This collection of essays, written by former pupils, celebrates the career of Jasper Griffin, one of the foremost modern scholars of classical epic. The volume surveys the epic tradition from the eighth century BC to the nineteenth century of our era. Individual chapters focus on: Homer and the oral epic tradition; Homer in his religious context; Herodotus and Homer; Hellenistic epic; Virgil in his literary context; Virgil in his political-cultural context; the Augustan poets and the Aeneid; Statius' Thebaid; Old English and Old Irish epic; Renaissance epic: Tasso and Milton; and the...