Penthesilea in The Epic Cycle
Proclus, who summarized the lost epic, the Aethiopis of Arctinos of Miletus, of which only five lines survive in a quotation, gave the events of Penthesilea's life. The story of Penthesilea segues so smoothly from the Iliad in the Epic Cycle that one manuscript tradition of the Iliad ends
- "Such were the funeral games of Hector. And now there came an Amazon, the great-hearted daughter of man-slaying Ares."
According to Diodorus Siculus
- "Now they say that Penthesileia was the last of the Amazons to win distinction for bravery and that for the future the race diminished more and more and then lost all its strength; consequently in later times, whenever any writers recount their prowess, men consider the ancient stories about the Amazons to be fictitious tales." (Diodorus Siculus, ii. 46).
Alongside Penthesilea were twelve other Amazons, including Antibrote, Ainia, and Clete. The rest were Alcibie, Antandre, Bremusa, Derimacheia, Derinoe, Harmothoe, Hippothoe, Polemusa, and Thermodosa.
Read more about this topic: Penthesilea
Famous quotes containing the words epic and/or cycle:
“The drama is complete poetry. The ode and the epic contain it only in germ; it contains both of them in a state of high development, and epitomizes both.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“The cycle of the machine is now coming to an end. Man has learned much in the hard discipline and the shrewd, unflinching grasp of practical possibilities that the machine has provided in the last three centuries: but we can no more continue to live in the world of the machine than we could live successfully on the barren surface of the moon.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)