Tabulae Iliacae

The Tabulae Iliacae ("Iliadic tables", "Iliac tables" or "Iliac tablets"; singular Tabula Iliaca) are a collection of 22 stone plaques (pinakes), mostly of marble, with reliefs depicting scenes from Greek epic poetry, especially of the Iliad and the Trojan War.

On the reverse of the Borgia Tabula is a list of titles and authors of epic works, with stichometry, a listing of the number of lines in each epic; though these have occasioned great interest, W. McLeod demonstrated that, far from representing the tradition of Hellenistic scholarship, in every case where facts can be checked with the accepted canon, the compiler of the Borgia Table errs, citing an otherwise unattested Danaides, ascribing a new poem to Arctinus.

McLeod suggests literary fakery designed to impress the nouveaux-riches as embodied by the fictional character Trimalchio, who is convinced that Troy was taken by Hannibal; Nicholas Horsfall[5] finds the "combination of error and erudition" designed to impress just such eager newly educated consumers of culture with showy but spurious proofs of their erudition: "The Borgia Table is a pretense of literacy for the unlettered," is McLeod's conclusion.

The carvings depict numerous scenes of the Trojan War, with captions, including an image of Aeneas climbing aboard a ship after the sacking of Troy.

[9] Theodor Schreiber's Atlas of Classical Antiquities (1895) included a line-by-line description of the tablet with line-drawings.