Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/142

 126 HISTORY OF GREECE. follows : Titanomuchia, DanaVs, Amazonia (or Atthis), OEdipo- dia, Thebai's (or Expedition of Amphiaraus), Epigoni (or Alk- maeonis), Minyas (or Phokai's), Capture of CEchalia, Cyprian Verses, Iliad, .^Ethiopis, Lesser Iliad, Iliupersis or the Taking of Troy, Returns of the Heroes, Odyssey, and Telegonia. Wuell- ner, Lange, and Mr. Fynes Clinton enlarge the list of cyclic poems still farther. 1 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 Thebai's, which is expressly termed cyclic, 2 in order to dis- tinguish it from the poem of the same name composed by Anti- machus. 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 Europia, the Phoronis, 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 compre- hended 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 cor- rected edition. 1 Welckcr, Der Epische Kyklus, pp. 37-41 ; Wuellncr, De Cjclo Epico, p. 43, seq. ; Lange, Ucber die Kyklischcn Dichter, p. 47 ; Clinton, Fasti Hel- lenici, vol. i. p. 349.
 * Schol Pindar. Olymp. vi. 26 ; Athenic. xi. p. 405.