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According to his own account (xii. 310), he tried his hand at poetry in his early youth, while tending sheep at Smyrna (present-day Izmir). His epic in fourteen books, known as Posthomerica, takes up the tale of Troy at the point where Homer's Iliad breaks off (the death of Hector), and carries it down to the capture of the city by the Greeks.
The first five books, which cover the same ground as the Aethiopis of Arctinus of Miletus, describe the doughty deeds and deaths of Penthesileia the Amazon, of MemnonIn Greek mythology, Memnon was an Ethiopian king and son of Tithonus and Eos. At the Trojan War, he brought an army to Troy's defense and was killed by Achilles. However, he first killed Antilochus. After his death, Zeus was moved by Eos' tears and grante, son of the Morning, and of AchillesFor other uses, see Achilles (disambiguation). In Greek mythology, Achilles grandson of Aeacus (Αχιλλευς Αιακιδης, Akhilleus Aiakides, also transliterated as; the funeral games in honour of Achilles, the contest for the arms of Achilles and the death of Ajax. The remaining books relate the exploits of NeoptolemusIn Greek mythology, Neoptolemus also Neoptolemos or Pyrrhus was the son of Achilles. Achilles didn't want to fight in the Trojan War, so he disguised himself as a girl in the court of Lycomedes, the King of Scyros. During that time, he had an affair with, EurypylusIn Greek mythology, Eurypylus referred to three different people. Son of Thestius. He participated in the hunt for the Calydonian Boar, during which he insulted Atalanta and was killed by Meleager. A Thessalonian king, fought on the Greek side during the and DeiphobusIn Greek mythology, Deiphobus was a son of Priam and Hecuba. During the Trojan War, Deiphobus married Helen after Paris died. Deiphobus was killed by Menelaus, who took Helen with him back to Sparta. In the Virgil's Aeneid, Deiphobus appears in the Underw, the deaths of ParisParis (also known as Alexander , son of Priam, king of Troy, appears in a number of Greek legends. Probably the most well known was his abduction of, or elopement with, Helen, queen of Sparta, this being one of the immediate causes of the Trojan war. and OenoneIn Greek mythology, Oenone ("wine woman") was the first wife of Paris. She was a mountain nymph (an Oread) on Mount Ida in Phrygia, a mountain associated with the Mother Goddess Cybele. Her father was Cebren, a river-god. Her very name links her to the na, the capture of Troy by means of the wooden horse, the sacrifice of Polyxena at the grave of Achilles, the departure of the Greeks, and their dispersal by the storm.
The poet has no originality; in conception and style his work is closely modelled on Homer. His materials are borrowed from the cyclic poems from which Virgil (with whose works he was probably acquainted) also drew, in particular the Aethiopis of Arctinus and the Little Iliad of Lesches.
Editio princeps by Aldus Manutius (1504); Kochly (ed. major with elaborate prolegomena, 1850; ed. minor, 1853); Z Zimmermann (author of other valuable articles on the poet), (1891); see also Kehrnptzov, De Quinti Smyrnaei Fontibus ad Mythopolia (1889); CA Sainte-Beuve, Etude sur . . . Quinte de Smyrne (1857); FA Paley, Quintus Smyrnaeus and the "Homer" of the tragic Poets (1879); GW Paschal, A Study of Quintus Smyrnaeus (Chicago, 1904).
This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
Roman era poets Late Antique writers