What were the particular poems which it comprised, we cannot now
determine with exactness. Welcker arranges them as follows:
Titanomachia, Danaïs, Amazonia (or Atthis), Œdipodia, Thebaïs (or
Expedition of Amphiaräus), Epigoni (or Alkmæônis), Minyas (or
Phokaïs), Capture of Œchalia, Cyprian Verses, Iliad, Æthiopis,
Lesser Iliad, Iliupersis or the Taking of Troy, Returns of the
Heroes, Odyssey, and Telegonia. Wuellner, Lange, and Mr. Fynes
Clinton enlarge the list of cyclic poems still farther.[227] But
all such reconstructions of the Cycle are conjectural and destitute
of authority: the only poems which we can affirm on positive
grounds to have been comprehended in it, are, first, the series
respecting the heroes of Troy, from the Cypria to the Telegonia,
of which Proclus has preserved the arguments, and which includes
the Iliad and Odyssey,—next, the old Thebaïs, which is expressly
termed cyclic,[228] in order to distinguish it from the poem of the
same name composed by Antimachus. In regard to other particular
compositions, we have no evidence to guide us, either for admission
or exclusion, except our general views as to the scheme upon
which the Cycle was framed. If my idea of that scheme be correct,
the Alexandrine critics arranged therein _all_ their old epical
treasures, down to the Telegonia,—the good as well as the bad; gold,
silver, and iron,—provided only they could be pieced in with the
narrative series. But I cannot venture to include, as Mr. Clinton
does, the Eurôpia, the Phorônis, and other poems of which we know
only the names, because it is uncertain whether their contents were
such as to fulfil their primary condition: nor can I concur with him
in thinking that, where there were two or more poems of the same
title and subject, one of them must necessarily have been adopted
into the Cycle to the exclusion of the others. There may have been
two Theogonies, or two Herakleias, both comprehended in the Cycle;
the purpose being (as I before remarked), not to sift the better from
the worse, but to determine some fixed order, convenient for reading
and reference, amidst a multiplicity of scattered compositions, as
the basis of a new, entire, and corrected edition.
[227] Welcker, Der Epische Kyklus, pp. 37-41; Wuellner, De Cyclo
Epico, p. 43, _seq._; Lange, Ueber die Kyklischen Dichter, p. 47;
Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, vol. i. p. 349.
[228] Schol. Pindar. Olymp. vi. 26; Athenæ. xi. p. 465.
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