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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Trojan Horse source?

09:59 / 28.01.02

as a little sidebar to revving-up of the Iliad discussion, i was wondering what anyone knows about the sources of the story of the trojan horse. its not covered in the Iliad... so where is it? I haven't read Apollodorus’ Trojan War, but i heard perhaps it might be in there... not a particularly popular book, though, is it?

The story of Laocoon and all that is in the Aenead, but certainly there must be something about it before roman interpretations. or was it just lost? if i wanted to find the extant, definitive story of the trojan horse, of as close to one as i could find, what would it be? anyone know anything more about the story of this most famous event?

[ 28-01-2002: Message edited by: Mystery Gypt ]

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:59 / 28.01.02

Hoom...

IIRC, the Trojan Horse was first (or earliest to out knowledge, more precisely) described in the Iliou Persis, a cyclic epic probably written some time after the Iliad. It hasn't survived, but a summary of it by Proclus has, I think.

The first extant, fleshed-out narrative version I can think of is Book 2 of the Aeneid, though...

09:59 / 28.01.02

yeah that's the one i keep thinking of too... it's funny that the only surviving story would be from "the other side." Though it does have going for it that fact that it is incredible.

the library of Apollodorus... i suppose he's retelling the versions that perhaps you cited, but it would certainly predate vergil, no?

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

09:59 / 28.01.02

Is the Trojan Horse in the library or the Epitome? Not that it matters in particular...

Yep, my bad habit of not counting Apollodorus as "proper". Ap. was 2nd century BC, although there is a certain amount of doubt as to whether he actually wrote the Library. In either case, he was probably working, among other things, from the Iliou Persis. I think. And a bunch of lost Alexandrian stuff (pauses to weep).

The time of the authorship is one of the most hotly-debated topics in...well, in studies of the Cyclic Epics, but it looks like they were around in time for Callimachus to say that he hated them, so pre-Apollodorus. The Proclus who summarized them is probably not the 5th-Century neoplatonist but a grammarian of the 2nd Century AD. So, those summaries are later in time but notionally closer to "the real junk" than Apollodorus.

Although I bet it was Stesichorus. It's always fucking Stesichorus with these kids.

[ 28-01-2002: Message edited by: The Haus of Professional Greeters ]

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

09:59 / 28.01.02

Oh, and I forgot - Proclus' account of the Cyclic Epics survives only in a summary written by Photius, the 9th-Century Byzantine scholar who is wery good for this kind of thing.

So, yes. Meep.