Quintus Smyrnaeus' Posthomerica

Calum A. Maciver, PhD (2009) in Classics, University of Edinburgh, is currently lecturer in Greek at the University of Leeds. He has published a number of articles on Later Greek Hexameter poetry, especially Quintus Smyrnaeus.

All those interested in Classical literature, Epic, Imperial Greek poetry, and Homer, as well as scholars of Late Antiquity.

"Maciver’s book is to be commended for its methodological freshness, patient pursuit of intratextual parallels and his resourceful approach to Quintus’ interaction with Homer, both unmediated and through the prisms of Callimachus, Virgil and the Homeric scholia, among others. It is a welcome addition to scholarship on imperial Greek epic and will particularly attract readers interested in the reception of Homer, Greek and Latin epic and late antique aesthetics." Laura Miguélez-Cavero in BMCR, 18.04.2013

Table of Contents
Preface ii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: Signs of the Times: Being Homer Later 8
(i) Reading Quintus Reading Homer 8
(ii) A Late Antique Aesthetic? 16
(iii) (M)use-less Singing: Quintus’ Art? 33
Chapter 2: Ecphrasis and the Emblems of the Past 47
(i) Reading Directions in Ecphrasis 47
(ii) (Re-)reading the Shield of Achilles 59
(iii) Unfolding Ecphrasis: the Mountain of Arete 84
Chapter 3: Speaking Morality through Gnomai 111
(i) Homeric voices? Narrators and Narratees 111
(ii) Fate, Gods, and the Sayings of Nestor 130
Chapter 4: Posthomeric Similes, Homeric Likenesses 160
(i) Penthesileia: A New Dawn 160
(ii) Helen Received, Helen Judged 201
(iii) Like Father like Son: Comparing Neoptolemus 225
Afterword 252
Bibliography 255