Little Iliad

Ἴλιον ἀείδω καὶ Δαρδανίην εὔπςλον,

ἧς πέρι πόλλα πάθον Δαναοὶ θεράποντες Ἄρηος.
—The Little Iliad[1]

The fourth installment in The Trojan Cycle, a lost work.

The Little Iliad (Ἰλιὰς μικρά) follows, dealing with the question of how the Achaeans will take Troy now that Achilles is dead. Similarly to the Aethiopis, it seems to have been written sometime in the seventh century BC.

With the funeral games of Achilles ended, his armour is given to Odysseus according to Athena's wish. Ajax, who perhaps justly feels he deserved to receive the armour, is enraged by this. Athena drives him insane so that attacks the Achaean's livestock rather than the Achaean leaders themselves, and he eventually commits suicide, leaving the Achaean army short two powerful warriors instead of one.

Odysseus then captures the Trojan seer Helenus, who prophesies what they must do in order to capture Troy. The Achaeans do as he says, sending Diomedes to bring Philoctetes back, whom they abandoned nine or so years ago during the expedition to Troy. Somehow Philoctetes is convinced to rejoin them, where his wound is finally healed. The warrior is quick to kill Paris once he is brought to Troy, and Deiphobus, another prince of Troy, marries Helen.

Odysseus, meanwhile, goes to Scyros where Achilles had fathered Neoptolemus after the Achaean fleet was scattered on its first journey. He brings the boy to Troy and gives him his father's armour, and Neoptolemus sees the ghost of Achilles. Neoptolemus slays another newly arrived Trojan ally, Eurypylus, the son of Telephos.

Because the Achaeans still can't get into the city, Athena inspires Epeios to construct the Trojan Horse. A disguised Odysseus sneaks into Troy to gather information and encounters Helen, who does not alert the Trojans but rather agrees with Odysseus for the Achaeans to take Troy.

Odysseus kills more Trojans on his way out, and then he and Diomedes carry out Helenus's prophecy by stealing the Palladion, a statue of Athena upon which Troy's safety depended.

The major Achaean warriors are hidden in the Trojan Horse and, with all the pieces in place, the Achaeans destroy their campsites and pretend to withdraw for good.

The Trojans believe they are finally freed of the years of war, and they take the Trojan Horse into the city -- dismantling part of their wall to do so!-- and begin to celebrate.

Proclus's summary ends here, but other works say that the Little Iliad ended with an account of the sack, with slight differences from the account given in the Sack of Ilion.

Ancient fragments on the Little Iliad, including Proclus's summary, are available in English here.

The Little Iliad likely provided examples of:
Works derived from the myths of the Little Iliad:
  • Aeschylus's
    • Philoctetes, a lost play about the Achaeans' attempt to get Philoctetes to Troy.
    • The Phrygian Women, a lost play seemingly part of a trilogy about Ajax's madness.
    • The Salaminian Women, a lost play and possibly the third part of a trilogy about Ajax's madness and suicide.
  • Euripides's
    • Epeios, a lost play likely focused on Epeios, the architect of the Trojan horse.
    • Philoctetes, a lost play (see Aeschylus's version).
  • Sophocles's
    • Philoctetes, yet another version of the story also done by Aeschylus and Euripides.
    • Ajax, a tragedy about the madness of Ajax after Achilles's armour is awarded to Odysseus rather than him, and his subsequent suicide.
    • Lacaenae, a lost play believed to have followed the theft of the Palladium by Diomedes and Odysseus.
  • Part of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Book XIII includes the debate over Achilles's arms and Ajax's subsequent death.
  1. ↑ Of Troy I sing, and the Dardania land of fine colts / concerning which the Danaans suffered much, servants of Ares.
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