. Yet it is extremely short.
