Collection of Hesiod, Homer and Homerica | Page 5

Dius) was a native of Cyme in Aeolis, where he was a
seafaring trader and, perhaps, also a farmer. He was forced by poverty
to leave his native place, and returned to continental Greece, where he
settled at Ascra near Thespiae in Boeotia ("Works and Days", 636 ff.).
Either in Cyme or Ascra, two sons, Hesiod and Perses, were born to the
settler, and these, after his death, divided the farm between them.
Perses, however, who is represented as an idler and spendthrift,
obtained and kept the larger share by bribing the corrupt `lords' who
ruled from Thespiae ("Works and Days", 37-39). While his brother
wasted his patrimony and ultimately came to want ("Works and Days",
34 ff.), Hesiod lived a farmer's life until, according to the very early
tradition preserved by the author of the "Theogony" (22-23), the Muses
met him as he was tending sheep on Mt. Helicon and `taught him a
glorious song' -- doubtless the "Works and Days". The only other
personal reference is to his victory in a poetical contest at the funeral
games of Amphidamas at Chalcis in Euboea, where he won the prize, a
tripod, which he dedicated to the Muses of Helicon ("Works and Days",
651-9).
Before we go on to the story of Hesiod's death, it will be well to inquire
how far the "autobiographical" notices can be treated as historical,
especially as many critics treat some, or all of them, as spurious. In the
first place attempts have been made to show that "Hesiod" is a
significant name and therefore fictitious: it is only necessary to mention
Goettling's derivation from IEMI to ODOS (which would make
`Hesiod' mean the `guide' in virtues and technical arts), and to refer to
the pitiful attempts in the "Etymologicum Magnum" (s.v.

ESIODUS), to show how prejudiced and lacking even in
plausibility such efforts are. It seems certain that `Hesiod' stands as a
proper name in the fullest sense. Secondly, Hesiod claims that his
father -- if not he himself -- came from Aeolis and settled in Boeotia.
There is fairly definite evidence to warrant our acceptance of this: the
dialect of the "Works and Days" is shown by Rzach (3) to contain
distinct Aeolisms apart from those which formed part of the general
stock of epic poetry. And that this Aeolic speaking poet was a Boeotian
of Ascra seems even more certain, since the tradition is never once
disputed, insignificant though the place was, even before its destruction
by the Thespians.
Again, Hesiod's story of his relations with his brother Perses have been
treated with scepticism (see Murray, "Anc. Gk. Literature", pp. 53-54):
Perses, it is urged, is clearly a mere dummy, set up to be the target for
the poet's exhortations. On such a matter precise evidence is naturally
not forthcoming; but all probability is against the sceptical view. For 1)
if the quarrel between the brothers were a fiction, we should expect it to
be detailed at length and not noticed allusively and rather obscurely --
as we find it; 2) as MM. Croiset remark, if the poet needed a lay-figure
the ordinary practice was to introduce some mythological person -- as,
in fact, is done in the "Precepts of Chiron". In a word, there is no more
solid ground for treating Perses and his quarrel with Hesiod as fictitious
than there would be for treating Cyrnus, the friend of Theognis, as
mythical.
Thirdly, there is the passage in the "Theogony" relating to Hesiod and
the Muses. It is surely an error to suppose that lines 22-35 all refer to
Hesiod: rather, the author of the "Theogony" tells the story of his own
inspiration by the same Muses who once taught Hesiod glorious song.
The lines 22-3 are therefore a very early piece of tradition about Hesiod,
and though the appearance of Muses must be treated as a graceful
fiction, we find that a writer, later than the "Works and Days" by
perhaps no more than three-quarters of a century, believed in the
actuality of Hesiod and in his life as a farmer or shepherd.
Lastly, there is the famous story of the contest in song at Chalcis. In
later times the modest version in the "Works and Days" was elaborated,
first by making Homer the opponent whom Hesiod conquered, while a
later period exercised its ingenuity in working up the story of the

contest into the elaborate form in which it still survives. Finally the
contest, in which the two poets contended with hymns to Apollo (4),
was transferred to Delos. These developments certainly need no
consideration: are we to say the same of the passage in the "Works and
Days"? Critics from Plutarch downwards have almost unanimously
rejected the lines 654-662, on the ground that Hesiod's Amphidamas is
the hero of the