(Ἡσίοδος), one of the earliest Greek poets, respecting whose personal history we possess little more authentic information than respecting that of Homer, together with whom lie is frequently mentioned bythe ancients. The names of these two poets, in fact, form as it were the two poles of the early epic poetry of the Greeks; and as Homer represents the poetry, or school of poetry, belonging chiefly to Ionia in Asia Minor, so Hesiod is the representative of a school of bards, which was developed somewhat later at the foot of Mount Helicon in Boeotia, and spread over Phocis and Euboea. The only points of resemblance between the two poets, or their respective schools, consist in their forms of versification and their dialect, but in all other respects they move in totally distinct spheres; for the Homeric takes for its subjects the restless activity of the heroic age, while the Hesiodic turns its attention to the quiet pursuits of ordinary life, to the origin of the world, the gods and heroes. The latter thus gave to its productions an ethical and religious character; and this circumstance alone suggests an advance in the intellectual state of the ancient Greeks upon that which we have depicted in the Homeric poems, though we do not
If we inquire after the exact age of Hesiod, we are informed by Herodotus (l.c.) that he lived four hundred years before his time, that is, about B. C. 850. Velleius Paterculus (1.7) considers that between Homer and Hesiod there was an interval of a hundred and twenty years, and most modern critics assume that Hesiod lived about a century later than Homer, which is pretty much in accordance with the statement of some ancient writers who place him about the eleventh Olympiad, i. e. about B. C. 735. Respecting the life of the poet we derive some information from one of the poems ascribed to him, viz. the Ἔργα καὶ ἡμέραι. We learn from that poem (648, &c.), that he was born in the village of Ascra in Boeotia, whither his father had emigrated from the Aeolian Cuma in Asia Minor. Ephorus (Fragm. p. 268, ed. Marx) and Suidas state that both Homer and Hesiod were natives of Cuma, and even represent them as kinsmen,--a statement which probably arose from the belief that Hesiod was born before his father's emigration to Ascra; but if this were true, Hesiod could not have said that he never crossed the sea, except from Aulis to Euboea. (Op. et Dies, 648.) Ascra, moreover, is mentioned as his birthplace in the epitaph on Hesiod (Paus. 9.38.9), and by Proclus in his life of Hesiod. The poet describes himself (Theog. 23) as tending a flock on the side of Mount Helicon, and from this, as well as from the fact of his calling himself an ἀτίμητος (Op. et Dies, 636), we must infer that he belonged to a humble station, and was engaged in rural pursuits. But subsequently his circumstances seem to have been bettered, and after the death of his father, he was involved in a dispute with his brother Perses about his small patrimony, which was decided in favour of Perses. (Op. et Dies, 219, 261, 637.) He then seems to have emigrated to Orchomenos, where he spent the remainder of his life. (Pind. apud Proclum, γένος Ἡσιόδου, p. xliv. in Göttling's edit. of Hesiod.) At Orchomenos he is also said to have been buried, and his tomb was shown there in later times. This is all that can be said, with any degree of certainty, about the life of Hesiod. Proclus, Tzetzes, and others relate a variety of anecdotes and marvellous tales about his life and death, but very little value can be attached to them, though they may have been derived from comparatively early sources. We have to lament the loss of some ancient works on the life of Hesiod, especially those written by Plutarch and Cleomenes, for they would undoubtedly have enlightened us upon many points respecting which we are now completely in the dark. We must, however, observe that many of the stories related about Hesiod refer to his whole school of poetry (but not to the poet personally), and arose from the relation in which the Boeotian or Hesiodic school stood to the Homeric or Ionic school. In this light we consider, e. g. the traditions that Stesichorus was a son of Hesiod, and that Hesiod had a poetical contest with Homer, which is said to have taken place at Chalcis during the funeral solemnities of king Amphidamas, or, according to others, at Aulis or Delos. (Proclus, l.c. p. xliii. and ad Op. et Dies, 648; Plut. Conv. Sept. Sap. 10.) The story of this contest gave rise to a composition still extant under the title of Ἀγὼν Ὁμήρου καὶ Ἡσιόδου, the work of a grammarian who lived towards the end of the first century of our era, in which the two poets are represented as engaged in the contest and answering each other in their verses. The work is printed in Göttling's edition of Hesiod, p. 242-254, and in Westermann's Vitarum Scriptores Graeci, p. 33, &c. Its author knows the whole family history of Hesiod, the names of his father and mother, as well as of his ancestors, and traces his descent to Orpheus, Linus, and Apollo himself. These legends, though they are mere fictions, show the connection which the ancients conceived to exist between the poetry of Hesiod (especially the Theogony) and the ancient schools of priests and bards, which had their seats in Thrace and Pieria, and thence spread into Boeotia, where they probably formed the elements out of which the Hesiodic poetry was developed. Some of the fables pretending to be the personal history of Hesiod are of such a nature as to throw considerable doubt upon the personal existence of the poet altogether; and athough we do not deny that there may have been in the Boeotian school a poet of the name of Hesiod whose eminence caused him to be regarded as the representative, and a number of works to be attributed to him, still we would, in speaking of Hesiod, be rather understood to mean the whole school than any particular individual. Thus an ancient epigram mentions that Hesiod was twice a youth and was twice buried (Proclus; Suidas; Proverb. Vat. 4.3); and there was a tradition that, by the command of an oracle, the bones of Hesiod were removed from Naupactus to Orchomenos, for the purpose of averting an epidemic. (Paus. 9.38.3.) These traditions show that Hesiod was looked upon and worshipped in Boeotia (and also in Phocis) as an ancient hero, and, like many other heroes, he was said to have been unjustly killed in the grove of the Nemean Zeus. (Plut. Conviv. Sept. Sap. 19; Certamen Hom. et Hes. p. 251, ed. Göttling; comp. Panus. 9.31.3.) All that we can say, under these circumstances, is that a poet or hero of the name of Hesiod was regarded by the ancients as the head and representative of that school of poetry which was based on the Thracian or Pierian bards, and was developed in Boeotia as distinct from the Homeric or Ionic school.
The differences between the two schools of poetry are plain and obvious, and were recognised in ancient times no less than at present, as may be seen from the Ἀγὼν Ὁμήρου καὶ Ἡσιόδου (p. 248, ed. Göttling). In their mode of delivery the poets