The Ancient World

“Epic is the master-genre of the ancient world. Wherever and whenever one looks, epics had major roles to play in ancient societies, functions that ranged from historical and political to cultural and didactic and beyond.”

John Miles Foley, introduction, A Companion to Ancient Epic.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Ancient World, Location, Mediterranean, Time Period, Western/Central Asia

Homer, Iliad

Ancient World, Location, Mediterranean, Southern Europe, Time Period, Western Europe, Western/Central Asia

Homer, Odyssey

Ancient World, Location, Mediterranean, Southern Europe, Time Period, Western Europe

“Homer,” The Battle of Frogs and Mice

Ancient World, Location, Mediterranean, Southern Europe, Time Period, Western Europe

Ramayana

Ancient World, India and Southeast Asia, Location, Time Period

Mahabharata

Ancient World, India and Southeast Asia, Location, Time Period

Epic of King Gesar

Ancient World, East Asia, India and Southeast Asia, Location, Tenth to Fourteenth Centuries, Time Period, Western/Central Asia

Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica

Africa, Ancient World, Location, Mediterranean, Time Period

Virgil, Aeneid

Ancient World, Location, Mediterranean, Southern Europe, Time Period, Western Europe

Ovid, Metamorphoses

Ancient World, Location, Mediterranean, Southern Europe, Time Period, Western Europe

Statius, Thebaid

Ancient World, Location, Mediterranean, Southern Europe, Time Period, Western Europe

Statius, Achilleid

Ancient World, Location, Mediterranean, Southern Europe, Time Period, Western Europe

Apollodorus, Library

Ancient World, Location, Mediterranean, Southern Europe, Time Period

The Legend of Darkness

Ancient World, East Asia, Location, Time Period

Popol Wuj

Ancient World, Location, The Americas, The Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century, Time Period

The Epic of Jangar

Ancient World, Location, Northern Asia, Tenth to Fourteenth Centuries, The Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century, The Nineteenth to the Twenty-first Century, Time Period, Western/Central Asia