A long narrative poem celebrating the great deeds of one or more legendary heroes, in a grand ceremonious style. The hero, usually protected by or even descended from gods, performs superhuman exploits in battle or in marvellous voyages, often saving or founding a nation-as in Virgil's Aeneid ( 30 - 20 bce)-or the human race itself, in Milton's Paradise Lost (1667). 

They adopted many of the conventions of Homer's work, including the invocation of a muse, the use of epithets, the listing of heroes and combatants, and the beginning in medias res.