Indo-European poetic formulas in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D.
Studies of Indo-European poetics have relied heavily on second and first millennia B. C. Vedic and Greek texts. Old Irish and Old English, first attested around 600 A.D., have also been used as providing valuable independent evidence, but little attention has been paid to "late" Sanskrit and Greek texts. Many of these, however, both (1) antedate all of the relevant Celtic or Germanic material and (2) offer crucial supporting evidence for the validity of going into the first millennium A.D. in the discussion of Indo-European poetics.
One example is the connection of Greek himassein "to lash" with a divinity's overcoming a storm god, discussed by Watkins How to Kill a Dragon (1995: 448-459). Although focusing on archaic Greece, Watkins also refers (p. 459) to a "bizarre" group of passages in Nonnus, Dionysiaca . Additionally, there is an important parallel at Nonnus, Paraphrasis of John, 6.88 ( = Gospel according to John 6.23).
Even the hoary correlation of Greek kleos aphthiton with Vedic sravah ... aksitam "fame imperishable" is represented by highly traditional uses of the formula at Gregory of Nazianzus 1313.7 and Cometas, Anth. Gr. 15.40.29 and 57.
Another example is the correlation of Greek menos mega "great spirit" with Vedic mano mahi. Two passages in the Rig-Veda, 1.165.2 and 10.103.9) are in contexts of gods contending against gods, and close parallels appear in a poem from the reign of Hadrian by Julia Balbilla (App. Anth. Gr. 989.7) and in several passages from Quintus of Smyrna.
There is also a parallel usage of derivatives from Indo-European *men- and *meg- in Latin. Examples are magnae ... mentis "great mind" at Silius Italicus, 15.71 and mentis magnitudine "by greatness of mind" in the inscription on the Arch of Constantine (312 A.D.)