On the Greek side:
69-786: On the Trojan side: The Epic Cycle ( Ancient Greek : Ἐπικὸς Κύκλος , romanized : Epikòs Kýklos ) was a collection of Ancient Greek epic poems , composed in dactylic hexameter and related to the story of the Trojan War , including the Cypria , the Aethiopis , the so-called Little Iliad , the Iliupersis , the Nostoi , and the Telegony . Scholars sometimes include
138-543: A pitch accent . In Modern Greek, all vowels and consonants are short. Many vowels and diphthongs once pronounced distinctly are pronounced as /i/ ( iotacism ). Some of the stops and glides in diphthongs have become fricatives , and the pitch accent has changed to a stress accent . Many of the changes took place in the Koine Greek period. The writing system of Modern Greek, however, does not reflect all pronunciation changes. The examples below represent Attic Greek in
207-497: A faithful interpretation of Plato, and in this he did not differ from other Neoplatonists, as he considered that "nothing in Plato's corpus is unintended or there by chance", that "Plato's writings were divinely inspired" (ὁ θεῖος Πλάτων ho theios Platon —the divine Plato, inspired by the gods), that "the formal structure and the content of Platonic texts imitated those of the universe", and therefore that they spoke often of things under
276-581: A gifted student, he eventually became dissatisfied with the level of philosophical instruction available in Alexandria , and went to Athens , philosophical center of the day, in 431 to study at the Neoplatonic successor of the New Academy , where he was taught by Plutarch of Athens (not to be confused with Plutarch of Chaeronea ), Syrianus , and Asclepigenia ; he succeeded Syrianus as head of
345-477: A lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period. They have the same general outline but differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek , but its relationship to the historical dialects and
414-419: A lesser degree. Pamphylian Greek , spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence. Regarding the speech of the ancient Macedonians diverse theories have been put forward, but the epigraphic activity and the archaeological discoveries in
483-461: A longer work, Chrestomathy , written by a "Proclus." This is known from evidence provided by the later scholar Photius, mentioned above. Photius provides sufficient information about Proclus' Chrestomathy to demonstrate that the Venetus A excerpt is derived from the same work. Little is known about Proclus. He is certainly not the philosopher Proclus Diadochus . Some have thought that it might be
552-550: A prefix /e-/, called the augment . This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is added to the indicative of the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist). The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment
621-608: A separate historical stage, though its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek , and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek . There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek; Attic Greek developed into Koine. Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language , divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic , Aeolic , Arcadocypriot , and Doric , many of them with several subdivisions. Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms in literature , while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms. Homeric Greek
690-630: A standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance . This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language, which are the best-attested periods and considered most typical of Ancient Greek. From the Hellenistic period ( c. 300 BC ), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek , which is regarded as
759-463: A successful practicing lawyer. However, the experience of the practice of law made Proclus realize that he truly preferred philosophy. He returned to Alexandria, and began determinedly studying the works of Aristotle under Olympiodorus the Elder . He also began studying mathematics during this period as well with a teacher named Heron (no relation to Hero of Alexandria , who was also known as Heron). As
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#1732773363965828-499: A third yet younger set ( Amyntas , Menaechmus and his brother Dinostratus , Theudius of Magnesia , Hermotimus of Colophon and Philip of Opus ). Some of these mathematicians were influential in arranging the Elements that Euclid later published. Proclus authored a theology of Plato, which is text concerned with the divine hierarchies and their complex ramifications. A number of his Platonic commentaries are lost. In addition to
897-596: A veil, hiding the truth from the philosophically uninitiated. Proclus was however a close reader of Plato, and quite often makes very astute points about his Platonic sources. In his commentary on Plato's Timaeus Proclus explains the role the Soul as a principle has in mediating the Forms in Intellect to the body of the material world as a whole. The Soul is constructed through certain proportions, described mathematically in
966-510: A vowel or /n s r/ ; final stops were lost, as in γάλα "milk", compared with γάλακτος "of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in both the inventory and distribution of original PIE phonemes due to numerous sound changes, notably the following: The pronunciation of Ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek . Ancient Greek had long and short vowels ; many diphthongs ; double and single consonants; voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops ; and
