Lycophron

Cadmus fighting the dragon — Lycophron, Alexandra, cum Graecis Isaacii Tzetzis Commentariis (Oxford, 1697).

Lycophron's Alexandra is a deliberately obscure poem that is presented as being the prophetic speech of Cassandra. Among the events Cassandra prophecises is the fall of Troy.

Cassandra does not mention Laocoön by name but the Byzantine scholar John Tzetzes (12th century CE) read the following lines of Lycophron's poem as an allusion to his fate, and as connecting his fate to the fate of Troy:

[the] son of Sisyphus [Sinon], lights his evil beacon for them who sailed away to narrow Leucophrys [renamed Tenedos] and the two islands of child-devouring Porceus.^[note]

Porceus and Chariboea are the names of the snakes which came from Kalydnai and killed Laocoön and his sons.^{[note 2]}

Note 1. Lycophron, Alexandra, lines 444–478, in Callimachus, 'Hymns and Epigrams', Lycophron, Aratus, translated by A. W. Mair and G. R. Mair (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1955), pp. 348–349. DOI: 10.4159/DLCL.lycophron-alexandra.1921. [back to text]

Note 2. See entry for Sophocles. [back to text]

Resources available

Arctinus (8th century BCE)

Bacchylides (6th century BCE)

Sophocles (5th century BCE)

Vase fragments (5th or 4th century BCE)

Clay cups (5th or 4th century BCE)

Etruscan scarab (c. 400 BCE)

Apulian terracotta vase (c. 375 BCE)

Euphorion (3rd century BCE)

Lycophron (3rd and 2nd century BCE)

Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus (the famous statue, 2nd – 1st century BCE)

Virgil (70–19 BCE)

Hyginus (c. 64 BCE – 17 CE)

Petronius (c. 50 CE)

Pompeiian wall paintings (before 79 CE)

Pseudo Apollodorus (1st or 2nd century CE)

Lezoux vases and fragments (2nd or 3rd century CE)

Quintus Smyrnaeus (3rd century CE)

Servius (late 4th to early 5th century CE)

More resources coming soon!