'In requital for one man's sin, all Greece/ shall mourn the empty tombs of ten thousand of its children'.
These lines from a powerful but neglected Greek poem, Lykophron's Alexandra, were admiringly imitated by Virgil.
Priam's beautiful daughter, prophetic Kassandra, foresees her rape in Athena's temple by the hateful Greek Ajax at Troy's fall, and warns of disastrous returns (nostoi) for all the Greek 'heroes'. But Troy will rise again as Rome, founded by Trojan refugees. The Alexandra (also known as Kassandra) narrates Mediterranean foundation myths as failed Greek nostoi, and culminates in 'prophecies-after-the-event' of Roman rule over land and sea. This pseudonymous poem, a generic mix but
closest to tragedy, is an ingeniously constructed masterpiece. It is ascribed to a third-century BCE tragedian, but was probably written c.190, when Rome had defeated Carthaginian Hannibal and was poised to humble the Seleukid king Antiochos III. The Alexandra anticipates, by over two millennia, modern Trojan War
novels which adopt bitterly disillusioned female perspectives.
- ISBN10 0198863349
- ISBN13 9780198863342
- Publish Date 3 November 2022
- Publish Status Forthcoming
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Oxford University Press
- Format Paperback
- Pages 160
- Language English