Quintus Smyrnaeus: The Fall of Troy (Loeb Classical Library No. 19) [Hardcover]

Quintus Smyrnaeus (Author), A. S. Way (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0674990226 | ISBN-13: 978-0674990227 | Publication Date: January 1, 1913

Quintus was a poet who lived at Smyrna some four hundred years after Christ. His work, in fourteen books, is a bold and generally underrated attempt in Homer's style to complete the story of Troy from the point at which the Iliad closes. Quintus tells us the stories of Penthesilea, the Amazonian queen; Memnon, leader of the Ethiopians; the death of Achilles; the contest for Achilles' arms between Ajax and Odysseus; the arrival of Philoctetes; and the making of the Wooden Horse. The poem ends with the departure of the Greeks and the great storm which by the wrath of heaven shattered their fleet.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 640 pages
• Publisher: Loeb Classical Library (January 1, 1913)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674990226
• ISBN-13: 978-0674990227
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 4.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,099,290 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Quintus preserved what would otherwise be lost., September 22, 2003

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Devlin Tay (Adelaide, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Quintus Smyrnaeus: The Fall of Troy (Loeb Classical Library No. 19) (Hardcover)

Quintus had big shoes to fill when he wrote his epic "Posthomerica" ("After Homer"), which is another name for this book, about a thousand years after Homer. Set between the events of the Iliad and the Odyssey (and the Aeneid), "The Fall of Troy" tells the events that befell Troy after the burial of Hector, including its ultimate fate. Quintus tried hard to mimic the poetic beauty of Homer's language, using remarkably similar similes throughout, but his epic lacks the central themes that Homer used to hold his epics together. In the Iliad, it was the wrath of Achilles. In the Odyssey, it was Odysseus' struggle to get home. Quintus, on the other hand, had only a series of events to narrate in quick succession i.e. the deaths of Penthesileia, Memnon, Achilles, Ajax, Eurypylus and Paris followed by the destruction of Troy and the sinking of the Greek armada on their homeward journey. On the other hand, had it not been for Quintus, we would have nothing to fill the space between the Iliad and the Odyssey. The original epic poems (the Aethiopis, the Ileupersis and the Little Iliad) covering these events have been lost to us - it is not known whether Quintus merely reworked these sources into a coherent whole, or whether he wrote his epic based on extant summaries of these events found in Apollodorus, for example, or on fragments of the lost works. Whatever the case, Quintus' work completes a trilogy that begins with the ninth year of the Trojan War and the ends with the return of Odysseus to Ithaka eleven years later. We have no surviving works detailing the beginnings of the war - the Cypria has been lost to us. For this alone, Quintus deserves a place on my bookshelf.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Homage to Achilles, April 14, 2002

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[e-mail] - See all my reviews

This review is from: Quintus Smyrnaeus: The Fall of Troy (Loeb Classical Library No. 19) (Hardcover)

In this book's introduction we are told of the author's critical failure to equal Homer's "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" although it details the events between them. It would nonetheless benefit the reader to take this book on its own merit. Whether alive or as ghost of the dead, it is Achilles - the major Greek protagonist of the Trojan War, who figures predominant in this sleek epic poem of 14 books.(We are told that Quintus lived around 400 a.d). We see Achilles touched by the beauty of Penthesileia, the Amazon Queen he has slain in battle; his defeat of the Ethiopian chieftain Memnon, his heroic death (unflinching yet struggling against the mortal wound of Apollo's arrow,) the funeral games held in his honor; and how his armor was contested - resulting in madness and a suicide; we see the arrival of his son Neoptolemus to the battle. The remaining events seem more inclined to the war's final days as revealed in Virgil's "Aeneid," except narrated from the Greek point of view.
The translation here by A.S. Way is reminiscent of the early 20th century English, artistic and exalted, as one might study in school: it is a verse both challenging and rewarding.In many places quotes of wisdom are dropped as pearls from Mt. Olympus. Most of all, and this is the book's greatest strength, one is left with a hunger to pursue other epic poems of a classical nature. A small list of these are on the cover's reverse side.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Troy After the Iliad, May 28, 2004

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D. A Wend (Arlington Heights, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Quintus Smyrnaeus: The Fall of Troy (Loeb Classical Library No. 19) (Hardcover)

I agree with the other reviewers that the language of this translation should be updated. It was made in 1913 and has a Biblical usage in words like "thy", "thou", "twixt', "twain" etc. The story Quintus tells has been told by other authors, such as the Aethiopis (which tells of Memnon's role in the war) but this book has put together these diverse stories in the 14 books of this volume. The author, known as Quintus of Smyrna, wrote his epic poem in the 3rd century. He speaks about himself in Book 13 lines 308-313 and that is all that is really known about Quintus.

Strangely, Quintus downplays some highly dramatic moments, such as the killing of Achilles by leaving Paris out of the shooting of the arrow. Apollo shoots what is obviously a poisonous arrow into the vulnerable spot if Achilles' heel but there is little in the way of dramatic description. However, Quintus makes up for this lack of drama in his telling of the madness of Aias and the fall of Troy in Book 13. The slaughtering of the inhabitants, caught off-guard by the trick of the wooden horse leaves a strong impression. Quintus has obviously been saturated in the spirit of Homer and it shows throughout the story, so despite some antiquated language, at times, this is an important epic poem filling in the story where the Iliad leaves off. The introduction is excellent in relating the influences of Quintus and how he differs in his telling of the fall of Troy. If you have an interest in the Trojan War than this book is a necessity.