1. Biography

The biographical evidence we have on Hesiod originates from information the poet himself provides in his two main works: in the Theogony (23), we learn his name: “And one day they taught Hesiod glorious song while he was shepherding his lambs under holy Helicon, and this word first the goddesses said to me”. In the Works and Days (636-640), the poet informs us that his father, who originated from Cyme in Asia Minor, migrated to Ascra, a “miserable hamlet” in Boeotia, which is “bad in winter, sultry in summer, and good at no time”. He describes himself as a farmer; he has a brother, Perses, with whom he has financial disagreements and to whom this work is addressed (WD 35-37: “let us settle our dispute here with true judgement, […]. For we had already divided our inheritance […]”). He also informs us that he has won a poetry contest in Chalcis held for the funerary games in honour of Amphidamas, a Chalcidean aristocrat (WD 654-657) killed in the Lelantine War (c. 710 - mid 7th cent. BC). These are all the direct information the poet intimates about himself.

Later sources relate his death and identify his burial place. Thucydides (460-398 BC) knew his tomb was located in the Nemeion of Ozolian Locris (3.96), while Pausanias (2nd cent. AD) places it in Orchomenus, together with the so-called Treasury of Minyas (9.38, 2-4). Over the centuries, various legends came to surround the poet’s death; these could be summarized in the following synthetic account:

An oracle warned Hesiod to avoid the grove of Nemean Zeus. The poet tried to avoid Nemea of Peloponnesus and reached the city of Oenoe in Ozolian Locris, where he seduced the daughter of his host. Her brothers lured Hesiod to a place close to the sanctuary of Nemean Zeus, where they killed him and then dumped his body in the sea. The murderers escaped, but dolphins carried Hesiod's body to the area of Rio near Patras, called Molycria (close to modern Antirio). The Locrians at that time of the year celebrated in Molycria the Rieia festival in honour of Poseidon. As soon as they found the poet’s body, they decided to pursue the murderers and, with the help of Hesiod's dog, they discovered them, killed them and dumped them in the sea. The poet was buried close to the Nemeion, but the locals kept the grave’s precise location secret, to prevent his ashes from being relocated to Orchomenus. The citizens of Orchomenus, aided by a Delphic oracle, found the spot and proceeded to translate his remains.

A number of philologists have doubted the historicity of Hesiod as a person; some even argue for the existence of a number of ‘Hesiods’. According to this view, ‘Hesiod’ should be interpreted as a collective name, a persona behind whose mask a number of historical poets are to be found. For those who subscribe to this view, the information that has come down to us belongs to a biographical tradition, in which an allegorical typology is employed to reinforce the status of the subject of the biography. This is also the context of the information surrounding Hesiod’s death and the citation of his name together with Homer, as handed down in the sources. These objections are also connected with the analysis of Hesiod’s oeuvre.

2. Hesiod’s oeuvre

In ancient times, fifteen works were attributed to Hesiod: the Theogony, the Works and Days, the Shield of Heracles, the Catalogue of Women or Ehoiai, Greater Ehoiai, Wedding of a Ceyx, Melampodia, Descent of Perithous, Idaean Dactyls, Precepts of Chiron, Greater Works,Astronomy, Aegimius, Kiln or Potters, Ornithomanteia, Dirge for Batrachus.

Nowadays, modern scholarship considers as undoubtedly Hesiodic only the Theogony and the Works and Days.

2.1. The Theogony

2.1.1. Content

The work opens with a hymn and an invocation to the Muses (1-115), where the poet exalts them for their powers and informs us how they have contributed to the making of this work: they have taught Hesiod how to sing and “and gave me a rod […], and breathed into me a divine voice to celebrate things that shall be and things there were aforetime; and they bade me sing of the race of the blessed gods that are eternally, but ever to sing of themselves both first and last.” (30-4).

There follows an account of the creation of the world and the succession of gods (116-962). In there he provides a description of the theological status quo and relates how it came to be. He classifies approximately 300 gods according to their genealogies, while the narrative is punctuated by a number of stories of greater or smaller pertinence.

The Creation itself is not explained: Chaos was simply born, followed by Gaia, Tartarus and Eros. Chaos gave birth to Erebus and Nyx (Night), who produced Aether and Hemera (Day). Gaia gave birth to Uranus, the mountains and the sea. At this point, the creation encompasses three lines of succession: they begin with Nyx, Gaia and Uranus and, finally, Pontus (Sea). The genealogical line originating with Gaia and Uranus leads, through the generations of Titans and Cronus, to Zeus. This genealogical account is interrupted by the Hymn to Hecate and the legend of Prometheus and Pandora.

The work ends (963-1022) with a second preamble, the narrative describing the unions between goddesses and mortals, and a third preamble.

2.1.2. The poet’s intentions

The genealogies in this work aim at explaining the relations between deities. The poet’s goal is to organize the gods into family groups and correlate these families to specific myths. The pattern of the tree is modelled after human family trees. A distinctive characteristic is the emphasis placed on the matrilineal descent.

Hesiod’s Theogony belongs to a time-honoured tradition of Oriental theogonies through which humans sought to interpret their world, and which follow a comparable pattern: the gods come to be, they impose their supremacy after a series of struggles leading up to the establishment of a final divine order, which still applies at the point of time the work is composed.

2.2. Works and Days

2.2.1. Content

The work can be divided into two parts: the first part is devoted to exhortations, mainly of a moral import, addressed to Hesiod’s brother, Perses. The second part contains information on farming and sailing, and a catalogue of the suitable days in each month for carrying out specific activities.

Hesiod employs a variety of means that help him achieve his goal: maxims, myths, parables, to name but a few. A few passages stand out in this work, and deserve special mention:
• The two ‘faces’ of Eris (Strife) (11-46): There is a good (agathe) and a bad Eris, both daughters of Nyx. The firstborn, the good Eris, is beneficial competition, while the second-born, the bad Eris, is destructive feud.
• The five ages of humans (106-201): The Age of Gold, the Age of Silver, the Age of Bronze, the Age of Heroes and the Age of Iron, which is the age of the poet.
• The details of agricultural life, which allow us to draw conclusions on the lifestyle and daily toils of an agrarian community.

2.2.2. The poet’s intentions

Hesiod wants to convince his brother to abandon the destructive feud he and Hesiod have become entangled in, and instead make the most of the spirit of competition that will guide him towards a life of honest work in the farm. Therefore, one could claim that two of the work’s main themes are justice and work.

Hesiod also employs this context to expound his views on life, which is an admixture of the positive and the negative. The work as a whole is informed by the coexistence of good and evil, present in all important aspects of human life, on a microscopic as well as on a macroscopic level.

This poem too belongs to a long tradition of similar Oriental works. In this case, however, there is a number of significant differences; most importantly, in the other works the notion of the Ages (they do not feature an Age of Heroes) is by and large used to predict the future, while in Hesiod it is employed to organize the past.

2.3. Philological research

The Hesiodic oeuvre has been exhaustively studied, giving rise to a number of views and approaches. Some proceed from the claim that Hesiod’s works represent simple compilations of pre-existing Oriental material; others doubt the authenticity of a number of verses, the authorship of the works, even the unity of each poem. On the other end of the spectrum, there are scholars who believe these works are the original products of a historical person called Hesiod, which are perfectly cohesive and thoroughly Greek. One could adduce a number of arguments for and against each view.

In our opinion, the view that Hesiod was a historical person and author of the two celebrated works is more compelling; Hesiod can also be said to have composed in the context of a formulaic oral poetry tradition, which he committed to writing. He is also the first European poet to introduce himself in his work and takes on a special role. In the Theogony he follows a genealogical line, which in itself constitutes a kind of narrative thread, assimilating Greek and Oriental elements. In the Works and Days we should recognize the earliest attempt to compile a large-scale work outside the safety of a traditional narrative line.

2.3. Hesiod in his historical context

Ascra was located on the southern slopes of Mt Helicon, close to Thespiae. The area was inhabited since the Bronze Age, yet its heyday occurred in the Archaic and Classical periods. If we accept the epics were composed sometime between 750 and 650 BC, this would place us on the tidemark of the transition from the Geometric to the Archaic period. This is the era of the "Greek Rennaisance".

Archaeological evidence testifies to a population increase in Boeotia, which engendered a number of changes in social structures. The scarcity of arable land was a huge problem, causing feuds between neighbouring cities and among citizens within cities; this provided an impetus for the colonization of Asia Minor, the Western Mediterranean and, to a lesser degree, the Black Sea. Contacts between the Greeks and the peoples of the East facilitated cultural exchanges, most important of which was the technology of writing. At the same time, the fame of the great Pan-Hellenic sanctuaries grew, and according to tradition, by 776 BC the first Olympic Games were held. The sanctuary of Olympia emerged as a meeting place for all Greek populations, allowing cognisance of the similarities and differences between the various tribes. The Homeric epics helped cultivate an awareness of a common descent line for all Greeks that could be traced back to the same heroic ancestors. In the same period certain divinities begun being worshiped throughout Greece and practices and beliefs pertaining to their attributes, their symbols and the relationships between them started spreading everywhere.

By the mid-8th cent. BC a new type of political organisation had emerged, the city-state, in which aristocrats relying on their landed wealth and the throngs of people under their immediate control gradually started curtailing kingly powers, arrogated a number of functions to themselves and in a relatively short period of time came to dominate public life. Among else, they were responsible for the dispensation of justice as they were versed into the themista, i.e. the unwritten precepts which were the cornerstone of internal discipline and constituted principles of natural law. They were also empowered to resolve disputes over property rights and the discharge of specific duties, and oversaw the awarding of honours and punishments.

2.5. Appraisal of Hesiod’s work

According to Herodotus, “Hesiod and Homer are the ones who taught the Greeks the descent of the gods, and gave the gods their names, and determined their spheres and functions, and described their outward forms.” (Hdt. 2.53.2-3).
Already in the time of Herodotus people were convinced these two epic poets were responsible for the genealogy of the gods, and assigned to them their names and attributes. Irrespective of the manner in which the Theogony came to be, the poet’s effort to create a hierarchical order out of the disorderly chaos that prevailed in the world of the gods is evident.

The Works and Days presents its audience with a consistent system of values and institutions, which express a rural society. In this context we should dwell on the poet’s interest in the subject of justice, which is understandable if we consider the societal conditions of his era. The agonistic ideal, a Homeric value, is also an important element, although its requirements have changed: the possession of wealth (here almost synonymous to the ownership of land) establishes every person’s honour, and to this end each man should strive to achieve more than his neighbour (this is the ‘good Eris’). A second element is the quest for self-sufficiency, which is premised on financial independence, and inescapably leads to individualism.

As a conclusion, we can see that Hesiod addresses a body politic whose actions are governed by expectations (theory of expectation). Therefore, the principles figuring in his work, Justice, good Eris, Self-sufficiency, represent an effort to impart greater stability on what is expected. Hesiod and his fellow citizens lived in a period of social developments, experienced a new reality which called for new forms of action. Thus a need to redefine the situation was born, something that could be achieved through epic poetry: this challenges the status quo and offers new directions, the credibility of which can be secured, above all, on the level of arriving at an understanding and consent.

Therefore, apart from information on the agrarian economy, the works of Hesiod offer us a glimpse at an -evolving- value system which will inform Greek thought and action in the years to come.

3. Reception of Hesiod

Hesiod’s influence was strong already in the 6th cent. BC, as attested by the case of Archilochus. Yet other intellectuals who sought to oppose his model, such as Xenophanes, Heraclitus and later Plato reveal the power of Hesiod.

The appeal of Hesiod’s poetry can be gleaned by the number of allusions to it and its numerous adaptations in the Classical and Hellenistic periods. Yet Roman authors, like Virgil and Gallus, also mention Hesiod. In Late Antiquity, Hesiodic theology was seen as an antique intimation of the theology of Late Platonism (Neoplatonism).

In the late 15th cent., the Works and Days became required reading for all western humanists. The first Latin translation was published in 1471, and Hesiod became one of the first Greek authors whose works were released in printed editions. In 1618, George Chapman translated the Works and Days into English, a translation Milton had apparently studied. In the 18th cent., a time when bucolic poetry is in decline, the view that mythology constitutes a valuable repository of narrative material and cultural information secured a wide readership for Hesiod. Finally, we should mention the reinterpretation of Hesiod by Ezra Pound in his Cantos, and the sarcasm in John Hollander’s poem A Corona for Wolfgang.

All the above reveal how successfully Hesiod’s poetry stood the test of time, an achievement all the more impressive if we consider that Hesiod was the first to ‘sign’ his work.