Abstract: Quintus' Posthomerica was likely written in the 3rd century c.e. A scholarly consensus has long affiliated this poem with Stoic philosophy, though it was Platonism and Christianity that contended for the minds and souls of 3rd-century intellectuals. This article seeks to expand the philosophical and religious purview of the Posthomerica by considering 3rd-century intellectual trends and focusing above all on the possible influence of (neo-)Platonic thought on the epic. The first section explores the poem's internal ethical template as situated in the confluence between Stoicism and Neoplatonism, focusing particularly on the symbolic mountain of Aretē . The second section examines how the Posthomerica envisions the afterlife, with reference to Neoplatonic and Christian ideas, and with specific attention to Quintus' cave of the Nymphs, which is based on that of Homer's Odyssey but conflated with a historical nekyomanteion .
Fotini Hadjittofi (Mon,) studied this question.