For over 2,000 years, epic poetry was the foremost genre of literature. This most prestigious kind of poetry was also unusually competitive and self-referential. Apollonius of Rhodes imitates and alludes to Homer, Virgil imitates and revises Homer and Apollonius, Ovid and Lucan criticize Virgil's political agenda, and Milton transforms the entire epic tradition. We will consider the differing conceptions of heroism in epics such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica, Virgil's Aeneid, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Lucan's Civil War, and Milton's Paradise Lost.