Hesiod (Hesiodos) was an early Greek poet and rhapsode, believed to have lived around 700 BC. Greek historians debated the priority of Hesiod or of Homer, and even brought them together in an imagined poetic contest; most modern scholars agree that Homer lived before Hesiod. Poets are authors of poems, or of other forms of poetry such as dramatic verse. ... In classical antiquity, a rhapsode was a professional reciter of poetry, especially the epics of Homer, but also the wisdom-verse of Hesiod and the satires of Archilochus, among others. ... Centuries: 9th century BC - 8th century BC - 7th century BC Decades: 750s BC 740s BC 730s BC 720s BC 710s BC - 700s BC - 690s BC 680s BC 670s BC 660s BC 650s BC Events and Trends 708 BC - Spartan immigrants found Taras (Tarentum, the modern Taranto) colony in southern Italy. ... Bust of Homer in the British Museum For other uses, see Homer (disambiguation). ...

Hesiod serves as a major source for knowledge of Greek mythology, of farming techniques, of archaic Greek astronomy and of ancient time-keeping. Greek mythology comprises the collected narratives of Greek gods, goddesses, heroes, and heroines, originally created and spread within an oral-poetic tradition. ... Farming, ploughing rice paddy, in Indonesia Agriculture is the process of producing food, feed, fiber and other desired products by cultivation of certain plants and the raising of domesticated animals (livestock). ... Astrometry: the study of the position of objects in the sky and their changes of position. ...

As with Homer, legendary traditions have accumulated round Hesiod. Unlike Homer, some biographical detail is known: the few details of Hesiod's life come from three references in Works and Days; some further inferences can be derived from his Theogony. Hesiod lived in Boeotia. His father came from Cumes in Aeolia, which lay between Ionia and the Troad in southwestern Anatolia, but crossed the sea to settle at Ascra, "a cursed place, cruel in winter, hard in summer, never pleasant" (Works, 640). Hesiod's patrimony there was a small piece of ground at the foot of Mount Helicon that occasioned a lawsuit with his brother Perses, who won; some scholars have seen Perses as a literary creation, a foil for the moralizing of the Works and Days that is directed to him. Boeotia (Greek Βοιωτια) was the central area of ancient Greece. ... Aeolis (Aiolis) or Aeolia (Aiolia) was an area in west and northwest Asia Minor, mostly along the coast and offshore islands (particularly Lesbos), where the Aeolian Greek city_states were located. ... Ionia (Greek Ιωνία; see also List of traditional Greek place names) was an ancient region of southwestern coastal Anatolia (now in Turkey) on the Aegean Sea. ... Map of the Troas The Troas (Troad) is an ancient region in the northwestern part of Anatolia, bounded by the Hellespont to the northwest, the Aegean Sea to the west, and separated from the rest of Anatolia by the massif that forms Mount Ida. ... Anatolia (Greek: ανατολή anatolÄ“ or anatolí; see also List of traditional Greek place names), rising of the sun or East; compare Orient and Levant, by popular etymology Turkish falsely associated with Anadolu to ana mother and dolu filled), also called by the Latin name of Asia Minor, is a region of... For the fictional planet, see Helicon (planet). ... A lawsuit is a civil action brought before a court in which the party commencing the action, the plaintiff, seeks a legal remedy. ...

Helicon was the home of the Muses, who gave Hesiod the gift of poetic inspiration one day while he tended sheep. In another biographical detail, Hesiod mentions a poetry contest at Chalcis in Euboea where the sons of one Amiphidamas awarded him a tripod (ll.654-662). Plutarch first identified this passage as an interpolation into Hesiod's original work, based on his identification of Amiphidamas with the hero of the Lelantine War between Chalcis and Eretria, which occurred around 705 BC. The account of this contest inspired the later tale of a competition between Hesiod and Homer. For other uses see Muse (disambiguation). ... Chalcis or Chalkida, Halkida, Halkis or Chalkis (Greek, Modern: Χαλκίδα, Ancient/Katharevousa: -is), the chief town of the island of Euboea in Greece, situated on the strait of the Euripus at its narrowest point. ... Euboea or Negropont (Modern Greek: Εύβοια Evia, Ancient Greek Εúβοια Eúboia; see also List of traditional Greek place names), is the largest island of the Greek archipelago. ... Mestrius Plutarch (cz. ... The Lelantine War was a long battle between Eretria and Chalcis at the end of the 8th century BC. Eretria was defeated, losing a sum of land in Boeotia. ... Chalcis or Chalkida, Halkida, Halkis or Chalkis (Greek, Modern: Χαλκίδα, Ancient/Katharevousa: -is), the chief town of the island of Euboea in Greece, situated on the strait of the Euripus at its narrowest point. ... This is an article about the Greek city of Eretria. ...

