Quintus Smyrnaeus

His materials are borrowed from the cyclic poems from which Virgil (with whose works he was probably acquainted) also drew, in particular the Aethiopis (Coming of Memnon) and the Iliupersis (Destruction of Troy) of Arctinus of Miletus, and the Ilias Mikra (Little Iliad) of Lesches.

335 sqq., which contains a prophecy, the special particularity of which, it is maintained by Koechly, limits its applicability to the middle of the fourth century AD.

[7] The plot of Posthomerica begins where Homer's Iliad ends, immediately after Hector's body was regained by the Trojans.

As well as drawing inspiration from Lesches' work, it is likely that these books gathered source material from Greek tragedy, such as Sophocles' depiction of Ajax.

The editio princeps by Aldus Manutius was published at Venice, 1504 under the title Quinti Calabri derelictorum ab Homero libri XIV.

Aldus calls him Quintus Calabrus, because the only known manuscript of his poem was discovered at Otranto in Calabria by Cardinal Bessarion, in 1450.