A) Proclus' Summary of the Cypria, attributed to Stasinus of Cyprus

[1] Zeus, together with Themis, plans the Trojan War.
For Eris, while attending a feast of the gods at the wedding of Peleus, instigates a feud [neikos] among Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite about beauty.
They, by order of Zeus, are led by Hermes to Mount Ida for judgment by Alexandros.
Alexandros judges for Aphrodite, encouraged by a promise of Helen in marriage.
On the advice of Aphrodite, he has ships built.
Helenos prophesies to him about what is going to happen.
Aphrodite tells Aineias [Aeneas] to sail with him.
Then Kassandra foretells the events of the future.
When he gets to Lacedaemonia, Alexandros is entertained as a xenos by the sons of Tyndaros,
[10] and afterwards by Menelaos at Sparta.
Alexandros gives Helen gifts during the feast.
Menelaos sails off to Crete, telling Helen to provide proper hospitality for their xenoi while he is away.
Aphrodite brings Helen and Alexandros together.
After their intercourse, they load up a great many valuables and sail away by night.

B) Proclus' Summary of the Cypria (cont.)

… The expedition gathers at Aulis for the second time.
Agamemnon kills a deer on the hunt and boasts that he surpasses even Artemis.
The goddess gets mênis and holds them back from the voyage by sending them bad weather.
[45] But Kalchas explains the mênis of the goddess and tells them to sacrifice Iphigeneia to Artemis.
They summon her as if for a marriage to Achilles and
are about to sacrifice her.
But Artemis snatches her away and carries her to Tauris
and makes her immortal,
[50] meanwhile placing a deer on the altar instead of the girl.

 

C) Proclus' Summary of the Aithiopis, attributed to Arctinus of Miletus

[1] The Amazon Penthesileia, daughter of Ares and Thracian by birth, comes to Troy as an ally of the Trojans.
In the middle of her aristeia, Achilles kills her
and the Trojans arrange for her funeral.
Thersites, reviling and reproaching Achilles by saying that he loved Penthesileia, is killed by Achilles.
From this a quarrel arises among the Achaeans about Thersites' murder.
After this, Achilles sails to Lesbos, sacrifices to Apollo, Artemis, and Leto
and is purified of the murder by Odysseus.
Now Memnon, son of Eos [Dawn], who owns armor made by Hephaistos, comes to the aid of the Trojans.
Thetis tells her son about the outcome of events concerning Memnon.
[10] When a battle occurs, Antilochos is killed by Memnon
but then Achilles kills Memnon.
At this, Eos asks from Zeus the dispensation of immortality for him [Memnon], and it is granted.
But Achilles, while routing the Trojans and rushing into the citadel, is killed by Paris and Apollo.
When a heated battle starts over the corpse,
[15] Aias [Ajax] picks it up and carries it off to the ships
while Odysseus fights off the Trojans.
Then they hold funeral rites for Antilochos
and lay out Achilles' corpse;
Thetis comes with the Muses and her sisters and makes a lament [thrênos] for her son.
[20] After that, Thetis snatches him off the pyre and
carries him over to the island Leuke.
But the Achaeans heap up his burial mound and hold funeral games
and a quarrel breaks out between Odysseus and Aias over the armor of Achilles.

D) Odyssey 8.488-532: Odysseus said to Demodokos, "Demodokos, there is no one in the world whom I praise with admiration more than I do you. You must have studied under the Muse, Zeus' daughter, and under Apollo, - with such a sense of order [kosmos] do you sing the return of the Achaeans with all their sufferings and adventures. If you were not there yourself, you must have heard it all from some one who was. Now, however, change your song and tell us of the construction [kosmos] of the wooden horse which Epeios made with the assistance of Athena, and which Odysseus got by stratagem into the fort of Troy after freighting it with the men who afterwards sacked the city. If you will sing this tale aright I will tell all the world how magnificently heaven has endowed you."

