Ancient Greek epic poems

thumb|Jason and the Argonauts Arriving at Colchis, by Charles de La Fosse. The poem Argonautica was written specifically for Ptolemaic Alexandria, but it has long been a resource for other dynasties seeking to illustrate their power and ambitions. This painting is located in the Château de Versailles.

poem

Greek epic attributed to Hesiod

right|thumb|350px|The triumph of Dionysus, depicted on a 2nd-century Roman sarcophagus. Dionysus rides in a chariot drawn by panthers; his procession includes elephants and other exotic animals. The Dionysiaca (, Dionysiaká) is an ancient Greek epic poem and the principal work of Nonnus. It is an epic in 48 books, the longest surviving poem from Greco-Roman antiquity at 20,426 lines, composed in Homeric dialect and dactylic hexameters, the main subject of which is the life of Dionysus, his expedition to India, and his triumphant return to the west.

The Margites () is a comic mock-epic ascribed to Homer that is largely lost. From references to the work that survived, it is known that its central character is an exceedingly stupid man named Margites (from ancient Greek , margos, "raving, mad; lustful"), who was so dense he did not know which parent had given birth to him. His name gave rise to the adjective margitomanēs (), "mad as Margites", used by Philodemus.

thumb|Posthomerica, 1541

literary work

The Alcmeonis (, Alkmeonis, or , Alkmaiōnis) is a lost early Greek epic which is considered to have formed part of the Theban cycle. There are only seven references to the Alcmeonis in ancient literature, and all of them make it clear that the authorship of the epic was unknown. It told the story of Alcmaeon's killing of his mother Eriphyle for having arranged the death of his father Amphiaraus, whose murder was narrated in the Thebaid. One of the surviving fragments is quoted by Athenaeus in the Deipnosophistae: he chose it because it describes a funeral banquet. The lines have very little in

ancient poem of Theban cycle

ancient Greek epic poem

poem describing the Olympians struggle with the Titans

epic poem attributed to Hesiod

__notoc__ The "Melampodia" () is a now fragmentary Greek epic poem that was attributed to Hesiod during antiquity. Its title is derived from the name of the great seer Melampus but must have included myths concerning other heroic seers, for it was at least three books long.

Greek epic attributed to either Homer or Creophylus of Samos

The Naupactia (Greek: , Naupaktia) is a lost epic poem of ancient Greek literature. In antiquity the title was also written Naupaktika (Latin Naupactica), and it is also in the present day sometimes referred to among scholars by the Latin phrase carmen Naupactium ("Naupactian poem"). Naupactus is a city in Greece on the Corinthian Gulf.

fragmentary Greek epic poem

fragmentary epic poem

The Phocais () was an ancient Greek epic attributed to Homer. In the Life of Homer, a biography of Homer falsely attributed to Herodotus, it was said to have been written while Homer lived at Phocaea with a man named Thestorides; however, whether Thestorides actually existed and where he lived is highly suspect. Like all Homeric works, its true author is unknown; today only a single fragment (three to four sentences of text) claiming its existence survives.