Lucian De saltatione 46

[46] For we must recognise that there is a connecting bond between Spartan story and that of Troy, which is copious and full of parts to play; in fact, for each person who fell there, a drama offers itself to the theatre. These themes must be kept in mind above all others, from the time of the rape straight through to what happened in the “Home-farings,” with the wandering of Aeneas and the love of Dido. ¹

The dramas that centre upon Orestes, including that hero’s adventures in Scythia, are not alien to all this; and what went before is not incongruous, either, but akin to the story of Troy—the virgin life of Achilles in Scyros, the madness of Odysseus, the marooning of Philoctetes, and, in general, the whole wandering of Odysseus, including Circe, Telegonus, ² Aeolus’ sway over the winds, and all the rest of it, to the punishment of the suitors. Also, preceding this, the plot against Palamedes, and the wrath of Nauplius, the madness of Ajax, and the death of the other Ajax among the rocks.

[46] For the Spartan mythology must be held to include that of Troy, in all its abundance and variety. Of all who fell at Troy, not one but supplies a subject for the stage; and all—from the rape of Helen to the return of the Greeks—must ever be borne in mind: the wanderings of Aeneas, the love of Dido; and side by side with this the story of Orestes, and his daring deeds in Scythia. And there are earlier episodes which will not be out of place; they are all connected with the tale of Troy: such are the seclusion of Achilles in Scyrus, the madness of Odysseus, the solitude of Philoctetes, with the whole story of Odysseus’s wanderings, of Circe and Telegonus, of Aeolus, controller of the winds, down to the vengeance wreaked upon the suitors of Penelope; and, earlier, Odysseus’s plot against Palamedes, the resentment of Nauplius, the frenzy of the one Ajax, the destruction of the other on the rocks.