Iliad

The historicity of the Iliad or the Homeric Question has been a topic of scholarly debate for centuries. The Iliad recounts the Trojan War between the city of Troy and a coalition of Mycenaean Greek states, leading to the destruction of Troy. While researchers of the 18th century had largely rejected the story of the Trojan War as fable, the discoveries made by Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlik reopened the question. The subsequent excavation of Troy VIIa and the discovery of the toponym "Wilusa" in cuneiform Hittite correspondence has made it plausible that the Trojan War cycle was at least remotely based on a historical conflict of the 12th century BC, even if the poems of Homer remembered the event only through the distortion of four centuries of oral tradition.

In the Iliad, Iphianassa (/ˌɪfiəˈnæsə/; Ancient Greek: Ἰφιάνασσα, romanized: Iphiánassa, lit. 'strong queen') is an obscure and controversial daughter of Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra, sister to Laodice and Chrysothemis, sometimes considered identical to Iphigenia.

A dactyl (/ˈdæktɪl/; from Greek δάκτυλος 'finger') is a foot in poetic meter. In quantitative verse, often used in Greek or Latin, a dactyl is a long syllable followed by two short syllables, as determined by syllable weight. The best-known use of dactylic verse is in the epics attributed to the Greek poet Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. In accentual verse, often used in English, a dactyl is a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables—the opposite is the anapaest (two unstressed followed by a stressed syllable).

An example of dactylic meter is the first line of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem Evangeline (1847), which is in dactylic hexameter:

Homeric scholarship is the study of any Homeric topic, especially the two large surviving epics, the Iliad and Odyssey. It is currently part of the academic discipline of classical studies. The subject is one of the oldest in education.

Stasinus (Ancient Greek: Στασῖνος, romanized: Stasînos) of Cyprus was a semi-legendary early Greek poet. He is best known for his lost work Cypria, which was one of the poems belonging to the Epic Cycle that narrated the War of Troy.

The Cypria, presupposing an acquaintance with the events of the Homeric poem, confined itself to what preceded the Iliad, and has been described as an introduction. The poem contained an account of the Judgement of Paris, the elopement of Helen, the abandonment of Philoctetes on the island of Lemnos, the landing of the Achaeans on the coast of Asia Minor, and the first engagement before Troy. Proclus, in his Chrestomathia, gave an outline of the poem (preserved in Photius, cod. 239).

The Cyclic Poets is a shorthand term for the early Greek epic poets, who were approximate contemporaries of Homer. No more is known about those poets than about Homer, but modern scholars regard them as having composed orally, as did Homer. In the classical period, surviving early epic poems were ascribed to those authors, just as the Iliad and Odyssey were ascribed to Homer. Together with Homer, whose Iliad covers a mere 50 days of the war, they cover the complete war "cycle", thus the name. Most modern scholars place Homer in the 8th century BC. The other poets listed below seemed to have lived in the 7th to the 5th centuries BC. Excluding Homer's, none of the works of the cyclic poets has survived.

Lesches (Ancient Greek: Λέσχης) is a semi-legendary early Greek poet and the reputed author of the Little Iliad. According to the usually accepted tradition, he was a native of Pyrrha in Lesbos, and flourished about 660 BC (others place him about 50 years earlier). Proclus refers to him as "Lesches of Mytilene". Mytilene and Lesbos are names of the same Greek island used interchangeably.

The lost epic Little Iliad, in four books, was commonly attributed to Lesches. It took up the story of the Homeric Iliad, and, beginning with the contest between Telamonian Ajax and Odysseus for the arms of Achilles, carried it down to the feast of the Trojans over the captured Trojan Horse, according to the epitome in Proclus, or to the Fall of Troy, according to Aristotle. Some ancient authorities ascribe the work to a Spartan named Cinaethon, and even to Homer.

Thestorides of Phocaea (Greek: Θεστορίδης) was a legendary or semi-legendary early Greek poet, one of those to whom the epic Little Iliad was ascribed.

Thestorides figures as a major character in the fictional Life of Homer fraudulently ascribed to Herodotus. According to this, when Homer came to Phocaea Thestorides offered him food and lodging in exchange for the right to record his poetry in writing. Homer had little choice but to accept, and recited to Thestorides the Iliad, the Odyssey and also an epic on local history and legend, Phocais. This story is unique among the ancient legends concerning Homer as it embodies the claim that writing was known in Homer's circle; all other sources state or imply that Homer's poems were transmitted orally to his followers or descendants. The Life adds that Thestorides afterwards moved to Chios, where he performed Homer's poems as if they were his own and became famous. Homer heard rumours of this and eventually travelled to Chios also; Thestorides, threatened with disgrace, left the island hastily.

Rhesus (Ancient Greek: Ῥῆσος, Rhēsos) is an Athenian tragedy that belongs to the transmitted plays of Euripides. Its authorship has been disputed since antiquity, and the issue has invested modern scholarship since the 17th century when the play's authenticity was challenged, first by Joseph Scaliger and subsequently by others, partly on aesthetic grounds and partly on account of peculiarities in the play's vocabulary, style and technique. The conventional attribution to Euripides remains controversial.

Rhesus takes place during the Trojan War, on the night when Odysseus and Diomedes make their way covertly into the Trojan camp. The same event is narrated in book 10 of Homer's epic poem, the Iliad.