[3] Mure, _History of Greek Literature_, vol. ii. p. 281, citing Düntzer, p. 15. Welcker, _Ep. Cycl._, pt. i. p. 459. [4] Schol. ad _Lycophr_, 570 _sqq_.; cf. Sophocles's _Palamedes_, Fr. 438. N2. _Cypria_, Kinkel, pp. 20, 30. [5] Plato, _Apologia_, 41 B. Compare Scholion to Euripides, _Orestes,_ 432. [6] _Aeneid_, ii. 81. [7] _Post-Homerica_, v. 198. [8] Servius on _Aeneid_, ii. 81. Hyginus fr. _Fab_. 105. [9] Scholiast, _Aristoph. Thesmophor_. 768. [10] Stesichorus, Fr. 4 B. Schol. Eurip., _Orestes_, 432. Euripides, _Palamedes_, Fr. 578, N. [11] For the learning about Palamedes, see Roscher's _Lexikon_, _s.v. Palamedes_. CHAPTER XVIII HOMER AND THE CYCLIC POEMS Few subjects are more recalcitrant to lucidity of treatment than the so-called "Cyclic poems." On the various meanings of the word "Cyclic" as applied to poetry by the ancients, very much has been written.[1] Into that question we need not enter, as we here call "Cyclic" all these old epics on the Trojan theme (outside of the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_) of which we have only fragments, in quotations by later Greek writers, and in fragmentary epitomes. Though these remains, including the prose of the Greek authors who cite and comment on them, occupy but forty-five pages of a book in small octavo,[2] the fragments suffice to prove that the lost epics are far apart as the poles from the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ in taste, tone, narrative art, descriptions of religious rites, customs, usages, and treatment of the heroic characters. This was plain to Greek commentators, and is even more obvious to modern criticism.