Device and Composition in the Greek Epic Cycle by Benjamin Sammons (review)

The thesis of this remarkable book is that the Homeric poems and the poems of the so-called epic cycle are constructed from the same basic devices, “the same bag of tricks” (20). For readers unfamiliar with these fragmentary epics, Sammons includes English translations of summaries attributed to Proclus: Cypria, Aethiopis, Little Iliad, Ilioupersis, Nostoi, and Telegony (239–243). The devices the cyclic epics share with the Homeric poems include certain identifiable, specific narrative features, catalogues, narrative doublets, similar treatment of major and minor characters, the aristeia, and the role(s) assigned to the gods. These devices are treated in separate chapters, each of which begins with a discussion of its use in Homer.

Both Homer and the cyclic poets employ a similar narrative style, revealed, for example, in their use of short mythological narratives, often exploited for their paradigmatic or thematic value; they also make frequent use of prolepses and analepses. Like the Odyssey—but unlike the Iliad—the cyclic poems are concerned to locate their stories within a larger mythological context (29). Homer and the cyclic poets use catalogues. Some are paradigmatic catalogues like Dione’s recounting of gods wounded by mortals in Iliad 5 (66). The Homeric Catalogue of Ships shows that almost the whole of the Greek world was involved in the Trojan War; the Catalogue of Trojan Allies in the Cypria numbers the other half of the world (Asia) (96). Both Homer and the cyclic poets make use of repeated narrative doublets. Sammons ingeniously argues that the presence of such doublets in the cyclic poems may explain what at first may seem only the awkward repetition of similar recurring themes in Proclus’ summaries of the poems: an apparent overuse of prophecy, for example (101–102). Less successful, I think, is the attempt to tease out distinctions between the roles played by major and minor characters in the poems of the cycle (127–156). The four great aristeiai of the Iliad, the heroic deeds of Diomedes, Agamemnon, Patroclus, and Achilles, constitute major compositional units of the poem (159) and find analogues in the cycle (163–176). The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the poems of the cycle differ from one another regarding the roles played by the gods. “Within the Iliad,” Sammons says, “the gods are very busy indeed, but they have little to do” (207). The gods—in particular Athena—drive the Odyssey to its conclusion (181). The poems of the epic cycle show remarkable diversity in their treatment of the gods (182–207).

Sammons’ argument is convincing and groundbreaking: the Homeric epics and the cyclic poems have indeed been constructed from many of the same basic devices. How then to explain the uniqueness of the Homeric poems, if they use “the same bag of tricks” as the poems of the cycle? Sammons points to Aristotle, who noted that the Iliad is constructed around a single action, incorporating other elements as episodes (5). Many of these other elements, it seems to me, are designed to constitute a veritable history of the Trojan War, which furnishes a subplot in relation to the poem’s main plot and single action identified by Aristotle: the wrath of Achilles. As the Trojan War unfolds in the background, Homer maintains focus on the wrath of Achilles. Sammons comes close to making a similar point when he describes “the Iliad as a poem concerned with the wrath of Achilles and the Iliad as a Panhellenic epic of the Trojan War” (129 n.6). Later, however, he suggests that the Iliad does little in regard to filling out “a significant portion of the larger history of the Trojan War” (176). Both of these propositions, it seems to me, can’t be true. Regardless of how—or if—a reader might choose to characterize the genius underlying the Homeric poems, Sammons provides an indispensable picture of many of the traditional devices through which the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the...