Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Electra

1 The Epic Cycle (“Ἐπικὸς κύκλος”) was a body of epic poems by various hands, arranged in the chronological order of the subjects, so as to form a continuous history of the mythical world. One part of this Cycle consisted of poems concerning the Trojan war. A grammarian named Proclus (circ. 140 A.D. ?), in his “Χρηστομάθεια”, or ‘Manual of Literature,’ gave short prose summaries of the poems in the Trojan part of the Cycle. The Manual itself is lost, but fragments have been preserved by the patriarch Photius (9th century) in his Bibliotheca.

2 The Cypria related the origin of the Trojan war, and its progress down to the point at which the Iliad begins. (Cp. my Introduction to Homer, p. 153.)

3 Pyth. 11. 22. See below, § 8.

4 The Nostoi described the adventures of some Greek heroes on their return from Troy,—especially those of Menelaüs, who visited Egypt, and of Agamemnon, who was slain by Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra. (Introd. to Homer, p. 154.)

5 There happens to be an independent proof (if any were needed) that the religion of Delphi animated the Nostoi. The poem related how Calchas committed suicide, because Mopsus, whom he met at Colophon, proved to be a greater seer than himself. Mopsus belongs to the traditions of the Apolline “μαντική”: he is sometimes called the son of Apollo by Manto, a daughter of Teiresias.