This chapter attempts a fuller survey of poetry in the reigns of Hadrian, Pius and Marcus. For epigram it draws on both the Greek Anthology (Pollianus and Ammianus for scoptic; Rufinus and Strato for erotic) and epigraphy (with examples of Iulia Balbilla’s faux-Aeolic elegiacs on one of the Memnon colossi). The section on hexameter poetry highlights the poems of Marcellus of Side (again epigraphic texts play an important role) and of Dionysius Periegetes, with some discussion of Pancrates and only a mention of Oppian’s Halieutica. The final section, on melic poetry, has Mesomedes as its chief exhibit.

Confronts the synchronic model of time which underpins Quintus’ whole interval poetics and approach to Homer. Analyses the key narrative features of time in the poem: pacing, counterfactuals, anachronies and motifs of closure. Proposes that Quintus draws on the two different narrative forms offered by the Iliad and Odyssey and radically recombines them into one. Given the political dimensions attached to these forms, the chapter ultimately suggests the ideological implications of this technique. By merging teleological and open narratives, Quintus creates a positive reading of the ‘inevitability’ and ‘continuity’ associated with the advance of empire, celebrating for imperial Greece the open-ended potential of the closed Homeric text.