Epic fragments

The epic poems of antiquity that have survived to the present day in their complete form constitute only a small part of what originally was composed. In many cases, we only know the titles and/or have synopses of the numerous epics which are now lost, or we only have sparse fragments consisting of as little as single words or lines that were cited by grammarians and antiquarians, generally without much context. Fragments and summaries are therefore rarely sufficient to allow coherent propositions on structural elements and narrative patterns. In this chapter, several questions will be addressed that arise from the seemingly inescapable conflict between the fragmentary state of the poems in question and a narratological approach: is it possible to find recurrent structural elements and narrative patterns in epic fragments? Which methodological requirements could plausibly be useful with respect to analysing fragments along those lines? And, what additional value can be gained from such an analysis? To this end, a selection of important fragments from ancient epic is analysed and discussed. The first main section of the chapter addresses Greek epic (esp. the so-called Epic Cycle, Panyassis’ Heraclea, and Callimachus’ Hecale); the second part is devoted to Latin epic (esp. Livius Andronicus’ Odusia, Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum, and Ennius’ Annales).