Epic catalogue

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An epic catalogue is a long, detailed list of objects, places or people that is a characteristic of epic poetry.

Examples

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aeneas</span> Trojan hero in Greco-Roman mythology

In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas was a Trojan hero, the son of the Dardanian prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite. His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas a second cousin to Priam's children. He is a minor character in Greek mythology and is mentioned in Homer's Iliad. Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is cast as an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome. Snorri Sturluson identifies him with the Norse god Vidarr of the Æsir.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cassandra</span> Mythological prophetess and princess of Troy

Cassandra or Kassandra in Greek mythology was a Trojan priestess dedicated to the god Apollo and fated by him to utter true prophecies but never to be believed. In modern usage her name is employed as a rhetorical device to indicate a person whose accurate prophecies, generally of impending disaster, are not believed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Epic poetry</span> Lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily detailing extraordinary and heroic deeds

An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laocoön</span> Trojan priest in Greek and Roman mythology

Laocoön is a figure in Greek and Roman mythology and the Epic Cycle. Laocoon was a Trojan priest. He and his two young sons were attacked by giant serpents, sent by the gods. The story of Laocoön has been the subject of numerous artists, both in ancient and in more contemporary times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virgil</span> 1st-century-BC Roman poet

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. A number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars consider his authorship of these poems to be dubious.

<i>Aeneid</i> Latin epic poem by Virgil

The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. Written by the Roman poet Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, the Aeneid comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas' wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trojan Horse</span> Wooden horse used to win the Trojan War

The Trojan Horse was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in Homer's Iliad, with the poem ending before the war is concluded, and it is only briefly mentioned in the Odyssey. But in the Aeneid by Virgil, after a fruitless 10-year siege, the Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse at the behest of Odysseus, and hid a select force of men inside, including Odysseus himself. The Greeks pretended to sail away, and the Trojans pulled the horse into their city as a victory trophy. That night, the Greek force crept out of the horse and opened the gates for the rest of the Greek army, which had sailed back under the cover of darkness. The Greeks entered and destroyed the city, ending the war.

In Greek mythology, Tyndareus was a Spartan king.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Turnus</span> Mythical character King of the Rutuli

Turnus was the legendary King of the Rutuli in Roman history, and the chief antagonist of the hero Aeneas in Virgil's Aeneid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catalogue of Ships</span> Part of Iliad, listing towns, war leaders and number of ships

The Catalogue of Ships is an epic catalogue in Book 2 of Homer's Iliad (2.494–759), which lists the contingents of the Achaean army that sailed to Troy. The catalogue gives the names of the leaders of each contingent, lists the settlements in the kingdom represented by the contingent, sometimes with a descriptive epithet that fills out a half-verse or articulates the flow of names and parentage and place, and gives the number of ships required to transport the men to Troy, offering further differentiations of weightiness. A similar, though shorter, Catalogue of the Trojans and their allies follows (2.816–877). A similar catalogue appears in the Pseudo-Apollodoran Bibliotheca.

An aristeia or aristia is a scene in the dramatic conventions of epic poetry as in the Iliad, where a hero in battle has his finest moments. Aristeia may result in the death of the hero, and therefore suggests a "battle in which he reaches his peak as a fighter and hero".

The Cypria is a lost epic poem of ancient Greek literature, which has been attributed to Stasinus and was quite well known in classical antiquity and fixed in a received text, but which subsequently was lost to view. It was part of the Epic Cycle, which told the entire history of the Trojan War in epic hexameter verse. The story of the Cypria comes chronologically at the beginning of the Epic Cycle, and is followed by that of the Iliad; the composition of the two was apparently in the reverse order. The poem comprised eleven books of verse in epic dactylic hexameters.

In Greek mythology, Thoas ,") a king of Aetolia, was the son of Andraemon and Gorge, and one of the heroes who fought for the Greeks in the Trojan War. Thoas had a son Haemon, and an unnamed daughter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trojan Battle Order</span>

The Trojan Battle Order or Trojan Catalogue is an epic catalogue in the second book of the Iliad listing the allied contingents that fought for Troy in the Trojan War. The catalogue is noted for its deficit of detail compared to the immediately preceding Catalogue of Ships, which lists the Greek contingents, and for the fact that only a few of the many Trojans mentioned in the Iliad appear there.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Messapus</span>

Messapus, a character in Virgil's Aeneid, appears in Books VII to XII of the Latin epic poem. He was a son of Neptune, a famous tamer of horses, and king of Etruria, known for being one "whom no one can fell by fire or steel".

The Aeneid has been analyzed by scholars of several different generations and schools of thought to try to determine the political commentary that Virgil had hoped to portray. The major schools of thought include the overarching idea that Virgil had written a story that parallels Roman history at the time it was written as well as messages both in support of and against the rule of Augustus Caesar. Finally, it has been argued that Virgil had a stance on geopolitics which he conveys in the actions of Aeneas and his crew.

When writing the Aeneid, Virgil drew from his studies on the Homeric epics of the Iliad to help him create a national epic poem for the Roman people. Virgil used several characteristics associated with epic poetry, more specifically Homer's epics, including the use of hexameter verse, book division, lists of genealogies and underlying themes to draw parallels between the Romans and their cultural predecessors, the Greeks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Achates (Aeneid)</span> In Greek mythology, close friend of Aeneas

In the Aeneid, Achates was a close friend of Aeneas; his name became a by-word for a very intimate companion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corynaeus</span> Name of one or more characters in Virgils Aeneid

Corynaeus is the name of one or more characters in Virgil's Aeneid (29–19 BCE). The first mention of Corynaeus in the poem is as a Trojan follower of Aeneas, who performs funerary rites for Misenus. Characters of the same name are then specified both as being killed by an archer, and later fighting in the final battle. This apparent contradiction is often explained by defining these as two separate characters.

Umbro is a valorous (fortissimus) warrior-priest of the Marruvians that appears in Book 7 of Virgil's Aeneid and his role has received significant academic coverage. Dinter reports several interpretation of his role. These include his being a part of the old Italy that needs to die, or on his death the end of a localism that is being replaced by the Trojan's founding of their new empire. He has the power to make snakes sleep but his herbs and hymns cannot save him from the Trojan's spear. Virgil's lamentation for his loss is described as being particularly beautiful and poignant by Parry : For you the grove of Angitia mourned, and Fucinus' glassy waters, And the clear lakes.

References

  1. Gaertner, Jan Felix (2001). "The Homeric Catalogues and Their Function in Epic Narrative". Hermes . 129 (3): 298–305. JSTOR   4477439.
  2. Christine Perkell, ed. (1999). Reading Vergil's Aeneid: An Interpretative Guide. Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture. Vol. 23. University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 190–194. ISBN   9780806131399.
  3. Quint, David (Spring 2007). "Milton's Book of Numbers: Book 1 of Paradise Lost and Its Catalogue". International Journal of the Classical Tradition. 13 (4): 528–549. doi:10.1007/bf02923024. JSTOR   30222176. S2CID   161875103.