Romance of Thebes

The Romance of Thebes (Le Roman de Thèbes) is a poem of some 10,000 lines that appears to be based on an abridged version of the Thebaid of Statius.

This view is supported by the omission of incidents and details which, in spite of the altered conditions under which the poem was composed, would naturally have been preserved in any imitation of the Thebaid, while again certain modifications of the version of Statius can hardly be due to the author's invention but point to an ancient origin.

The Roman dates from the 12th century (c. 1150-55), and is written, not in the tirades of the chansons de geste, but in octosyllabic rhymed couplets.

The first volume of Les histoires de Paul Crose traduites en français contains a free and amplified version of the Thebes.

The author asserts that he translated from a Latin book lent him by Gilbert Fitz-Baderon, 4th lord of Monmouth, but in reality he has written romances of chivalry on the usual lines, the names of the characters alone being derived from antiquity.