The Epic Cycle — 8 Trojan War Epics, Only 2 Survive

The Iliad and the Odyssey belonged to a cycle of 8 ancient Greek epics. The other 6 have been lost, with only fragments surviving.

The 8 poems told the full story of the Trojan War in this order:
1. The Cypria — events leading to the war and its first 9 years
2. The Iliad — several weeks during the final year
3. The Aethiopis — Achilles’s final battles
4. The Little Iliad — planning and construction of the Trojan Horse
5. The Sack of Troy — the horse enters Troy, the city falls
6. The Returns — the Greek warriors traveling home
7. The Odyssey — Odysseus’s return to Ithaca
8. The Telegony — Odysseus’s story after the Odyssey

Only the Iliad and the Odyssey survive in full.