Two different, yet early, traditions record the site of Hesiod's grave. One, as early as Thucydides, reported in Plutarch, the Suda and John Tzetzes, states that the Delphic oracle had warned Hesiod that he would die in Nemea, and so he fled to Locris, where he was killed at the local temple to Nemean Zeus, and buried there. This tradition follows a familiar ironic convention: the oracle that turns out to be true, after all. Bust of Thucydides Thucydides (between 460 and 455 BC–circa 400 BC, Greek Θουκυδίδης, Thoukudídês) was an ancient Greek historian, and the author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, which recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens. ... The amphitheater, seen from above Delphi (Chech Δελφοί - Delphoi) is an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece. ... Locris was a region of ancient Greece, made up of two districts. ... Adolf Hitler: layered visual irony? Irony is a form of expression in which an implicit meaning is concealed or contradicted by the explicit meaning of the expression. ...

The other tradition, first mentioned in an epigram of Chersios of Orchomenus written in the 7th century BC, within a century or so of Hesiod's death, claims that Hesiod lies buried at Orchomenus, a town in Boeotia. According to Aristotle's Constitution of Orchomenus, when Ascra was ravaged by the Thespians, the villagers sought refuge at Orchomenus, where, following the advice of an oracle, they collected the ashes of Hesiod and placed them in a place of honour in their agora, beside the tomb of Minyas, their eponymous founder, and inm the end came to regard Hesiod too as their "hearth-founder" (οἰκιστής / oikistês). An epigram is a short poem with a clever twist at the end or a concise and witty statement. ... (8th century BC - 7th century BC - 6th century BC - other centuries) (700s BC - 690s BC - 680s BC - 670s BC - 660s BC - 650s BC - 640s BC - 630s BC - 620s BC - 610s BC - 600s BC - other decades) (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium AD) Events Scythians arrived in Asia Collapse... Orchomenus is an ancient city of Boeotia in Greece, which was the setting for many early Greek Myths. ... Aristotle, marble copy of bronze by Lysippos. ... In Greek mythology, Minyas was the founder of Orchomenus or son of king Orchomenus, depending on the story. ...

Later writers attempted to harmonize these two accounts.

Legends that accumulated about Hesiod were to be found in several sources: a treatise "The poetic contest (Ἀγών / Agôn) of Homer and Hesiod"; a vita of Hesiod by the Byzantine grammarian John Tzetzes; the entry for Hesiod in the Suda; two passages and some scattered remarks in Pausanias (IX, 31.3–6 and 38.3–4); a passage in Plutarch Moralia (162b). John Tzetzes, was a Byzantine poet and grammarian, known to have lived at Constantinople during the 12th century. ... Suda (Σουδα or alternatively Suidas) is a massive 10th century Byzantine Greek historical encyclopædia of the ancient Mediterranean world. ... Pausanias was Greek traveller and geographer of the 2nd century A.D., who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. ... Mestrius Plutarch (cz. ...

Works

Hesiod wrote only one poem universally considered authentic: the Works and Days, which revolves around two general truths: labour is the universal lot of Man, but he who is willing to work will get by. Scholars have seen this work against a background of agrarian crisis in mainland Greece, which inspired a wave of documented colonizations in search of new land. Poetry (ancient Greek: poieo = create) is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ... Hesiod (Hesiodos) was an early Greek poet and rhapsode, believed to have lived around the year 700 BCE. From the 5th century BCE, literary historians have debated the priority of Hesiod or of Homer. ...

