SLAUGHTER AND SPECTACLE IN QUINTUS SMYRNAEUS’POSTHOMERICA

Abstract

Scholarship on Quintus Smyrnaeus has long moved past the point where he is considered nothing more than an ‘artificial imitator of a bygone age’. Rather, scholars generally recognize the dynamism of Quintus’ relation to Homer, as can be seen in the subtitles of two volumes on Quintus published in the past few years:Engaging Homer in Late AntiquityandTransforming Homer in Second Sophistic Epic. Even in passages that are clearly modelled on passages in Homer, Quintus is no longer seen as slavishly imitating but as creatively rereading and re-imagining his works. Calum Maciver, perhaps Quintus’ most vocal champion, sums this approach up nicely, arguing that ‘Quintus imitates, manipulates, comments on, differs from, in sum reads, Homer’, and describing the epic as ‘a demanding text with intricate possibilities for interpretation’. And Maciver is hardly alone in this; various studies in recent years have shown that Quintus’ use of Homer reflects his own values and preoccupations, and those of his society.