The Epic Cycle

The Judgment of Paris by Enrique Simonet

The story of the Trojan War is told in a series of epic poems known as the Epic Cycle. Of this collection, only the Iliad and the Odyssey, both attributed to Homer, have survived. Fortunately, we're able to pick up the pieces via fragments and second-hand accounts so that the narrative of Troy (at least as far as the big picture goes) is more or less preserved. Imagine what brilliance, what great feats of action and character (which are of course what make the two Homeric epics immortal) was contained in those poems that have been lost to us forever.


The Epic Cycle is comprised of the following poems:

Cypria

Iliad

Aethiopis

Little Iliad

Iliou Persis

Nostoi

Odyssey

Telegony

You can read more about those here.


When we consider the brilliance of the two surviving epics, and compare them with the many other works that have been lost, perhaps we can begin to feel the weight of what shining lights of art were blotted out by the chaos of time. This should tell us the importance of preserving our own culture's great works of art and science, and we should never take their permanence as a given.