This work lays out the five Ages of Man, as well as containing advice and wisdom, prescribing a life of honest labour and attacking idleness and unjust judges (like those who decided in favour of Perses). The Ages of Man are the stages of human existence on the Earth according to Classical mythology. ... A judge or justice is an official who presides over a court. ...

The Theogony is traditionally attributed to Hesiod, although authorship is not certain. Theogony resembles Works and Days very closely in style and substance considering the purposely different subject-matter. Theogony is a poem by Hesiod describing the origins of the gods of Greek mythology. ...

The Theogony concerns the origins of the world and of the gods, beginning with Gaia, Nyx and Eros, and shows a special interest in genealogy. Embedded in Greek myth are fragments of quite variant tales, hinting at the rich variety of myth that once existed, city by city; but Hesiod's retelling of the old stories became the accepted version that linked all Hellenes. Theogony is a poem by Hesiod describing the origins of the gods of Greek mythology. ... In space science and astronomy, the term cosmogony is also used to refer to theories of creation of the Solar System, for example, the Solar Nebula. ... Gaia, also spelled as Gaea, Gaïa, or Ge, can refer to any one of the following. ... This article is about the Greek goddess. ... EROS (The Extremely Reliable Operating System) is an operating system developed by the University of Pennsylvania and the Johns Hopkins University. ... Genealogy is the study and tracing of family pedigrees. ...

• Classical authors also attributed to Hesiod later genealogical poems -- known as Catalogues of Women or as Eoiae (because sections began with the Greek words e oie 'or like her'). Only small fragments of these have survived. They deal with the genealogies of kings and heroes of the legendary heroic period. Scholars generally classify them as later examples of the poetic tradition to which Hesiod belonged.

• A final poem traditionally attributed to Hesiod, The Shield of Heracles ( Ἀσπὶς Ἡρακλέους / Aspis Hêrakleous ), apparently forms a late expansion of one of these genealogical poems, taking its cue from Homer's description of the Shield of Achilles.

Hesiod's works survive in Alexandrian papyri, some as early as the 1st century BCE. The first printing, editio princeps, of Works and Days, was by Demetrius Chalcondyles, possibly at Milan, probably 1493 "editio princeps". In 1495 Aldus Manutius published the complete works at Venice. The Catalogue of Women (Greek: γυναικῶν κατάλογος, gynaikon katalogos) is an epic of ancient Greek literature. ... James ROCKS ... Events February 22 - King Charles VIII of France enters Naples to claim the citys throne. ... Aldus Manutius (1449/50 - February 6, 1515), the Latin form of Aldo Manuzio (born Teobaldo Mannucci) was the founder of the Aldine Press. ...

External links

Wikisource has original works written by or about:

Hesiod

• Web texts taken from Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica, edited and translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, published as Loeb Classical Library #57, 1914, ISBN 0674990633:
  • Perseus Classics Collection: Greek and Roman Materials: Text: Hesiod (Greek texts and English translations for Works and Days, Theogony, and Shield of Heracles with additional notes and cross links.)
  • Versions of the electronic edition of Evelyn-White's English translation edited by Douglas B. Killings, June 1995:
    • Project Gutenberg plain text.
    • Berkeley Digital Library SunSITE: The Online Medieval and Classical Library: Hesiod
    • Sacred Texts: Classics: The Works of Hesiod (Theogony and Works and Days only)

File links The following pages link to this file: Abraham Lincoln Aristotle Ayn Rand Adolf Hitler Al Gore A Modest Proposal Articles of Confederation Arthur Schopenhauer Albert Einstein Amhrán na bhFiann Arthur Conan Doyle Ada programming language Antarctic Treaty System Andrew Jackson Andrew Johnson Adam Smith Bill Clinton Bible... Wikisource, The Free Library, is a Wikimedia project to build a free wiki library of primary source texts, along with translations of source-texts into any language and other supporting materials. ... The Loeb Classical Library is a series of books, today published by the Harvard University Press, which present important works of ancient Greek and Latin Literature in a way designed to make the text accessible to the broadest possible audience, by presenting the original Greek or Latin text on each... Theogony is a poem by Hesiod describing the origins of the gods of Greek mythology. ...