The Fall of Troy | Page 3

money, time, scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts,
royalty free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution you
can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association /
Benedictine University".
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

This electronic edition was edited, proofed, and prepared by Douglas B.
Killings ([email protected]
), August 1996.
The Fall of Troy
by
Quintus Smyrnaeus
("Quintus of Smyrna")
Fl. 4th Century A.D.
Originally written in Greek, sometime about the middle of the 4th
Century A.D. Translation by A.S. Way, 1913.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY:
ORIGINAL TEXT --
Way, A.S. (Ed. & Trans.): "Quintus Smyrnaeus: The Fall of Troy"
(Loeb Classics #19; Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 1913).
Greek text with side-by-side English translation.
OTHER TRANSLATIONS --
Combellack, Frederick M. (Trans.): "The War at Troy: What Homer
Didn't Tell" (University of Oklahoma Press, Norman OK, 1968).
RECOMMENDED READING --
Fitzgerald, Robert (Trans.): "Homer: The Iliad" (Viking Press, New
York, 1968).

INTRODUCTION
Homer's "Iliad" begins towards the close of the last of the ten years of
the Trojan War: its incidents extend over some fifty days only, and it
ends with the burial of Hector. The things which came before and after
were told by other bards, who between them narrated the whole "cycle"

of the events of the war, and so were called the Cyclic Poets. Of their
works none have survived; but the story of what befell between
Hector's funeral and the taking of Troy is told in detail, and well told, in
a poem about half as long as the "Iliad". Some four hundred years after
Christ there lived at Smyrna a poet of whom we know scarce

anything, save that his first name was Quintus. He had saturated
himself with the spirit of Homer, he had caught the ring of his music,
and he perhaps had before him the works of those Cyclic Poets whose
stars had paled before the sun.
We have practically no external evidence as to the date or place of birth
of Quintus of Smyrna, or for the sources whence he drew his materials.
His date is approximately settled by two passages in the poem, viz. vi.
531 sqq., in which occurs an illustration drawn from the man-and-beast
fights of the amphitheatre, which were suppressed by Theodosius I.
(379-395 A.D.); and xiii. 335 sqq., which contains a prophecy, the
special particularity of which, it is maintained by Koechly, limits its
applicability to the middle of the fourth century A.D.
His place of birth, and the precise locality, is given by himself in xii.
308-313, and confirmatory evidence is afforded by his familiarity, of
which he gives numerous instances, with many natural features of the
western part of Asia Minor.
With respect to his authorities, and the use he made of their writings,
there has been more difference of opinion. Since his narrative covers
the same ground as the "Aethiopis" ("Coming of Memnon") and the
"Iliupersis" ("Destruction of Troy") of Arctinus (circ. 776 B.C.), and
the "Little Iliad" of Lesches (circ. 700 B.C.), it has been assumed that
the work of Quintus "is little more than an amplification or remodelling
of the works of these two Cyclic Poets." This, however, must needs be
pure conjecture, as the only remains of these poets consist of fragments
amounting to no more than a very few lines from each, and of the
"summaries of contents" made by the grammarian Proclus (circ. 140
A.D.), which, again, we but get at second-hand through the
"Bibliotheca" of Photius (ninth century). Now, not merely do the only

descriptions of incident that are found in the fragments differ

essentially from the corresponding incidents as described by Quintus,
but even in the summaries, meagre as they are, we find, as German
critics have shown by exhaustive investigation, serious discrepancies
enough to justify us in the conclusion that, even if Quintus had the
works of the Cyclic poets before him, which is far from certain, his
poem was no mere remodelling of theirs, but an independent and
practically original work. Not that this conclusion disposes by any
means of all difficulties. If Quintus did not follow the Cyclic poets,
from what source did he draw his materials? The German critic
unhesitatingly answers, "from Homer." As regards language,
versification, and general spirit, the matter is beyond controversy; but
when we come to consider the incidents of the story, we find deviations
from Homer even more serious than any of those from the Cyclic poets.
And the strange thing is, that each of these deviations is a manifest
detriment to the perfection of his poem; in each of them the writer has
missed, or has rejected, a magnificent opportunity. With regard to the
slaying of Achilles by the hand of Apollo only, and not by those of
Apollo and Paris, he might have pleaded that Homer