1035-570: Is a literary form of Archaic Greek (derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic) used in the epic poems , the Iliad and the Odyssey , and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects. The origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of
1104-418: Is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with r , however, add er ). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel: Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e → ei . The irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of s between vowels, or that of the letter w , which affected
1173-568: Is also bound up in this question. As told by Proclus, the plots of the six non-Homeric epics look very much as though they are designed to integrate with Homer, with no overlaps with one another. For example, a surviving quotation shows that the Little Iliad narrated how Neoptolemus took Andromache prisoner after the fall of Troy ; however, in Proclus, the Little Iliad stops before the sack of Troy begins. Some scholars have argued that
1242-666: Is called 'East Greek'. Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian Greek had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, as exemplified in the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar who wrote in Doric with a small Aeolic admixture. Thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to
1311-448: Is considered by some linguists to have been closely related to Greek . Among Indo-European branches with living descendants, Greek is often argued to have the closest genetic ties with Armenian (see also Graeco-Armenian ) and Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ). Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and other Indo-European languages in certain ways. In phonotactics , ancient Greek words could end only in
1380-515: Is his elaboration of a level of individual ones, called henads, between the One which is before being and intelligible divinity. The henads exist "superabundantly", also beyond being, but they stand at the head of chains of causation ( seirai ) and in some manner give to these chains their particular character. He identifies them with the Greek gods, so one henad might be Apollo and be the cause of all things apollonian, while another might be Helios and be
1449-500: Is largely only possible with Plotinus, the only other Neoplatonic writer for whom a significant amount of writings survive. Proclus, like Plotinus and many of the other Neoplatonists , agreed on the three hypostases of Neoplatonism: The One ( hen ), The Intellect ( nous ) and The Soul ( psyche ), and wrote a commentary on the Enneads , of which unfortunately only fragments survive. At other times he criticizes Plotinus' views, such as
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#17327733639651518-660: Is possible because the powers of the gods (the henads ) extend through their series of causation even down to the material world. And by certain power-laden words, acts, and objects, the soul can be drawn back up the series, so to speak. Proclus himself was a devotee of many of the religions in Athens, considering that the power of the gods could be present in these various approaches. The majority of Proclus's works are commentaries on dialogues of Plato ( Alcibiades , Cratylus , Parmenides , Republic , Timaeus ). In these commentaries, he presents his own philosophical system as
1587-471: Is that the Neoplatonists of his time did not consider themselves innovators; they believed themselves to be the transmitters of the correct interpretations of Plato himself. Although the neoplatonic doctrines are much different from the doctrines in Plato's dialogues, it's often difficult to distinguish between different Neoplatonic thinkers and determine what is original to each one. For Proclus, this
1656-690: The Cypria and the Little Iliad . As a result, only one tragedy is made out of the Iliad and the Odyssey , but from the Cypria many, and from the Little Iliad more than eight… The Library attributed to Apollodorus and the 2nd century CE Latin Genealogia attributed to Hyginus also drew on them. Furthermore, there are also the Tabula iliaca inscriptions that cover the same myths. Most knowledge of
1725-504: The Cypria as originally planned dealt with more of the Trojan War than Proclus' summary suggests; conversely, others argue that it was designed to lead up to the Iliad , and that Proclus' account reflects the Cypria as originally designed. It is probable that at least some editing or "stitching" was done to edit epics together. For the last line of the Iliad , ὣς οἵ γ᾽ ἀμφίεπον τάφον Ἕκτορος ἱπποδάμοιο. In this way they performed
1794-485: The Cypria ) and the judgment of Achilles' arms ( Little Iliad ). Quintus of Smyrna 's Posthomerica is another source, which narrates the events after Hector's death up until the end of the war. The death of Agamemnon and the vengeance taken by his son Orestes (the Nostoi ) are the subjects of later Greek tragedy , especially Aeschylus 's Oresteian trilogy. The non-Homeric epics are usually regarded as later than
1863-542: The Greek Dark Age , which was based in part on localised hero cults . The traditional material from which the literary epics were drawn treats Mycenaean Bronze Age culture from the perspective of Iron Age and later Greece. In modern scholarship, the study of the historical and literary relationship between the Homeric epics and the rest of the cycle is called Neoanalysis . A longer Epic Cycle, as described by
1932-759: The Greek region of Macedonia during the last decades has brought to light documents, among which the first texts written in Macedonian , such as the Pella curse tablet , as Hatzopoulos and other scholars note. Based on the conclusions drawn by several studies and findings such as Pella curse tablet , Emilio Crespo and other scholars suggest that ancient Macedonian was a Northwest Doric dialect , which shares isoglosses with its neighboring Thessalian dialects spoken in northeastern Thessaly . Some have also suggested an Aeolic Greek classification. The Lesbian dialect