[499] The bard, inspired by a god, lit up the picture of his story, starting at the point where some of the Argives set fire to their tents and sailed away while others, hidden within the horse, were waiting with Odysseus in the Trojan place of assembly. For the Trojans themselves had drawn the horse into their fortress, and it stood there while they sat in council round it, and were in three minds as to what they should do. Some were for breaking it up then and there; others would have it dragged to the top of the rock on which the fortress stood, and then thrown down the precipice; while yet others were for letting it remain as an offering and propitiation for the gods. And this was how they settled it in the end, for the city was doomed when it took in that horse, within which were all the bravest of the Argives waiting to bring death and destruction on the Trojans. Anon he sang how the sons of the Achaeans issued from the horse, and sacked the town, breaking out from their ambuscade. He sang how they overran the city here and there and ravaged it, and how Odysseus went raging like Ares along with Menelaos to the house of Deiphobos. It was there that the fight raged most furiously, nevertheless by Athena's help he was victorious.

[521] All this he told, but Odysseus was overcome as he heard him, and his cheeks were wet with tears. He wept as a woman weeps when she throws herself on the body of her husband who has fallen before his own city and people, fighting bravely in defense of his home and children. She screams aloud and flings her arms about him as he lies gasping for breath and dying, but her enemies beat her from behind about the back and shoulders, and carry her off into slavery, to a life of labor [ponos] and sorrow, and the beauty fades from her cheeks - even so piteously did Odysseus weep.

E) Odyssey 24.35-95: "Happy [olbios] son of Peleus," answered the ghost [psukhê] of Agamemnon, "for having died at Troy far from Argos, while the bravest of the Trojans and the Achaeans fell round you fighting for your body. There you lay in the whirling clouds of dust, all huge and hugely, heedless now of your chivalry. We fought the whole of the livelong day, nor should we ever have left off if Zeus had not sent a gale to stay us. Then, when we had borne you to the ships out of the fray, we laid you on your bed and cleansed your fair skin with warm water and with ointments. The Danaans tore their hair and wept bitterly round about you. Your mother, when she heard, came with her immortal nymphs from out of the sea, and the sound of a great wailing went forth over the waters so that the Achaeans quaked for fear. They would have fled panic-stricken to their ships had not wise old Nestor whose counsel was ever truest checked them saying, 'Hold, Argives, flee not sons of the Achaeans, this is his mother coming from the sea with her immortal nymphs to view the body of her son.'

[57] "Thus he spoke, and the Achaeans feared no more. The daughters of the old man of the sea stood round you weeping bitterly, and clothed you in immortal raiment. The nine muses also came and lifted up their sweet voices in lament - calling and answering one another; there was not an Argive but wept for pity of the dirge they chanted. Days and nights seven and ten we mourned you, mortals and immortals, but on the eighteenth day we gave you to the flames, and many a fat sheep with many an ox did we slay in sacrifice around you. You were burnt in raiment of the gods, with rich resins and with honey, while heroes, horse and foot, clashed their armor round the pile as you were burning, with the tramp as of a great multitude. But when the flames of heaven had done their work, we gathered your white bones at daybreak and laid them in ointments and in pure wine. Your mother brought us a golden vase to hold them - gift of Bacchus, and work of Hephaistos himself; in this we mingled your bleached bones with those of Patroklos who had gone before you, and separate we enclosed also those of Antilokhos, who had been closer to you than any other of your comrades now that Patroklos was no more.

[80] "Over these the host of the Argives built a noble tomb, on a point jutting out over the open Hellespont, that it might be seen from far out upon the sea by those now living and by them that shall be born hereafter. Your mother begged prizes from the gods, and offered them to be contended for [agôn] by the noblest of the Achaeans. You must have been present at the funeral of many a hero, when the young men gird themselves and make ready to contend for prizes on the death of some great chieftain, but you never saw such prizes as silver-footed Thetis offered in your honor; for the gods loved you well. Thus even in death your kleos, Achilles, has not been lost, and your name lives evermore among all humankind.

 

 

Greek vase paintings frequently depicted scenes that were also narrated in the Epic Cycle. The myths of the Epic Cycle seem to have been even more popular in early Greek art than those narrated in the Iliad and Odyssey. Robin Mitchell-Boyask's Images of the Trojan War Myth contains links to many of these depictions.  

Eos (the Dawn Goddess) holding the body of her son Memnon. The narration of the death of Memnon at the hands of Achilles was narrated in the Aethiopis.