What You Should Know About Ancient Epic

Ancient Epic, by Katherine Callen King, is part of Wiley-Blackwell's Introductions to the Classical World, along with Nancy Sorokin Rabinowitz' Greek Tragedy, reviewed here in 2008. The series tackles enormous topics in volumes of only around 200 pages. Both of these writers cover the major issues and then delve deeply into their specific areas of expertise with excitement and insight. The result of reading these is to challenge your base knowledge, if you already have it, or provide you with what you need to know, if you don't.

On to Ancient Epic....

While there is plenty of introductory material, King discusses specific epics, The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Argonautica, The Aeneid, and The Metamorphoses. Gilgamesh, a Mesopotamian epic, is the perfect choice for starting the volume since this earliest epic was written as early as 2100 B.C. (later versions as late as 1200, which is around the time the events of the Trojan War may have occurred), and introduces topics found in the Greco-Roman epics. Selecting The Argonautica by Apollonius, instead of Hesiod, is another excellent choice because it furthers the heroic themes, taking the epic hero from the realm of the demi-god to the mortal group-hero and introducing a powerful human female agent, Medea, whose murderous reputation would have preceded the epic. With the Latin epic, The Aeneid, we're back again in the realm of the son of a god, as with The Iliad's Achilles and the Babylonian Gilgamesh, but by this time, the role of the gods has changed to something of a Stoic nature force. [See Stoic New Year's Resolutions.] The final selection is Ovid's Metamorphoses, a kind of anti-epic.

At the point where King moves from the Near East to Greece, she inserts an enlightening chapter on Greek epic, which does more than nod at the epic cycle. Then when moving from Greek to Latin epic, she does the same for the Romans.

Almost every page makes a valuable connection or shows expert insight. It is because of the contrasts with far nobler characters that Agamemnon and Jason seem so petty. In The Iliad, Agamemnon is king of men, but Achilles is godlike. Achilles excels, but Agamemnon, gifted with political power, abuses this power, causing substantial loss of life. Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica, the story of Jason and the Quest for the Golden Fleece, a story of the first Greek sea voyage to Asia, is about many men, several of whom are stronger, better men than Jason. Jason does not have a god for a father, unlike several of his superhero companions. Instead of heroic self-reliance, Jason keeps asking for help.

In the first of the "context" chapters, on Greek epic, King discusses the 6 epic cycles, the place of epithets in the second half of the hexametrical verse, and the guilt of Priam. (Did you ever think of Priam as anything but an innocent victim of his son's amorous adventure?) The context of Roman epic includes a summary of Roman history, the history of Roman literature, and a look at the Stoic gods. It is in this section that I found the one page on which I found errors -- in the plural, although the book is so well-done it makes me wonder if I'm right. The page in question is 128. When you read it, please let me know what you think.

The notes at the end include a glossary of terms used in epic, and a chart of Olympian gods and their Akkadian counterparts. Between each chapter there are notes, material for further reading, interpretations/commentaries, and translations/adaptations. These notes serve to show the relevance of the epics for the modern world without hijacking the flow.