Tryphiodorus fl. 3rd or 4th century, was an epic poet native to Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

. His only surviving work is The Taking of Ilios, in 691 verses. Other recorded titles include Marathoniaca and The Story of Hippodamea.

His style is partway between that of Nonnus

Nonnus

Nonnus of Panopolis , was a Greek epic poet. He was a native of Panopolis in the Egyptian Thebaid, and probably lived at the end of the 4th or early 5th century....

 and Quintus Smyrnaeus

Quintus Smyrnaeus

Quintus Smyrnaeus, also known as Kointos Smyrnaios , was a Greek epic poet whose Posthomerica, following "after Homer" continues the narration of the Trojan War....

.

Life

There is little known about the life of Tryphiodorus other than the notice of him in the Greek lexicon or encyclopedia the Suidas. There are no records of Tryphiodorus' grammatical labours, he is only known as a versifier. The Suidas indicates the he was from Egypt. The Suidas explains that Tryphiodorus is of Egypt and that he was a grammarian and epic poet. It is believed that Tryphiodorus was a Christian based on a phrase on verse 604 of his famous poem The Taking of Ilios. It is thought that Tryphiodorus got his name from the Egyptian goddess Triphis or Thriphis. Although it is not known it is believed that Tryphiodorus lived to around the middle of the 5th century and the reason for this was because he imitated Nonnus who died around the end of the 4th century and was believed to be imitated by Colluthus. Despite the copy of his poem The Taking of Ilios and the knowledge of other works that he has been thought to have written; these other works have been lost and there is no other information about Tryphiodorus' life or background.

The Taking of Ilios

Tryphiodorus' only extant work is The Taking of Ilios. Despite the similarities The Taking of Ilios is an independent poem and not like Quintus Smyrnaeus

Quintus Smyrnaeus

Quintus Smyrnaeus, also known as Kointos Smyrnaios , was a Greek epic poet whose Posthomerica, following "after Homer" continues the narration of the Trojan War....

' continuation of the Iliad. The Taking of Ilios, a 691-verse epic poem, details the capture of Troy. The poem begins after the death of Hector, with the building of the Trojan Horse

Trojan Horse

The Trojan Horse is a tale from the Trojan War about the stratagem that allowed the Greeks finally to enter the city of Troy and end the conflict. In the canonical version, after a fruitless 10-year siege, the Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse, and hid a select force of men inside...

. Tryphiodorus lists the heroes that entered the wooden horse, including Odysseus

Odysseus

Odysseus or Ulysses was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....

 and Anticlus son of Ortyx

Anticlus

In Greek mythology, Anticlus , son of Ortyx, was one of the Greek warriors who hid inside the Trojan Horse during the siege of Troy....

, and tells how, when Helen circled the horse calling the names of the Greeks' wives, Odysseus had to strangle Anticlus in order to prevent his calling out. Tryphiodorus also explains the relationship between Athene and Helen.

"The Achaeans poured the blood of Polyxena over the tomb of dead Achilles to propitiate his wrath, and took each his lot of Trojan women and divided all their other spoil, both gold and silver: wherewith they loaded their deep ships and through the booming sea set sail from Troy, having made and end of the war."

The Taking of Ilios

The Taking of Ilios ends with a description of Neoptolemus

Neoptolemus

Neoptolemus was the son of the warrior Achilles and the princess Deidamia in Greek mythology. Achilles' mother foretold many years before Achilles' birth that there would be a great war. She saw that her only son was to die if he fought in the war...

' sacrifice of Polyxena

Polyxena

In Greek mythology, Polyxena was the youngest daughter of King Priam of Troy and his queen, Hecuba. She is considered the Trojan version of Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Polyxena is not in Homer's Iliad, appearing in works by later poets, perhaps to add romance to Homer's...

 at the tomb of Achilles because they were in love. It is believed that Tryphiodorus' language in The Taking of Ilios is imitated by Nonnus

Nonnus

Nonnus of Panopolis , was a Greek epic poet. He was a native of Panopolis in the Egyptian Thebaid, and probably lived at the end of the 4th or early 5th century....

. Although no other of Tryphiodorus' works have lasted the test of time, The Taking of Ilios has been considered an epic poem of importance and has been translated from Greek to Latin, English, French, and German.

Other works

Unfortunately Tryphiodorus only had one piece of work survive over time and that was The Taking of Ilios. Two works that are known to have been lost are Marathoniaca and The Story of Hippodameia. Tryphiodorus was also said to have written an Odyssey leipogrammatos

Lipogram

A lipogram is a kind of constrained writing or word game consisting of writing paragraphs or longer works in which a particular letter or group of letters is avoided — usually a common vowel, and frequently "E", the most common letter in the English language.Writing a lipogram is a trivial task...

, a poem about the travels of Odysseus. In addition to those lost works of Tryphiodorus, he was known to have written a paraphrase of similes of Homer.

Impact and contribution

Tryphiodorus' impact and historical contribution may not be as large as one might think and this is because only one of his works remains for us to analyze. Tryphiodorus influenced Colluthus, as can be seen in his famous poem The Rape of Helen. As Tryphiodorus in The Taking of Ilios and Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

 in his Aeneid

Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...

disagree on the identity of Sinon (Tryphiodorus describing Sinon as a much more primitive figure in his poem than Virgil does in his poem.), historians have asked whether Tryphiodorus used a second Aeneid as a source for his epic poem.

External links

• The Taking of Ilios in English