2001-531: The Iliad and Odyssey . There is no reliable evidence for this, however, and some Neoanalyst scholars operate on the premise that the Homeric epics were later than the Cyclic epics and drew on them extensively. Other Neoanalysts make the milder claim that the Homeric epics draw on legendary material which later crystallized into the Epic Cycle. The nature of the relationship between the Cyclic epics and Homer
2070-457: The Timaeus , which allow it to make Body as a divided image of its own arithmetical and geometrical ideas. In addition to his commentaries, Proclus wrote two major systematic works. The Elements of Theology (Στοιχείωσις θεολογική) consists of 211 propositions, each followed by a proof, beginning from the existence of the One (divine Unity) and ending with the descent of individual souls into
2139-501: The present , future , and imperfect are imperfective in aspect; the aorist , present perfect , pluperfect and future perfect are perfective in aspect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice. The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually, at least)
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2208-454: The prime mover . Unlike Plotinus, Proclus also did not hold that matter was evil, an idea that caused contradictions in the system of Plotinus. It is difficult to determine what, if anything, is different between the doctrines of Proclus and Syrianus: for the latter, only a commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics survives, and Proclus never criticizes his teacher in any of his preserved writings. The particular characteristic of Proclus's system
2277-404: The 2nd century CE, but knowledge of a "Trojan cycle" is apparent from at least the 4th century BCE as Aristoxenus mentions an alternative opening to the Iliad . Aristotle , in his Poetics , criticizes the Cypria and Little Iliad for the piecemeal character of their plots: But other poets compose a plot around one person, one time, and one plot with multiple parts; like the composer of
2346-1031: The 5th century BC. Ancient pronunciation cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but Greek from the period is well documented, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general nature of the sounds that the letters represent. /oː/ raised to [uː] , probably by the 4th century BC. Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages , is highly inflected. It is highly archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European forms. In ancient Greek, nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases ( nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , and vocative ), three genders ( masculine , feminine , and neuter ), and three numbers (singular, dual , and plural ). Verbs have four moods ( indicative , imperative , subjunctive , and optative ) and three voices (active, middle, and passive ), as well as three persons (first, second, and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of tenses and aspect (generally simply called "tenses"):
2415-751: The 9th-century CE scholar and clergyman Photius in codex 239 of his Bibliotheca , also included the Titanomachy (8th century BCE) and the Theban Cycle (between 750 and 500 BCE), which in turn comprised the Oedipodea , the Thebaid , the Epigoni , and the Alcmeonis ; however, it is certain that none of the cyclic epics (other than Homer's) survived to Photius' day, and it is likely that Photius
2484-459: The Academy in 437, and would in turn be succeeded on his death by Marinus of Neapolis . He lived in Athens as a vegetarian bachelor, prosperous and generous to his friends, until the end of his life, except for a one-year exile, to avoid pressure from Christian authorities. Marinus reports that he was writing seven hundred lines each day. One challenge with determining Proclus' specific doctrines
2553-688: The Alcibiades, the Cratylus, the Timaeus, and the Parmenides, he also wrote commentaries on the remainder of the dialogues in the Neoplatonic curriculum. He also wrote a commentary on the Organon , as well as prolegomena to both Plato and Aristotle. Proclus exerted a great deal of influence on Medieval philosophy , though largely indirectly, through the works of the commentator Pseudo-Dionysius
2622-495: The Archaic period of ancient Greek (see Homeric Greek for more details): Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή· ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. The beginning of Apology by Plato exemplifies Attic Greek from
2691-469: The Areopagite . This late-5th- or early-6th-century Christian Greek author wrote under the pseudonym Dionysius the Areopagite , the figure converted by St. Paul in Athens. Because of this fiction, his writings were taken to have almost apostolic authority. He is an original Christian writer, and in his works can be found a great number of Proclus's metaphysical principles. Another important source for
2760-560: The Classical period of ancient Greek. (The second line is the IPA , the third is transliterated into the Latin alphabet using a modern version of the Erasmian scheme .) Ὅτι [hóti Hóti μὲν men mèn ὑμεῖς, hyːmêːs hūmeîs, Proclus Proclus Lycius ( / ˈ p r ɒ k l ə s l aɪ ˈ s i ə s / ; 8 February 412 – 17 April 485), called Proclus
2829-509: The Cycle. For example, the Greek warrior who killed Hector's son Astyanax in the fall of Troy is Neoptolemus according to the Little Iliad ; according to the Iliou persis , it is Odysseus . How and when the eight epics of the Cycle came to be combined into a single collection and referred to as a "cycle" is a matter of ongoing debate. In the late 19th century, David Binning Monro argued that
