People naturally assumed that important events like those at Troy were caused by, or influenced by, the gods. Rituals and religious festivals helped keep alive stories of Troy that involved the gods' relations with both Greek and Trojan mortals. Though we have so little of the Epic Cycle left, we know it told many different Trojan War stories. In brief, these are the names and topics of the Cycle poems other than Homer's. |
Cypria The Judgement of Paris and other events leading up to the Trojan War, and events during the war up to the point where Zeus plans to pull Achilles out of the fighting. Aethiopis Achilles defeats the Amazon warrior Penthesileia and others, but is himself killed by Paris, backed by Apollo. Little Iliad Odysseus wins Achilles' armor, but Great Ajax goes mad and kills himself. Final events of the war end in the building of the wooden horse. Ilioupersis (Sack of Troy) The Greeks destroy Troy. Nostoi (Songs of Homecoming) Stories of the returns home to Greece of Menelaus, Agamemnon, and others. Telegony Odysseus voyages to Thesprotia and returns only to be murdered by an illegitimate son, Telegonus. |
While the Epic Cycle and Homer provide the oldest written versions of the Troy stories, there is another kind of evidence for the popularity of Troy legends: artwork. Pictures from the stories have survived on long-lasting stone, pottery and metal items. One of the oldest of these, the Mykonos Vase, dates from about 675 BCE. Elsewhere, scholars have recognized the Trojan Horse on a bronze pin, from the wheels under his hooves. We find scenes of Ajax falling on his sword and Achilles defeating the Amazon princess. In fact, events like these which we know about from the Epic Cycle were more common at first than scenes described by Homer. Later artists and writers used material from the Epic Cycle and from Homer, and continued to use oral tradition stories until the tradition finally died down by the 300s BCE. In a sense, though, the Trojan War oral tradition still lives, as long as people tell each other their own versions of what went on at Troy. |
