larly selected various phases of the
tale of Troy which preceded or followed the action of the "Iliad" or
"Odyssey". In this way, without any preconceived intention, a body of
epic poetry was built up by various writers which covered the whole
Trojan story. But the entire range of heroic legend was open to these
poets, and other clusters of epics grew up dealing particularly with the
famous story of Thebes, while others dealt with the beginnings of the
world and the wars of heaven. In the end there existed a kind of epic
history of the world, as known to the Greeks, down to the death of
Odysseus, when the heroic age ended. In the Alexandrian Age these
poems were arranged in chronological order, apparently by Zenodotus of
Ephesus, at the beginning of the 3rd century B.C. At a later time the
term "Cycle", 'round' or 'course', was given to this collection.

Of all this mass of epic poetry only the scantiest fragments survive;
but happily Photius has preserved to us an abridgment of the synopsis
made of each poem of the "Trojan Cycle" by Proclus, i.e. Eutychius
Proclus of Sicca.

The pre-Trojan poems of the Cycle may be noticed first. The
"Titanomachy", ascribed both to Eumelus of Corinth and to Arctinus of
Miletus, began with a kind of Theogony which told of the union of Heaven
and Earth and of their offspring the Cyclopes and the Hundred-handed
Giants. How the poem proceeded we have no means of knowing, but we may
suppose that in character it was not unlike the short account of the
Titan War found in the Hesiodic "Theogony" (617 ff.).

What links bound the "Titanomachy" to the Theben Cycle is not clear.
This latter group was formed of three poems, the "Story of Oedipus", the
"Thebais", and the "Epigoni". Of the "Oedipodea" practically nothing is
known, though on the assurance of Athenaeus (vii. 277 E) that Sophocles
followed the Epic Cycle closely in the plots of his plays, we may
suppose that in outline the story corresponded closely to the history of
Oedipus as it is found in the "Oedipus Tyrannus". The "Thebais" seems
to have begun with the origin of the fatal quarrel between Eteocles and
Polyneices in the curse called down upon them by their father in his
misery. The story was thence carried down to the end of the expedition
under Polyneices, Adrastus and Amphiarus against Thebes. The "Epigoni"
(ascribed to Antimachus of Teos) recounted the expedition of the
'After-Born' against Thebes, and the sack of the city.