W.'s commentary on the Trojan War poems of the Epic Cycle is a welcome resource. A generation of Cycle scholars have benefited from the wealth of information in Bernabé's edition (Poetae Epici Graeci, vol. 1 [1986]) and the sensible guidance of Davies's introductory book (The Epic Cycle [1989]), but W. fills a gap with this first full commentary on the most widely studied section of the Cycle. (W.'s Greek Epic Fragments [2003] is another important resource, which serves as the foundation of this commentary. We can also look forward to the imminent publication of M. Davies, The Theban Epics [2014].)

Before proceeding to a close reading of the fragments, a ‘Prolegomena’ establishes their context, with such topics as the epitome of the Trojan epics by Proclus, the development of the Cycle, the ascriptions of authorship of Cyclic poems and the reception in antiquity of these epics. Later chapters discuss the Trojan poems in turn. These are introduced by concise discussions of each epic's title, attestation, scope, ‘economy’ (arrangement of material), characterisation and dating; further introductory sections are sometimes added for particular poems. Then comes commentary on the fragments, keyed to W.'s Loeb edition, and organised under subheadings. The Proclus summary of each poem is broken up and placed within these sections.

As one might expect, W.'s commentary displays expertise on a wide range of material. A good case is made for Proclus not being the fifth-century Neoplatonist by careful analysis of the evidence of Photius concerning the Chrestomathy. A second-century Proclus is preferred, though even an epitome of such a date is argued to derive ultimately from the Hellenistic period. W. does affirm that the information in the Proclus summary is trustworthy, except for the scope indicated of the original Cycle poems. Fragments and testimony are carefully and dependably explicated, as are titles and ascriptions of authorship. It is argued that the ascriptions provided by Proclus, if selective, stem from early evidence (except for ‘Kyprias’). The reader is well informed about comparanda such as Apollodorus and the Tabulae Iliacae, as well as relevant poetic and mythological motifs. With characteristic independence, W. does not hesitate to express his admiration for some aspects of the Epic Cycle, such as the verse of Cypria fragments or the plotting of the Iliou Persis. A final excursus on the death of Odysseus is not deterred by the mistaken consensus that death ex halos in Tiresias' prophecy should mean death ‘away from the sea’.

But here and elsewhere W. tends to pursue the argument as far as he can take it. Some will find unsettling the recurring reconstruction of the lost epics by inventive summary, dialogue or even verse (though I take these as helpful aids to his analysis). Also bold is W.'s tracing of the Cycle's development, which entails early Archaic Age Einzellieder in a ‘loose cycle’ of thematically related material, later epics of the sixth century written to fill in gaps between established epics (notably the Homeric poems) and the eventual conception of the ‘Cycle’ in the Hellenistic Age. This W. attributes to a certain Phayllos, who is connected by Aristotle to a kuklos of a summary nature. Phayllos does not create a verse Cycle, but rather publicises a ‘protocol’ that guided readers through a sequence of connected epics. But Phayllos also created an epitome, with much of the redundancy of the poems truncated, that leads eventually to what we find in Proclus.

This brief summary of the argument is unfair, as summaries are, but most scholars of the Cycle will readily find something here with which to disagree. I cannot share W.'s optimism in the ability of a handful of early written poems to codify the continuity of the Trojan War. Nor do I share W.'s belief, argued extensively in previous publications, that the Aethiopis or its prototype(s) introduced Memnon to the world after the Iliad's composition but in time to influence the Odyssey (and Alcman, Stesichorus, Pindar, not to mention vase painters and supposed additions to the Theogony). The position that the Proclus summary truncates the endings but not beginnings of Cycle poems depends also on some strained argumentation about the nature of a few Cycle poems. As for Phayllos, he may have played some role in the construction of the concept of the Epic Cycle, but the evidence is vanishingly minimal. What is implausible is that his actions would be so centrally original and unique. The argument is an example of an often positivistic desire to provide tidy explanations. It could be argued, however, that it is useful to have a very well informed scholar hypothesise about the nature of the Cycle on the basis of the evidence that we have. It is just what one does not find in the dry and often bewildering collection of data in an edition, and the cautious reader can choose where to follow the proffered narrative or not.

I have more trouble with the lack of a coherent theory behind the arguments. The definition and description of what is ‘cyclic’ often seems outmoded. Here one notices, as with W.'s recent book on the Iliad (The Making of the Iliad [2012]), that works of a hundred or two hundred years ago dominate the bibliography. One could imagine how the learned scholars of yesteryear could be updated, perhaps with exploration of the intersection of literacy and orality in the late Archaic Age. But the citations employed can seem arbitrary, usually putting forward brief remarks of older scholars as worthy of notice. Yet I do not feel my understanding of the Little Iliad or Telegony is advanced by Severyns's contemptuous rhetoric, nor am I prepared to believe that an Amazonis was attached to the Iliad on Bethe's say-so. One does not come away with a fuller sense of how these great scholars of the Cycle conceptualised the Epic Cycle, and how this may vary from modern methodologies.

So W.'s commentary does not completely displace other reference works on the Cycle, or the many interpretative analyses of the Cycle, largely ignored here, that have blossomed in recent years. That said, there is no denying the importance of this commentary. It organises an extraordinary amount of information concerning difficult and complex matters in an efficient and informative manner (a detailed index is of value, as well). All future discussions of the Trojan War section of the Epic Cycle will need to be informed by this work.