What is "epyllion"

n. 1 (context literary English) a "little epic". 2 (context literary English) A brief narrative poem with a romantic or mythological theme.

thumb|A sleeping Ariadne's abandonment by Theseus is the topic of an elaborate ecphrasis in Catullus 64, the most famous extant epyllion. (Roman copy of a 2nd-century BCE Greek original; Villa Corsini.) In classical studies the term epyllion ( Ancient Greek: , plural: , epyllia) refers to a comparatively short narrative poem (or discrete episode within a longer work) that shows formal affinities with epic, but betrays a preoccupation with themes and poetic techniques that are not generally or, at least, primarily characteristic of epic proper.