He never attempts to make the whole war of Troy the subjebsp;of his poem, though that war had a beginning and an end.
It would have been too vast a theme, and not easily embrabsp;in a single view.
If, again, he had kept it within moderate limits, it must have been over-plicated by the variety of the is.
As it is, he detaches a single portion, and admits as episodes many events from the general story of the war—subsp;as the Catalogue of the ships and others—thus diversifying the poem.
All other poets take a single hero, a single period, or an a single indeed, but with a multiplicity of parts.
Thus did the author of the Cypria and of the Little Iliad.
For this reason the Iliad and the Odysy eabsp;furnish the subjebsp;of one tragedy, or, at most, of two; while the Cypria supplies materials for many, and the Little Iliad for eight—the Award of the Arms, the Philoctetes, the olemus, the Eurypylus, the Mendit Odysus, the Laian Women, the Fall of Ilium, the Departure of the Fleet.
He never attempts to make the whole war of Troy the subjebsp;of his poem, though that war had a beginning and an end.