The Fall of Troy by Quintus of Smyrna
The book is filled with themes like “pietas” and “fatum,” which inspire Aeneas to exact revenge on his people and play a significant role in the establishment of what is arguably the largest empire in recorded history.
The Fall of Troy by Quintus of Smyrna
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Quintus, who wrote towards the end of the third century A.D., was reportedly an Asia Minor native. He saw himself as the next great Classical poet, standing in the footsteps of Homer, Hesiod, and others.
Between Homer’s two major works, there is a gap filled with epic events. Smaller epics from Ancient Greece existed at the time, but they were lost to the passage of time. Eventually, one individual took up the challenge to fill this gap. Quintus of Smyrna’s The Fall of Troy is a compilation of the rediscovered fragments of Homer’s lost epics that describe the conclusion of the Trojan War.
Quintus resolved to fill in the gap between Hector’s funeral and Troy’s collapse by salvaging what remained of the short epics to finish the account of the battle, writing a century after The Iliad was likely originally composed. Quintus is far inferior to Homer in terms of quality, but he is aware of this and doesn’t pretend to be Homer in order to win the fight. What could have made the book better is if the publishers of this edition would have included either footnotes or endnotes, but as a general reader it doesn’t really damage things because Quintus succeeds in his purpose and honestly the rating of the book is dependent on his decision to even write the book.
