Panteleius is an epic fragment printed in the standard Göttingen collection of Greek poetical fragments of the Roman Imperial period (pp. 81–82) and dated to about the fifth century CE. A speaker addresses empty toil and fruitless war: what shall we say to our king? “King, why send me against immortal warriors? We strike, they do not fall; we wound, they do not fear. One man has spoiled the whole army; in the midst stands a bloody image of untiring Ares, like a tree under iron blows that will not fall, and soon he comes inside the ships.” A second line: “Loose, helmsman — let us flee the threats of the corpse.”
The scene is a bronze or statue-warrior that will not die, and a ship trying to get away from a corpse’s menace.
The evidence is the fragment itself: late-antique epic spectacle.
Available Works
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