Hesiod: A Guide to Selected Sources

Hesiod’s existential status is uncertain. He is the author-name attached to a number of archaic epics, products of a tradition in which concepts of authorship differed both from our own and from those of later ancient readers. Ancient perplexities are reflected in the fluctuation of Hesiod’s corpus: nineteen poems were variously ascribed to him (see Kivilo 2010: 37); in late antiquity, the number had dwindled to three: Theogony, Works and Days (WD) and the Shield of Heracles (see West 1966: 48-52). These are the only ‘Hesiodic’ poems to have survived complete. Notably absent is the Catalogue of Women, which followed on from the Theogony in the version known to Hellenistic scholars. Of Hesiod’s other poems we have titles and, in some cases, fragments.

Embedded autobiography

Hesiod refers to himself by name at Theogony 22, suggesting a connection with the formula ὄσσαν ἱεῖσαι (“sending forth a voice”), used three times of the Muses in the proem (Nagy 2009: 287-8). While he pastures his flocks on Mount Helicon, the Muses breathe song into him. The poet’s name and his poetic initiation are thus intertwined and a quasi-autobiography is embedded in the Theogony Theogony. The Works and Days Works and Days gives a more human slant to his autobiographical passages, matching his didactic persona. References to the Theogony sequence Hesiod’s oeuvre in a manner imitated by later poets, notably Virgil (Most 1993, Haubold 2010). These “autobiographies” engender biographical traditions probably fostered by performers and cults of Hesiod as well as rival groups, such as the Chian Homeridae.

Sources

Our knowledge of traditions about Hesiod derives from (1) the accounts of his life in a tenth-century lexicon, the Suda, and in the work of Tzetzes (twelfth century), who draws on the Neoplatonist Proclus’ Vita (not extant). (2) The so-called Certamen or Contest of Hesiod and Homer, based on Alcidamas’ Mouseion (fourth century BCE), which, again, draws on earlier traditions. (3) Scattered ancient references (Jacoby 1930, Most 2006), Plutarch being a particularly important source. A Boeotian by origin, he wrote a (lost) biography on Hesiod and a commentary on the WD which Proclus quotes extensively in his own (extant) commentary.

Poetic genealogy and ‘family’

Fifth-century genealogies, doubtless promoted by Orphic/Eleusinian interests, made Hesiod and Homer cousins and descendants of Orpheus, who was represented as the oldest poet. Several authors attest to an apparently canonical sequence: Orpheus, Musaios, Hesiod, Homer. (See Guide to Orpheus). Guide to Herodotus rejects the tradition that Orpheus and Musaios preceded Hesiod and Homer, and assumes that Homer and Hesiod were contemporaries. The Certamen story depends on this view. Hesiod’s age was hotly debated throughout antiquity (see Graziosi 2002: 100-10, Kivilo 2010: 12-17, Koning 2010: 40-55, Nagy 2010: 336-341), his relation to Homer being a fundamental preoccupation of his reception history (Koning 2010).

Hesiod’s father is named Dios perhaps through a misreading of WD 299, or to suggest a connection with Zeus. In the WD (633-640), he flees poverty in Aeolian Cyme for Boeotian Ascra. The Suda and Tzetzes’ Tzetzes Vita report this as a factual statement about Hesiod’s origins. It may also be an aetiology for the Aeolic strand in Hesiod’s (predominantly Ionic) dialect (Nagy 2009: 290-4). A (didactic-sounding) mother is added: Pycimede (‘wise-counselling’). His brother Perses, the didactic addressee in WD, who appropriates Hesiod’s inheritance by bribing the kings (27-41), is considered historical by most, but not all ancient readers. A son is provided (see WD 270-2);15 according to the Aristotelian Constitution of Orchomenos, he was Stesichorus. (On Hesiod’s family, see further Kivilo 2010: 8-11).

Hesiod vs Homer

According to Eustathius, the Chian Homerids considered it heresy even to mention the Contest between Homer and Hesiod (see Nagy 2010: 62-3). The tradition was based on WD 650-62, where Hesiod refers to his victory in a poetry competition for the funeral games of Amphidamas (see Graziosi 2002: 168-80). In a textual variant of WD 657, Homer is named as the antagonist. The contest takes place across the strait from Aulis, where the Greek ships assemble in the Iliad. Following an invocation to the Muses (Iliad 2.484-7), the ships are enumerated in a lengthy catalogue. Hesiod claims to have dedicated his tripod on Helicon, where the Muses first set him on the path of song (WD 658-9). The obvious candidate for Hesiod’s victorious poem is the Theogony, although, in the Certamen, Hesiod’s victory depends on a passages from the WD.

Plutarch, who asserted Homer’s priority and doubted Hesiod’s claim to be the Muses’ disciple, judged WD 650-62 an interpolation. His view reflects the verdict of Hellenistic scholars (West 1978 ad loc.), who also athetized one or both of Hesiod’s proems to the Muses (LINK). (See Montanari in Montanari, Rengakos and Tsagalis 2009). Pausanias says that the Boeotians showed him a proem-less version of the poem and considered only the WD authentic. But both proems were key to the Boeotian festival of the Muses, whose allegiances were also manifestly non-Homeric. In the parade of poets’ statues which Pausanias saw in the grove of the Muses on Helicon, Homer’s image was noticeably absent, whilst Hesiod took centre-stage. Pausanias highlights the gap with a pointed reference to scholarly wrangles about their chronologies. (See Hunter 2006: 16-28).

Death and burial; hero cult

Plutarch compares the hero cults of Hesiod and Archilochus, whose poetic inaugurations show obvious similarities. (On Hesiod’s death and hero cult see Nagy 2009: 304-8, Kivilo 2010: 25-35, Koning 2010: 133-8). Hellenistic inscriptions survive from the cult of the Muses in Boeotia but stories about Hesiod’s death are earlier. Thucydides says that Hesiod was killed in the shrine of Nemean Zeus in Locrian Oinoe, following a prophecy that he would die in Nemea. Pausanias, the Certamen (13) and Tzetzes specify that the prophecy, which Hesiod misunderstood, was made in Delphi, where he consulted the oracle after his victory. Whilst travelling home, he was accused (some said falsely) of seducing the daughter of a host and was subsequently murdered and drowned by her brothers. After his death, Hesiod was vindicated: his murderers were shipwrecked and his body was brought ashore by dolphins during a religious festival, a sure sign of Apollo’s favour. In a story quoted in the Aristotelian Constitution of Orchomenos, the Delphic oracle instructed the citizens of Boeotian Orchomenos to move Hesiod’s bones from Oinoe (or Ascra) to their city. According to Plutarch, the site of his grave in the shrine of Zeus Nemeios was kept secret to prevent this. The Vita transmits two epitaphs, one of which is also quoted by Pausanias; the second is ascribed to Pindar.

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