ABSTRACT
In the preface to his Love Romances Parthenius offers his stories as suitable subjects for epic or elegiac verse. It is thus clear that the same type of subject was regarded as suitable for either epyllion or narrative elegy. The history of Alexandrian and Roman elegy and the place of narrative in it would in itself be a long and interesting study. It is only necessary here to consider the main points of distinction between a narrative elegy and an epyllion.
