These traditions form, as it were, the prelude to the Cypria’s episode. Its sequel is the idea that Achilles and Helen were united after death on the island of Leuce (cf. Hommel, Gott Achilleus, 27–30 and Davies, Aethiopis, 76–77). Wilamowitz once wrote (BKT 5.1:39) that “die anmutigen Erfindungen, dass der Held einmal die schöne Frau zu Gesicht bekommt (oder auch geniessen durf) für die er sterben soll, oder dass er mit ihr im Jenseits vereint wird, sind älter und gehören in eine höhere Region der Poesie.” The second part of this statement may be true, but the first is not confirmed by an inspection of Thompson’s Motif-Index. In spite of the obvious connections mentioned above, the Cypria’s picture of the union between Helen and Achilles seems to me not early and primitive but a late inspiration derived from the Leuce tradition mentioned above, a romantic elaboration of the sort that Griffin has taught us (1977:44–45 = 376) to expect from the Cypria but not to expect in the Iliad.

As Severyns observes (1928:304), the position of this episode after the failure of the Grecian embassy to Troy may have been intended to maintain (or recreate) interest in the beautiful Helen. Also (West 2013:119; see page 10 above) Achilles, not having been a suitor of Helen, has never hitherto set eyes on her.

Equally unHomeric is the sequel whereby Achilles restrains the Greek army. Unless we recognize with Griffin the romantic nature of what comes immediately before it in the summary provided by Proclus, we find the detail as inexplicable as did Bethe (1929:243). But this accepted, the juxtaposition of the two events becomes, as Severyns as cited saw, very suggestive. In Iliad II, Odysseus’ suppression of the Greek mutiny raises issues of leadership and government: how is the mass of soldiers before Troy to be kept disciplined and orderly? οὐκ ἀγαθὸν πολυκοιρανίη· εἷς κοίρανος ἔστω. In contrast to the maturity and complexity of that famous episode, the Cypria gives Achilles a purely selfish, personal, and romantic motivation: he has met Helen and the army must therefore stay. Nevertheless, Achilles’ seizing of the key role in this episode prepares us for his apparent domination of the rest of the epic as summarized by Proclus (West 2013:118).

J. Ebert, “Die Gestalt der Thersites in der Ilias,” Philologus 113 (1969): 170–174 (= Agonismata [Stuttgart and Leipzig 1997] 19–21) takes this argument one stage further by creating a role for Thersites in the corresponding scene of the Cypria. Kullmann had supposed that this character and his function derived from the Aethiopis and that Homer combined elements from this source with elements derived from the new context, and Ebert would derive Thersites’ intervention too from the Cypria. See contra the cautious remarks of Andersen, “Thersites und Thoas vor Troia,” Symbolae Osoenses 57 (1982): 25–26 and 34. These speculations at any rate lead us directly to the next section.

F19 Scholion on Lycophron’s Alexandra

Σ Lycophron 570 (2.197 sq. Scheer)

There seems to be considerable confusion in the collective scholarly mind as to precisely which of the available traditions concerning the daughters of Anius actually appeared in the Cypria. For a recent survey of the evidence see T. Marin, “Le Enotrope, Palamede, e la sosta dei Greci a Delos nei Cypria,” Lexis 27 (2009): 365–380, who handily summarizes previous hypotheses. See also R. Fowler, Early Greek Mythography, vol. 2: Commentary (Oxford 2013) 531–532 (who rightly says that “the tale of Anius and his … daughters … has a folktale ring”) and Hornblower’s commentary on Lycophron, general index s.v. “Anius.” Any attempt to clarify the issue must of necessity start from the evidence of the scholion upon Lycophron which is our fragment’s source. Even here there is generous scope for ambiguity, since (to quote Jacoby’s note on the fragment of Pherecydes likewise enshrined in Tzetzes’ comment) “ob auch die genealogie … Ph. gehört und ober nach den Kyprien erzählte bleibt zweifelhaft” (2.425).

