A catalogue of fallen gods dominates the opening book of Milton's Paradise Lost. The footnote informed me that a catalogue of such things was an epic convention which made me wonder at Milton's use of and derivations from epic conventions. The foremost of which in Book One is this catalogue of fallen demons with the names of Pagan gods. This does not serve as any sort of movement or action but seems to be an extended exposition that seeks to convey the massive amount of force at Satan's command and by extension the might of God who defeated this force. The only seemingly important secondary character listed is Beezelbub for he speaks with Satan early in the book. Milton begins the book with a theme/invocation and an opening question; both epic conventions. Milton uses the invocation to explain the feat he is attempting to achieve with Paradise Lost and the question to bring about how his subject, the fall of man, relates to his goal. Which thus leads us into the explanation of Satan's awakening in Hell for "he it was, whose guile...decieved the mother of mankind." After reading the entire first book the direction of the story was easily forgotten and reviewing the first 26 lines helped me put the voluminous descriptions in perspective. The first book utilizes epic conventions and sweeping descriptions to set the stage for... a meeting. A meeting of demons and fallen gods no less, but still not the typical occurence in an epic poem. Another seemingly lacking area in epic convention is that their is no clear hero. Perhaps conventional sentiments towards Satan make me reluctant to call him a hero but then again most epic heroes do not begin their journey/battle with a great host packaged and ready. If Satan is to be a "hero" of the epic then it is unclear even from an unbiased standpoint. And that at the very least is a derivation from epic convention.