Nonnus, Quintus and the Sack of Troy

In book 40 of the Dionysiaca, Nonnus brings his detailed and highly imaginative rescripting of the Trojan War to an end. Nonnus was an Egyptian poet writing in Greek under the later Roman Empire (mid-late fifth century A.D.). His 48 book epic, the Dionysiaca, charts the struggles of Dionysus to earn a place for himself in heaven. It begins before his birth with the story of his grandfather Cadmus and concludes with his triumphant entry into heaven in book 48.1 Following a sevenyear siege, an unnamed city in Indian territory falls at last into the hands of Dionysus. The pivotal moment in the fall of the city is the death of the great Indian warrior Deriades – a scene that closely mirrors the death of Hector in Iliad 22: