The directory «Plots»
Hesiod (Ησίοδος)(around 700 BC.)
Hesiod probably lived around 700 B.C., shortly after Homer, in a Boeotian village of Ascra -- one of the details of his life he reveals in his works. He worked as a shepherd in the mountains, as a youth, and then, as a small peasant on a hard land when his father died.
While tending his flock on Mt. Helicon, the Muses appeared to Hesiod in a mist. This mystical experience impelled him to epic poetry.
Hesiod's major works are
Theogony, Works and Days, and
Shield of Herakles (a variation on the Shield of Achilles theme from Iliad, attributed to Hesiod, but probably not by him).
The Theogony is particularly important as an often confusing account of the evolution of the Greek gods. In the beginning was Chaos, a yawning chasm. Later Eros developed on its own. These figures were not anthropomorphic deities like Zeus who wins and becomes king of the gods in the third generation struggle against his father.
The occasion of Hesiod's writing of the Works and Days is a dispute between Hesiod and his brother over the distribution of his father's land. The Works and Days is filled with moral precepts, myths, and fables for which reason, rather than its literary merit, it was highly valued by the ancients. After Hesiod lost the case to his brother Perses, he left his homeland and moved to Naupactus. According to the legend about his death, he was murdered by the sons of his host in Oeneon, but at the command of the Delphic Oracle his bones were brought to Orchomenus where a monument to Hesiod was erected in the marketplace.
St. Vincent, 1993, The Apotheosis of Homer
