The Epic Cycle and the Uniqueness of Homer

The Homeric poems are the subject of a flood of print that a definite justification is needed by one who adds to it. Aristotle pointed out that Homer puts many things into the mouths of his characters, when he himself does not wish to vouch for their truth, most notably in the stories told by Odysseus in the Odyssey and Glaucus’ reminiscences of Bellerophon in Iliad vi. Homer of course is altogether silent about Iphigenia, the great epics relishing neither human sacrifice a nor killing within the family, whence the silence in the Odyssey about the way in which Clytemnestra died. Homer ensures that the Achaeans regularly have the best of it,43 and the Trojans have certain characteristic defects, especially recklessness, over-confidence, and frivolity; but only in the Doloneia are they cowardly and abject, and that is one of the many ways in which that Book differs from the rest of the Iliad

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