Quintus Smyrnaeus

Quintus Smyrnaeus (also called Quintus of Smyrna) was a Greek epic poet of the later Roman Empire, probably writing in the 4th century AD. His name suggests a link with Smyrna in Asia Minor; he says in his poem that he tended sheep there as a young man before the Muses taught him to sing.

His one surviving work is the Posthomerica, or The Fall of Troy, fourteen books of hexameter verse that carry the story on from the end of Homer's Iliad to the sack of Troy and the Greeks' departure. It imitates Homer's language and similes closely, and it was largely neglected until a manuscript was found in southern Italy in the 15th century.