Hesiodus
Hesiod
The poet of gods and farmers
b. c. 700 BC
Hesiod lived around 700 BC in the village of Ascra in Boeotia, which he famously described as 'wretched in winter, oppressive in summer, good at no time.' His father had emigrated from Cyme in Aeolia, across the Aegean, after failing in trade. Hesiod was a farmer and shepherd who received the gift of song from the Muses on Mount Helicon — or so he tells us in the prologue to the Theogony.
Two major works survive complete. The Theogony tells the origin story of the gods — from Chaos through the generations of Titans to the rise of Zeus and the establishment of the Olympian order. It is the earliest systematic Greek cosmogony and theology, and it shaped all subsequent Greek thinking about the divine. Works and Days is addressed to Hesiod's brother Perses, who cheated him of his inheritance, and mixes practical farming advice with moral instruction, mythological narrative (including the stories of Prometheus and Pandora), and a farmer's calendar. The Shield of Heracles, attributed to Hesiod in antiquity, is probably by a later poet.
Hesiod is the other voice of early Greek epic — earthier, more personal, and more concerned with justice and hard work than Homer's aristocratic warriors. His influence on Virgil's Georgics and the entire tradition of didactic poetry was immense.
Works (3)
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1
Shield of Heracles prose
Heracles fights the monster Cycnus, son of Ares. The poem is famous less for the battle than for its centrepiece: a detailed description of Heracles'...
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3
Works and Days prose
Advice from a poet to his lazy brother. How to farm, when to sail, which days are lucky. Embedded in the practical wisdom is the myth of Prometheus, P...