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2898-417: The Cyclic epics comes from a broken summary of them which serves as part of the preface to the famous 10th century Iliad manuscript known as Venetus A . This preface is damaged, missing the Cypria , and has to be supplemented by other sources (the Cypria summary is preserved in several other manuscripts, each containing only the Cypria and none of the other epics). The summary is, in turn, an excerpt from
2967-450: The One, and prepare it not only to ascend to the higher levels while still in this life, but to avoid falling immediately back into a new body after death. Because the soul's attention, while inhabiting a body, is turned so far away from its origin in the intelligible world, Proclus thinks that we need to make use of bodily reminders of our spiritual origin. In this he agrees with the doctrines of theurgy put forward by Iamblichus . Theurgy
3036-713: The Successor ( ‹See Tfd› Greek : Πρόκλος ὁ Διάδοχος , Próklos ho Diádokhos ), was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher , one of the last major classical philosophers of late antiquity . He set forth one of the most elaborate and fully developed systems of Neoplatonism and, through later interpreters and translators, exerted an influence on Byzantine philosophy , Early Islamic philosophy , Scholastic philosophy , and German Idealism , especially G.W.F. Hegel , who called Proclus's Platonic Theology "the true turning point or transition from ancient to modern times, from ancient philosophy to Christianity." The primary source for
3105-550: The aorist. Following Homer 's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in poetry , especially epic poetry. The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below. Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. (A few irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) The three types of reduplication are: Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, lambanō (root lab ) has
3174-419: The augment when it was word-initial. In verbs with a preposition as a prefix, the augment is placed not at the start of the word, but between the preposition and the original verb. For example, προσ(-)βάλλω (I attack) goes to προσ έ βαλoν in the aorist. However compound verbs consisting of a prefix that is not a preposition retain the augment at the start of the word: αὐτο(-)μολῶ goes to ηὐ τομόλησα in
3243-412: The cause of all sunny things. Each henad participates in every other henad, according to its character. What appears to be multiplicity is not multiplicity at all, because any henad may rightly be considered the center of the polycentric system. According to Proclus, philosophy is the activity which can liberate the soul from a subjection to bodily passions, remind it of its origin in Soul, Intellect, and
3312-438: The center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. One standard formulation for the dialects is: West vs. non-West Greek is the strongest-marked and earliest division, with non-West in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-West
3381-615: The dialect of Sparta ), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including Corinthian ). All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects. After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed, largely based on Attic Greek , but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced most of
3450-498: The existence of evils ( De malorum subsistentia ). Proclus, the scholiast to Euclid, knew Eudemus of Rhodes ' History of Geometry well, and gave a short sketch of the early history of geometry, which appeared to be founded on the older, lost book of Eudemus. The passage has been referred to as "the Eudemian summary," and determines some approximate dates, which otherwise might have remained unknown. The influential commentary on
3519-461: The first book of Euclid 's Elements is one of the most valuable sources we have for the history of ancient mathematics, and its Platonic account of the status of mathematical objects was influential. In this work, Proclus also listed the first mathematicians associated with Plato: a mature set of mathematicians ( Leodamas of Thasos , Archytas of Taras , and Theaetetus ), a second set of younger mathematicians ( Neoclides , Eudoxus of Cnidus ), and
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#17327733639653588-673: The forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek ( c. 1400–1200 BC ), Dark Ages ( c. 1200–800 BC ), the Archaic or Epic period ( c. 800–500 BC ), and the Classical period ( c. 500–300 BC ). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers . It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been
3657-541: The funeral of Hector, tamer of horses. an alternative reading is preserved which is designed to lead directly into the Aethiopis : ὣς οἵ γ' ἀμφίεπον τάφον Ἕκτορος· ἦλθε δ' Ἀμαζών, Ἄρηος θυγάτηρ μεγαλήτορος ἀνδροφόνοιο. In this way they performed the funeral of Hector; then the Amazon Penthesileia came, daughter of great-hearted man-slaughtering Ares . ... There are contradictions between epics in
3726-561: The historical Dorians . The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians. The Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people – Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and Cypriot, far from
3795-476: The historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form. Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not later than 1120 BC, at the time of the Dorian invasions —and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to
