Cypria

The Cypria (Greek: Κύπρια Kypria; Latin: Cypria) is an epic of ancient Greek literature, which has been attributed to Stasinos of Cyprus and was quite well known in the Classical period and fixed in a received text, but which subsequently was lost to view. It was part of the Epic Cycle, that is, the "Trojan" cycle, which told the entire history of the Trojan War in epic hexameter verse. The story of the Cypria comes chronologically at the beginning of the Epic Cycle, and is followed by that of the Iliad; the composition of the two was apparently in the reverse order. The poem comprised eleven books of verse in epic dactylic hexameters.

Date and authorship

The Cypria, in the written form in which it was known in classical Greece, was probably composed in the late 7th century BCE, but there is much uncertainty. The Cyclic Poets, as the translator of Homerica, Hugh G. Evelyn-White noted "were careful not to trespass upon ground already occupied by Homer," one of the reasons for dating the final, literary form of Cypria as post-Homeric, in effect a "prequel". "The author of the Kypria already regarded the Iliad as a text. Any reading of the Kypria will show it preparing for events for (specifically) the Iliad in order to refer back to them, for instance the sale of Lykaon to Lemnos or the kitting out of Achilles with Briseis and Agamemnon with Chryseis". A comparison can be made with the Aithiopis, also lost, but which even in its quoted fragments is more independent of the Iliad as text.