These four poems rounded off the story of the "Iliad", and it only
remained to connect this enlarged version with the "Odyssey". This was
done by means of the "Returns", a poem in five books ascribed to Agias
or Hegias of Troezen, which begins where the "Sack of Troy" ends. It
told of the dispute between Agamemnon and Menelaus, the departure from
Troy of Menelaus, the fortunes of the lesser heroes, the return and
tragic death of Agamemnon, and the vengeance of Orestes on Aegisthus.
The story ends with the return home of Menelaus, which brings the
general narrative up to the beginning of the "Odyssey".

But the "Odyssey" itself left much untold: what, for example, happened
in Ithaca after the slaying of the suitors, and what was the ultimate
fate of Odysseus? The answer to these questions was supplied by the
"Telegony", a poem in two books by Eugammon of Cyrene (fl. 568 B.C.).
It told of the adventures of Odysseus in Thesprotis after the killing
of the Suitors, of his return to Ithaca, and his death at the hands
of Telegonus, his son by Circe. The epic ended by disposing of the
surviving personages in a double marriage, Telemachus wedding Circe, and
Telegonus Penelope.

The end of the Cycle marks also the end of the Heroic Age.

The Homeric Hymns

The collection of thirty-three Hymns, ascribed to Homer, is the last
considerable work of the Epic School, and seems, on the whole, to be
later than the Cyclic poems. It cannot be definitely assigned either
to the Ionian or Continental schools, for while the romantic element is
very strong, there is a distinct genealogical interest; and in matters
of diction and style the influences of both Hesiod and Homer are
well-marked. The date of the formation of the collection as such is
unknown. Diodorus Siculus (temp. Augustus) is the first to mention
such a body of poetry, and it is likely enough that this is, at least
substantially, the one which has come down to us. Thucydides quotes the
Delian "Hymn to Apollo", and it is possible that the Homeric corpus of
his day also contained other of the more important hymns. Conceivably
the collection was arranged in the Alexandrine period.

Thucydides, in quoting the "Hymn to Apollo", calls it PROOIMION, which
ordinarily means a 'prelude' chanted by a rhapsode before recitation of
a lay from Homer, and such hymns as Nos. vi, xxxi, xxxii, are
clearly preludes in the strict sense; in No. xxxi, for example, after
celebrating Helios