According to Tzetzes, then, the Greek expedition arrived at Delos en route for Troy; was prophetically warned by the island’s King Anius that Troy would not fall for ten years; and was invited by him to stay on for the first nine enjoying the provisions of his bountiful daughters. A double proclamation of Troy’s capture in the tenth year, provided both by Anius on Delos and Calchas at Aulis, would be perfectly feasible for the Cypria, as Wagner (1891:185–186) observed, also inferring for our poem a visit on the same occasion to King Cinyras (cf. Apollodorus Epitome 3.9). Indeed, it is positively appropriate for this prophecy-ridden poem (see Kullmann 1960:221–223). Diodorus Siculus V 62.2 informs us that Anius owed his mantic abilities to his father Apollo.

When did the Greeks visit Delos? Immisch (“Ad Cypria Carmen,” 302–303) strongly argued that it formed part of the unsuccessful first expedition which ended in the Teuthranian debacle (similarly Marin, “Enotrope, Palamede”). But his more specific attempt to connect the event with the quarrel between Achilles and Odysseus catalogued in Odyssey viii 72–82 is implausible (see pages 159–161 above).

The girls have significant names, eponymous of the commodities they produce: Oeno (Wine-girl), Spermo (Seed-girl), and Elais (Oil-girl). One is reminded of the symbolic names of the three daughters of Agamemnon at Iliad IX 145 = 287 (see page 148 above) and in general on this type of word-play in early epic L. P. Rank, Etymologiseering en verwante verschijnselen bij Homerus (Assen 1951). Anius their father also has a significant name (on the principle involved in his mother’s naming him διὰ τὸ ἀνιαθῆναι αὐτήν, see page 140 above) as does his mother Rhoeo (named from the pomegranate [ῥοίη]) and his grandfather Staphylus (named, appropriately for a son of Dionysus, from σταφυλή, a grape-cluster): compare such cult-titles and epithets of Dionysus himself as ἐριστάφυλος, εὐστλαφυλος, and πολυστάφυλος and see Farnell, Cults of the Greek States 5.118 for further instances.

The picture of a pregnant mother set adrift at sea by her angry father finds an interesting parallel in a similar story concerning Dionysus himself which we meet in Pausanias III 24.3–4. According to this, Cadmus learns that his daughter Semele has given birth and sets her and the child adrift in a chest which is finally washed up at Brasiae in Laconia. The inhabitants find Semele dead, bury her with due honor, and bring up Dionysus themselves, with the help, according to a further local tradition, of Ino, who wishes to be Dionysus’ nurse. This tale restores the motif of casting mother and son adrift together in a casket, which is a common feature of folktale: see Davies, TE, 9. So is the motif of giving birth near a cave, especially as a sequel to intercourse with a god: see Davies and Finglass on Stesichorus fr. 11.

Anius is priest of his father, Apollo, and enjoys benefits (via his daughters) from his great-grandfather Dionysus. We might perhaps compare Maron in Odyssey ix 197–198, who comes from Thrace and grows vines but is the priest of Apollo (cf. Dodds, Euripides Bacchae xii n2).

F20 Pausanias

Pausanias X 31.1 sq. (3.162 Rocha-Pereira) de Polygnoti Necyia

Secondly, death by drowning is for Homer a λευγάλεος θάνατος (Iliad XXI 281, Odyssey v 312) reserved only as a special punishment for an impious boaster like the Locrian Ajax (Odyssey iv 499–522). “But most unHomeric of all is the treacherous murder of an ally for selfish reasons. … Treachery and revenge on one’s friends are alike excluded by the noble ethos of the Iliad” (Griffin 1977:46 = 379), so that we hear nothing from Homer of Palamedes’ fate, of his father Nauplius’ reprisals therefor, or of Telamonian Ajax’s nocturnal attack on the Atreidae. See Kullmann 1960:166n1 for those scholars who suppose Palamedes’ absence from Homer’s epics to be due to the poet’s reworking and improving of Odysseus’ character. The absence may also relate to Palamedes’ role as culture hero or primus inventor: see my remarks in “Homer and the Fable: Odyssey xxi 293–306,” Prometheus 27 (2001): 207–208.

