Small Iliade

Small Iliade (in Greek old Ἰλιὰς μικρά / Iliàs mikrá , in Latin Ilias parva ) is a lost epopee ancient Greece. The tradition allots it to Leschès de Pyrrha, but the Old ones also quoted an author lacédémonien named Cinéthon, or even Homère…

It belonged to the Trojan Cycle, a whole of works which recalled the history of the Trojan War. Small Iliade followed chronologically Éthiopide and preceded the Bag by Troy .

Dating

Small Iliade was probably made up in second half of seventh century BC, but this date remains dubious. The Old ones made of Leschès an author of the 7th century, however they always tended “to exaggerate” the seniority of the men of the antiquated Period (sometimes of several centuries).

Composition

The poem is divided into four books written in hexameters dactylic.

Small Iliade is one of the cyclic epopees the best known ones: nearly thirty lines of the original text survived. According to Aristote ( Poetic , 23), she told the events ranging between the death of Achille and the fall of Troy. Proclos, in its Chrestomathie , made stop the account with the introduction of the Trojan horse into the city. However, of many quotations of Pausanias (X, 25-27) on the last of the four parts of the epopee, which it entitles the Bag of Troy ( Ἰλίου Πέρσις / Ilíou Pérsis , as the episode cyclic which follows), as well as a substantial fragment of the poem which describes how Néoptolème made captive Andromaque, the woman of Hector, and keep silent his/her son Astyanax by throwing it the top of the ramparts of Troy, lets think that the catch of the city (partly) was also reported.

Contents of the poem

The poem begins on the judgment from the weapons from Achille, which must reward largest for the Greek hero: Ulysses and Ajax large the, which has both protected the body from Achilles to the combat, disputes them. The weapons are finally allotted to Ulysses and Ajax is taken of a crisis of insanity; thereafter, he prefers to commit suicide to avoid dishonor.

Ulysses captures the Trojan soothsayer Hélénos, which reveals the requirements with the catch of Troy by the Greeks. In order to satisfy the oracle, Ulysses and Diomède go to Lemnos to bring back of it Philoctète, which takes then share with the combat and keep silent Pâris; Helene Marie then with Déiphobe. Ulysses brings back also the son of Achilles, Néoptolème, in Troy: he gives him the armor of his father, and the phantom of Achilles appears to him. At the time of a combat, Néoptolème keep silent Eurypyle, Trojan ally which dominated the battle field. Ulysses also penetrates in Troy disguised while begging: Helene recognizes it but guard the secrecy; it conceals the Palladium and returns in the Greek camp, killing several Troyens.

On the initiative of the goddess Athéna, the Greek Épéios builds a hollow wooden horse, in which the Greeks put their best combatants and that they give up in front of Troy, burning their camp and embarking for the island close to Ténédos. Troyens, believer whom the Greeks left for good, bore a breach in the ramparts of the city, make return the horse inside and celebrate their apparent victory.

The account is completed here to continue in the Bag of Troy if one follows the summary of Proclos.

See too

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Small Iliade

Dating

Composition

Contents of the poem

See too

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