This consists properly of three poems, collected in one under the titles Τὰ πρὸ Ὁμήρου, τὰ Ὁμήρου, καὶ τὰ μεθ̓ Ὅμηρον. The first contains the whole Iliac cyclus. from the birth of Paris to the tenth year of the siege. when the begins. The second consists of an abridgment of the . The third, like the work of Quintus Smyrnaeus, is devoted to the occurrences which took place. between the death of Hector and the return of the Greeks. The whole amounts to 1676 lines, and is written in hexameter metre. It is a very dull composition, all the merits that are to be found in which should be ascribed to the earlier poets from whom Tzetzes derived his materials. Our knowledge of this composition is of comparatively recent date. A fragment of one hundred and forty-eight lines, from the Antehomerica, was published by F. Morel, under the title A fragment of twenty lines from the Posthomerica was published by Dodwell in his p. 802. In 1770 G. B. von Schirach published from a manuscript formerly at Augsburg, now at Munich, the whole of the Antehomerica, with the exception of about one hundred and seventy lines, a portion of the Homerica, and the fragment of the Posthomerica which had been published by Dodwell. The missing portion of the Antehomerica, together with the whole of the Posthomerica, was found in a manuscript at Vienna by T. C. Tychsen, who sent a copy of it to F. Jacobs. A copy of a manual script of the Homerica was obtained from England, and a complete edition of the three poems was published by Jacobs in 1793, with a commentary. A more correct edition is that of Immanuel Bekker (Berlin, 1816).

Another extensive work of Tzetzes is that known by the name of , consisting in its present form of 12,661 lines. The name was given to it by the first editor, Nic. Gerbelius, who divided it, without reference to the contents, into thirteen divisions of 1000 lines, the last being incomplete. Tzetzes himself called it βίβλος ἱστορική, and divided it into three πίνακες, as he termed them; the first of which contains one hundred and forty-one narrations, and ends at Chil. 4.1. 466. Hereupon follows an epistle to one Joannes Lachanes, in which the contents of the first table are repeated and accompanied with moral observations. The second πίναξ extends from Chil. 4.1. 781 to Chil. 5.192, and contains twenty-three narratives. The third contains four hundred and ninety-six stories. It consists of six hundred and sixty chapters or divisions, separated into three masses. Its subject-matter is of the most miscellaneous kind, but embraces chiefly mythological and historical narratives, arranged under separate titles, and without any further connection. The following are a few of them, as they occur : Croesus, Midas, Gyges, Codrus, Alcmaeon, the sons of Boreas, Euphorbus, Narcissus, Nireus, Hyacinthus, Orpheus, Amphion, the Sirens, Marsyas, Terpander, Arion, the golden lamb of Atreus, the bull of Minos, the dog of Cephalus, Megacles, Cimon, Aristopatira, the victories of Simonides, Stesichorus, Tyrtaeus, Hannibal, Bucephalus, the clothes of the Sybarite Antisthenes, Xerxes, Cleopatra, the Pharos at Alexandria, Trajanus and his bridge over the Danube, Archimedes, Hercules, &c.

It is an uncritical gossiping book, written in bad Greek in that abominable make-believe of a metre, called political verse (ἡμαζευηένοι στίχοι, Chil. 9.283), of which the following is a sample : -- οἶδας δὲ πάντως ἀκριβῶς πῶς πᾶσαν οἶδα βίβλονἐκ στήθους τε καὶ στόματος οὕτως ἑτοίμως λέγειν,οὐδὲ γὰρ μνημονέστερον τοῦ Τζέτζου θεὸς ἄλλονἄνδρα τῶν πρίν τε καὶ τῶν νῦν ἐζέφηνεν ἐν βίῳ. (Chil. 1.275.)

It is followed by an appendix, in iambics, and some prose epistles. It contains, however, a great deal of curious and valuable information, though, as Heyne has shown, the bulk of it was obtained by Tzetzes at second hand. Fabricins (Bibl. Graec. xi. p. 243, &c.) has a list of above 400 writers quoted by Tzetzes in this work. The author appears to have contemplated a series of such productions, of which this was only the Ἄλφα. Various appendices or scholia to it, and a collection of 107 prose epistles are yet unpublished.

An iambic poem on the education of children is printed in the editions of the Chiliades.

A series of mythical and epic narratives, in 777 political lines, entitled , was discovered by Immanuel Bekker, and published in the 1840.

A versified treatise περὶ μέτρων, and another περὶ διαφορᾶς ποιητῶν (Cramer, Anecd. Oxon. 4.302, &c.; Welcker, Rhein. Mus. 4.393, &c.; Meineke, Com. Gr. ii. p. 1245-1254, v. p. 3).

An equally worthless poem or collection of verses, περὶ Πινδαρικῶν μέτρων (Cramer, Anecd. Paris. 1.59-162).

Some versified scholia on Hermogenes (Cramer, Anecd. Oxon. iv. p. 1-148).

Lines περὶ ῥημάτων αὐθυποτάκτων (Bekker, Anecd. vol. iii. p. 1088-1090).

An ἐξήγησις on the of Homer.

Of the unpublished works of Joannes Tzetzes, the most considerable is :