F21 Scholion on Iliad XVI

Σ Τ I liad XVI 57 (4.172 Erbse)

Several passages in the Iliad (collected by Page, History and the Homeric Iliad [Berkeley 1959] 170n67) presuppose a series of events in which Achilles chases Aeneas down from Mount Ida, carries off the cattle he was guarding, and then sacks Lyrnessus and Pedasus (on the likely identity and whereabouts of which cities see Page, 143–144). It was from the former of these cities that Achilles, as represented by Homer, took Briseis captive. Note in particular Iliad II 688–670: κεῖτο γὰρ ἐν νήεσσι ποδάρκης δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς, | κούρης χωόμενος Βρισηΐδος ἠϋκόμοιο, | τὴν ἐκ Λυρνησσοῦ [ἐν Λυρνησσῶι Zenodotus ap. Σ Α ad loc. (1.325 Erbse)] ἐξείλετο πολλὰ μογήσας, | Λυρνησσὸν διαπορθήσας καὶ τείχεα Θήβης) and XVI 56–57, where Achilles refers to κουρήν, ἣν ἄρα μοι γέρας ἔξελον υἷες Ἀχαιῶν | δουρὶ δ᾽ ἐμῶι κτεάτισσα, πόλιν εὐτείχεα πέρσας. But according to our fragment, the city was Pedasus. The phrasing of Proclus’ summary seems deliberately to sidestep this discrepancy between Iliad and Cypria, by failing to make it clear that Briseis and Chryseis were from the states just mentioned. This would be consistent with the revised function of the summary as an introduction to the Iliad with all the original contradictions smoothed away.

Some scholars have sought to deny the discrepancy. But Kullmann (1960:207) is surely right to dismiss as perverse an interpretation of our fragment which concentrates on the participle πέρσας: the scholion is not merely stating that in the Cypria Achilles did not sack Lyrnessus, and Proclus’ summary has not ironed out the contradiction presupposed by this approach. Equally perverse, I fear, is Uvo Hölscher’s notion, advanced in his review of Kullmann (Gnomon 38 [1966]: 121–122), that the continuation in Σ Τ (σημειωτέον δὲ τοῦτο, κτλ.) cures all: the divergence between Cypria and Iliad, on this interpretation, relates to the use of εὐτείχης discussed in the continuation, and the Cypria is mentioned because it wrongly applied that epithet to Pedasus rather than (in the Homeric manner) to Lyrnessus. But this section of the scholion is clearly marked off by the particle δέ as a second and separate point. Hölscher’s attempt to evade the contradiction will not do.

Apollodorus Epitome 3.12: Ἀχιλλεὺς ἐνεδρεύσας Tρωΐλον ἐν τῶι τοῦ Θυμβραίου Ἀπόλλωνος ἱερῶι φονεύει (Achilles lies in wait and kills Troilus at the temple of Thymbrean Apollo).

A narrative of considerable significance lies behind these starveling summaries. On the evidence of art and literature see G. Danek, “Troilos und Lykaon: Ein Beitrag zur Intertextualität Homers,” in Geistes-, sozial- und kulturwissenschaftlicher Anzeiger 5 (2016): 20–34, with useful bibliography. For the evidence of art see further LIMC s.v. “Troilus” VII 1, pp. 959–960 and note M. Robertson, “Ibycus, Polycrates, Troilus, Polyxena,” Bulletin of the Institite of Classical Studies 17 (1970): 11–15. According to Σ Iliad XXIV 257 b (5.567 Erbse), οἱ νεώτεροι related the story of Troilus fleeing on horse only to be caught up with by Achilles on foot. Severyns (1928:306–307) took this for a reference to the Cypria’s version, so that we can infer another instance of our poem’s use of unHomeric features, that hero’s supernatural fleetness of foot (cf. Griffin 1977:40 = 368) as well as the mean ambushing of a helpless victim. For the possibility that Achilles’ killing of Troilus at Apollo’s temple lies behind that god’s antipathy to Achilles in the Iliad, though the explicit motivation is omitted, perhaps like the Judgment of Paris (pages 71–72 above), see my article “The Judgment of Paris and Iliad Book XXIV,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 101 (1981): 60. On the other hand, there is a tradition (Plautus Bacchides 959–960; Servius on Vergil Aeneid II 13 (2.317 ed. Harvard); cf. M. Robertson, “Laomedon’s Corpse, Laomedon’s Tomb,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 11 [1970]: 23–26) that Troy’s survival depended on three talismans: the preservation of the palladium; the inviolability of Laomedon’s tomb; and the life of Troilus. The first of these folktale features played its part in the Epic Cycle (Little Iliad fr. 9) and, if the Cypria made use of the last, Achilles’act perhaps becomes less reprehensible. However, this tradition is, as Danek stresses (p. 29), only attested in late authors (Servius is merely quoting Plautus). See further the commentary on F27 below.

