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QUINTUS SMYRNAEUS

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Originally appearing in Volume V22, Page 762 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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QUINTUS SMYRNAEUS , See also:Greek epic poet, probably flourished in the latter See also:part of the 4th See also:century A.D. He is sometimes called Quintus Calaber, because the only MS. of his poem was discovered at See also:Otranto in See also:Calabria by See also:Cardinal See also:Bessarion in 140. According to his own See also:account (xii. 310), he tried his See also:hand at See also:poetry in his See also:early youth, while tending See also:sheep at See also:Smyrna. His epic in fourteen books, known as Ta peO' "Ojn Pov or Posthomerica, takes up the See also:tale of See also:Troy at the point where See also:Homer's Iliad breaks off (the See also:death of See also:Hector), and carries it down to the See also:capture of the See also:city by the Greeks. The first five books, which See also:cover the same ground as the Aethiopis of See also:Arctinus of See also:Miletus, describe the doughty deeds and deaths of Penthesileia the See also:Amazon, of See also:Memnon, son of the See also:Morning, and of See also:Achilles; the funeral See also:games in See also:honour of Achilles, the contest for the arms of Achilles and the death of See also:Ajax. The remaining books relate the exploits of See also:Neoptolemus, Eurypylus and Deiphobus, the deaths of See also:Paris and See also:Oenone, the capture of Troy by means of the wooden See also:horse, the See also:sacrifice of See also:Polyxena at the See also:grave of Achilles, the departure of the Greeks, and their dispersal by the See also:storm. The poet has no originality; in conception and See also:style his See also:work is closely modelled on Homer. His materials are borrowed from the cyclic poems from which See also:Virgil (with whose See also:works he was probably acquainted) also See also:drew, in particular the Aethiopis of Arctinus and the Little Iliad of See also:Lesches. Editio princeps by Aldus See also:Manutius (15o4); Kochly (ed. See also:major with elaborate prolegomena, 185o; ed. See also:minor, 1853); Z. See also:Zimmermann (author of other valuable articles on the poet), (1891); see also Kehinptzov, De Quinti Smyrnaei Fontibus ac Mythopoiia (1889); C. A.

Sainte-Beuve, Etude sur . . . Quinte de Smyrne (1857) ; F. A. See also:

Paley, Quintus Smyrnaeus and the " Homer " of the tragic Poets (1879) ; G. W. See also:Paschal, A Study of Quintus Smyrnaeus (See also:Chicago, 1904).

End of Article: QUINTUS SMYRNAEUS

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