Through the Epic Tradition: Speech and Assemblies in Quintus’ Posthomerica

Abstract This paper explores how Quintus of Smyrna engages with the Homeric poems and the subsequent epic tradition. The paper discusses two scenes from Quintus’ Posthomerica dealing with the dynamics of speech between individuals and a collective body; the first of these scenes (Posthomerica 6.5–95) is primarily indebted to a scene in Iliad 2, and the second one (Posthomerica 1.403–475) has intriguing parallels in Apollonius’ Argonautica and Vergil’s Aeneid. The overall aim of the paper is to illustrate Quintus’ dialogue with multiple models throughout the epic tradition and to draw attention to the way he shapes these models according to his own poetics.