F22 Eustathius

Eustathius Il. 119.4 (1.184 Van der Valk)

Cf. Apollodorus Epitome 3.33: αἱρεῖ δὲ [scil. Ἀχιλλεύς] καὶ Θήβας Ὑποπλακίας.

On this fragment see in particular Van der Valk 1963:96–97. He and, for instance, Severyns (1928:305–309) point out the correspondence between the version here attributed to the Cypria (ἡ Χρυσηὶς ἐλήφθη … ἐπὶ θυσίαν Ἀρτέμιδος ἐλθοῦσα) and the account contained in Σ bT Iliad I 365 (1.109 Erbse) whereby Athena forbids Achilles to capture the city of Chryse, εἰς Θήβας δὲ ἥκουσα ἡ Χρυσηὶς πρὸς Ἰφινόην τὴν Ἠετίωνος ἀδελφὴν, Ἄκτορος δὲ θυγατέρα, θύουσαν Ἀρτέμιδι, ἥλω ὑπὸ Ἀχιλλεύς. Σ bΤ in general draws upon excellent mythographic sources (cf. Van der Valk 1963:97n51), including the cyclic epics, and it may be that the Cypria supplied this particular detail.

As for the other two explanations of Chryseis’ presence in the relevant city, Van der Valk may be right to suggest that they were actually “invented by the critic who compiled” this particular note. He points out (1963:97) that such a rejection of a version attested by an early author in favor of an explanation purely personal to the annotator himself can be paralleled in the practice of Porphyrius. On the relationship between the Cypria’s and the Iliad’s references to Chryseis see Kullmann 1960:287–288 (esp. 288n1). He rejects A. Heubeck’s suggestion (Der Odyssee-Dichter und die Ilias [Erlangen 1954] 99) that “Die Kyprien … suchen im Anschluss an [Iliad I 366] das Dilemma zu erklären, wieso Chryseis nicht im ihrer Heimat Chryse, sondern in Thebe erbeutet wurde.” Those of us who do not share Kullmann’s constant wish to prove the Iliad’s dependence upon the Cypria may be more ready to accept the pleasingly simple solution offered by Heubeck’s approach. We have here an early example of the motif of the vulnerability of young girls attending festivals.

F23 Pausanias

This is clearly preparation for Lycaon’s future reappearance in the Iliad. Note, however, that there are two slightly divergent accounts in that epic: in XXI 71–79 he tells Achilles “you captured me and sold me to Lemnos”; at XXIII 744–749 the poet mentions a silver mixing bowl given to Patroclus as ransom for Lycaon. See Ø. Andersen, “The Making of the Past in the Iliad,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 93 (1990): 36–37, concluding that “the more broadly attested version [i.e. Iliad XXI’s] is the more likely” version, with XXIII’s adapted to suit its context’s stress on Patroclus. Note also his warning (37) against attempts such as Kullmann’s (1960:293–297) to construct a consistent version by way of “the present passage of Proclus’ summary, and thereby establish a version with Patroclus acting as Achilles’ agent” and receiving the bowl on his behalf. On Lycaon’s parallels with Troilus as a son of Priam who falls victim to Achilles see G. Danek, “Troilus und Lykaon: Ein Beitrag zur Intertextualität Homers,” in Geistes-, sozial- und kulturwissenschaftlicher Anzeiger 5 (2016): 34–40.