3864-522: The influence of Proclus on the Middle Ages is Boethius 's Consolation of Philosophy , which has a number of Proclus principles and motifs. The central poem of Book III is a summary of Proclus's Commentary on the Timaeus , and Book V contains the important principle of Proclus that things are known not according to their own nature, but according to the character of the knowing subject. A summary of Proclus's Elements of Theology circulated under
3933-445: The life of Proclus is the eulogy Proclus, or On Happiness that was written for him upon his death by his successor, Marinus , Marinus' biography set out to prove that Proclus reached the peak of virtue and attained eudaimonia . There are also a few details about the time in which he lived in the similarly structured Life of Isidore written by the philosopher Damascius in the following century. According to Marinus, Proclus
4002-452: The material world. The Platonic Theology (Περὶ τῆς κατὰ Πλάτωνα θεολογίας) is a systematization of material from Platonic dialogues, showing from them the characteristics of the divine orders, the part of the universe which is closest to the One. We also have three essays, extant only in Latin translation: Ten doubts concerning providence ( De decem dubitationibus circa providentiam ); On providence and fate ( De providentia et fato ); On
4071-470: The name Liber de Causis ( Book of Causes ). This book is of uncertain origin, but circulated in the Arabic world as a work of Aristotle, and was translated into Latin as such. It had great authority because of its supposed Aristotelian origin, and it was only when Proclus's Elements were translated into Latin that Thomas Aquinas realised its true origin. Proclus's works also exercised an influence during
4140-508: The older dialects, although the Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language , which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek . By about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosed into Medieval Greek . Phrygian is an extinct Indo-European language of West and Central Anatolia , which
4209-487: The perfect stem eilēpha (not * lelēpha ) because it was originally slambanō , with perfect seslēpha , becoming eilēpha through compensatory lengthening. Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by i . A nasal stop appears after the reduplication in some verbs. The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek writing ( c. 1450 BC ) are in
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#17327733639654278-495: The same person as the lesser-known grammarian Eutychius Proclus , who lived in the 2nd century CE, but it is quite possible that he is simply an otherwise unknown figure. In antiquity, the two Homeric epics were considered the greatest works in the Cycle. For Hellenistic scholars, the Cyclic poets , the authors to whom the other poems were commonly ascribed, were νεώτεροι ( neōteroi "later poets") and κυκλικός ( kyklikos "cyclic")
4347-443: The scholastic use of the word κυκλικός did not refer to the Cycle as such, but meant "conventional", and that the Cycle was compiled in the Hellenistic period (perhaps as late as the 1st century BCE). More recent scholars have preferred to push the date slightly earlier, but accept the general thrust of the argument. Ancient Greek language Ancient Greek ( Ἑλληνῐκή , Hellēnikḗ ; [hellɛːnikɛ́ː] ) includes
4416-517: The syllabic script Linear B . Beginning in the 8th century BC, however, the Greek alphabet became standard, albeit with some variation among dialects. Early texts are written in boustrophedon style, but left-to-right became standard during the classic period. Modern editions of ancient Greek texts are usually written with accents and breathing marks , interword spacing , modern punctuation , and sometimes mixed case , but these were all introduced later. The beginning of Homer 's Iliad exemplifies
4485-501: The two Homeric epics , the Iliad and the Odyssey , among the poems of the Epic Cycle, but the term is more often used to specify the non-Homeric poems as distinct from the Homeric ones. Unlike the Iliad and the Odyssey , the cyclic epics survive only in fragments and summaries from Late Antiquity and the Byzantine period . The Epic Cycle was the distillation in literary form of an oral tradition that had developed during
4554-480: Was Aeolic. For example, fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos are in Aeolian. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including Cretan Doric ), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including Laconian ,
4623-517: Was born in 412 AD in Constantinople to a family of high social status from Lycia , and raised in Xanthus . He studied rhetoric , philosophy and mathematics in Alexandria , with the intent of pursuing a judicial position like his father. Before completing his studies, he returned to Constantinople when his rector, his principal instructor (one Leonas), had business there. Proclus became
4692-587: Was not referring to a canonical collection. Modern scholars do not normally include the Theban Cycle when referring to the Epic Cycle. Herodotus knew of the Cypria and the Epigoni when he wrote his History in the mid-5th century BCE. He rejected the Homeric authorship for the former and questioned it for the latter. The Epic Cycle was not "mentioned as a whole" (including the Theban Cycle) until
4761-473: Was synonymous with "formulaic." Then, and in much modern scholarship, there has been an equation between poetry that is later and poetry that is inferior. The tales told in the Cycle are recounted by other ancient sources, notably Virgil 's Aeneid (book 2), which recounts the sack of Troy from a Trojan perspective, and Ovid 's Metamorphoses (books 13–14), which describes the Greeks' landing at Troy (from
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