Brewer's: Cyclic Poets

Inferior epic poets. On the death of Homer a host of minstrels caught the contagion of his poems, and wrote continuations, illustrations, or additions thereto. These poets were called cyclic because they confined themselves to the cycle of the Trojan war. The chief were Agias, Arctinos, Eugamon, Lesches, and Strasinos.

“Besides the Homeric poems, the Greeks of this age possessed those of the poets named Cyclic as they sang a traditional cycle of events ” —Keightley: Greece, part i chap.xiv. p. 150.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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