Posthomerica
Probably written in the 3rd century AD, it tells the story of the Trojan War, between the death of Hector and the fall of Ilium (Troy).
Books five through twelve, covering the same ground as the Little Iliad, span from the contest between Ajax and Odysseus for the arms of Achilles, the death of Ajax by suicide after his loss, the exploits of Neoptolemus, Eurypylus and Deiphobus, the deaths of Paris and Oenone, to the building of the wooden horse.
The remaining books, covering the same ground as Iliou Persis, relate the capture of Troy by means of the wooden horse, the sacrifice of Polyxena at the grave of Achilles, the departure of the Greeks, and their dispersal by the storm.
The plot of Posthomerica begins where Homer's Iliad ends, immediately after Hector's body was regained by the Trojans.
Penthesileia has come to share the hardships of war and to escape her people after accidentally killing her sister; she was aiming for a stag.
Priam prayed to Zeus to let Penthesileia return, but he sees an eagle holding a dove, a sign that she will die.
Philoctetes had been left on the island of Lemnos due to receiving a bite on the foot from a poisonous water snake that became infected and repulsive to the other Greeks.
The seer Calchas sees an omen of a hawk and dove, suggests that the Greeks try a new strategy to take Troy.
Book 1:[5] Quintus dispenses with the customary invocation of the Muses in order to make his first line continue from the end of the Iliad.
Book 1 tells of the arrival of the proud Amazon queen Penthesileia, the welcome she receives from the hard-pressed Trojans, her initial successes in battle, and her defeat by Achilles, who kills Thersites for mocking his admiration for the beautiful victim.
Quintus’ account of it is close to that given by Dionysius in his didactic poem on fowling, Ixeutica, a summary of which survives; cf.
Book 3:[7] Apollo warns Achilles to stop the slaughter and, when he defiantly continues, shoots him in the ankle with an arrow.
Achilles is lamented by Phoenix, Briseïs, the Nereids, and his mother (Thetis), and the preparations for his funeral are described.
But Thetis wishes to hold funeral games in honor of her son, and in the remainder of the book these competitions are described.
Ajax (son of Telamon) and Odysseus claim the prize, and the invidious decision between them is left to Trojan prisoners of war.
Ajax, raging with disappointment, plans to slaughter the Greeks during the night, but Athena diverts his fury against a flock of sheep.
The contest for Achilles’ arms and its dénouement were described in the Aethiopis (which seems not to have had the story of Ajax’ madness) and in the Little Iliad.
The fullest surviving version of the episode is in Book 13 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, where, unsurprisingly, several similar arguments are deployed.
Book 6:[10] Menelaüs tests the Greeks’ resolve by proposing retreat, but Diomedes threatens to kill anyone who tries to leave before Troy is taken.
In response to advice from the seer Calchas that this will not happen unless Achilles’ son Neoptolemus is present, Odysseus and Diomedes set sail for Scyros to fetch him.
Meanwhile Odysseus and Diomedes find Neoptolemus eager to join the war, in spite of the pleading of his mother, Deïdamia.
Deïdamia’s tearful farewells are inspired by the scene between Jason and his mother, Alcimede, in Book 1 of Apollonius’ Argonautica.
Philoctetes, whose baldric is described at length, shoots many victims with the bow of Heracles and eventually wounds Paris.
When Athena intervenes on the Greek side, Aphrodite removes Aeneas from the battlefield, and the Trojans retreat within their walls.
The narrative of the siege has elements in common with the messenger speech in Euripides’ Phoenician Women (1090–1199) and with Virgil’s account of the attack on the Trojans’ camp at Aen.
The priest Laocoön urges them to burn the horse, but his sudden blinding by Athena persuades them that they should ignore his advice and drag it into Troy.
Hector’s young son Astyanax is murdered; his mother, Andromache, begs for death but is taken into slavery.
Achilles appears to Neoptolemus in a dream, gives him moral advice, and demands the sacrifice of Polyxena to appease his continuing anger over Briseïs.
Its style has been criticized by many scholars as subpar to Homer, but it is valuable as the earliest surviving account of this period in the Trojan War.
Many of the characters who had hated an ally in prior works, such as Philoctetes to Odysseus in Sophocles' play, now easily overcome the anger to create harmony.