This is the most obviously abject example of preparation for the Iliad’s plot.

On the death of Palamedes, which comes next in Proclus’ summary, see pages 178–180 above. I have transposed it there in order to achieve proximity to the tale of the Oinotropoi, with which some scholars have associated it.

The relationship of the Διὸς βουλή at the end of the Cypria to the Διὸς βουλή (a) at the start of the same poem; (b) at the start of the Iliad, is extremely problematical: see in particular Kullmann, “Ein vorhomerisches Motiv im Iliasproömium,” Philologus 99 (1955): 167–192= Homerische Motive 11–35 and 1960:210–211, who usefully surveys the available solutions, even if his selection of what seems the most plausible may not convince everyone. Note also the more recent contribution of J. Marks, “The Junction between the Cypria and the Iliad,” Phoenix 56 (2002): 2.

Welcker (2.149) noted the different aims of the Διὸς βουλή at the end of the Cypria and the start of the Iliad: in the first, Zeus wishes to help the Trojans and therefore has Achilles revolt; in the second, Zeus wishes to honor Achilles and therefore supports the Trojans. Besides, Welcker complained, how could Zeus have a plan for Achilles and the Trojans at the end of the Cypria, before Achilles has been insulted and Thetis has supplicated Zeus? Kullmann (1960:210) agrees with this stance. But the likeliest interpretation of the Διὸς βουλή in Cypria F1.7 sees it as a recasting in a tendentious manner of the Διὸς βουλή of Iliad I 5, and a similar process may have been at work at the end of the Cypria. Kullmann’s reluctance to consider the Cypria as the later of the two epics has a deleterious effect on his understanding of the relationship between the two initial passages of the relevant poems (see pages 4–6 above). In the present place too, I feel, he is led to a perverse preference for the third of the possibilities outlined above: the unknown tradition, independent of the Iliad, is that employed by the Aethiopis. In this, as restored by Welcker, Achilles will have retired from battle in pique over the στάσις engendered by Thersites’ death, and will have returned only when stung to action by the killing of Antilochus. Is this not fully consistent with the Cypria’s Διὸς βουλή ὅπως ἐπικουφίσηι τοὺς Τρῶας Ἀχιλλέα τῆς συμμαχίας τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς ἀποστήσας?

It may well be. But since the reconstruction of the Aethiopis just outlined is utterly speculative and totally without evidence to support it, only those who share Kullmann’s morbid fear of a post-Iliadic Cypria will prefer (iii) to (i) or (ii). And (i), as we have seen above, is a perfectly feasible hypothesis, not devoid of parallels. Still, we lack the evidence definitively to choose between it and (ii).

The issue of how early epics closed is anyway a fraught one, even when the epics in question are extant. Thus R. Renehan, “The Early Greek Poets: Some Interpretations,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 87 (1983): 14 writes, with particular reference to the variant ending of the Iliad which anticipates the arrival of Penthesileia (see Davies, Aethiopis, 90), “It is well known that the epic poets and rhapsodes could conclude one poem with one or more verses that lead directly into a new theme in a way which implies a new topic to come.” See in general S. West, “Terminal Problems,” in Hesperos (M. L. West Festschrift [Oxford 2007]) 3–21, esp. 4–7 on Homer. Cf. page 188n18 below.

As for the relationship between the Cypria’s catalogue and that in Iliad II 816ff., those numerous scholars who allege that one must be spurious are likely to be right. But we need not therefore join the ranks of Bethe (see page 187 above) and others in assaulting the former’s authenticity and with it the testimony of Proclus. On the contrary, Jacoby seems to me to have decisively established the alternate view “dass der Kypriendichter den troischen Katalog in der Ilias nicht vorfand.” Granted that the Cypria so often draws upon the Iliad for its motifs (see pages 6–7 above) and took care (see pages 131–133 above) not to repeat its model’s Greek catalogue, then Proclus’ mention of the Cypria’s κατάλογος would appear to be evidence that the Iliad contained no such item. And let us remind those who scent a circularity in the argument that there is a variety of evidence pointing independently to the status of Iliad II 816–884 as a late interpolation.