FILE Nº 0640 · History · DECLASSIFIED
Did You Know? The Trojan War Was Told in 8 Epics, but Only 2 Survive Today: the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey”
TL;DR — Did you know that the full story of the Trojan War was actually told through 8 epics?
Did you know that the full story of the Trojan War was actually told through 8 epics, together called the “Epic Cycle”?
Sadly, 6 of the epics in this cycle have been lost over time, and only 2 by Homer survive to the present. The rest of the story is pieced together only from collected fragments of records and the brief summaries of ancient scholars.
No. 1 – Cypria (11 books): tells the whole beginning of the war, from the goddesses quarrelling over the golden apple, the Judgement of Paris, the abduction of Helen, the gathering of the Greek army, to the fighting of the first 9 years, before moving on to the content of the Iliad.
No. 2 – Iliad (24 books): Homer’s work, which covers only 52 days in the 10th year of the war, focusing on the wrath of Achilles and the death of Patroclus, and ending with the funeral of Hector, with Troy not yet fallen.
No. 3 & 4 – Aethiopis (5 books) and Little Iliad (4 books): tell the events after Hector’s death, including the arrival of reinforcements such as the Amazon warriors, the deeds of Achilles and his death from an arrow to the heel, the contest over Achilles’ armour, and Odysseus’s plan to have the Trojan Horse built.
No. 5 – Iliupersis (2 books): tells the tragic scene of the night Troy fell, when Greek soldiers climbed down from the wooden horse to open the city gates for the main army, which stormed in, burned Troy and slaughtered its people until it was ruined.
No. 6 – Nostoi (5 books): tells the fates and the journeys home of the other Greek commanders, such as Agamemnon, who returned to meet misfortune when his own wife plotted his murder, or Menelaus, who took Helen back to his city.
No. 7 & 8 – Odyssey (24 books) and Telegony (2 books): Homer’s Odyssey tells of Odysseus’s journey home of some 10 years, while the Telegony tells of the end of Odysseus’s life, when he is killed by Telegonus, his illegitimate son born to the witch Circe, who strikes without knowing that he is his own father.
(Extra) People often think all of these poems were by Homer, but in fact the other 6 lost epics were the work of other poets, such as Stasinus, Arctinus and Lesches. Homer composed only 2 of them: the Iliad and the Odyssey.
P.S. The Wild Chronicles will also be running a tour following The Odyssey, an adventure to the fallen city of Troy, on 13-20 Feb 2027!! If you are interested, message our Line OA and type “Interested in the Odyssey tour”.
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