Hesiod
Boeotian poet who composed the Theogony and Works and Days in the archaic period
The Meaning of Hesiod
Hesiod was an early Greek poet from Ascra in Boeotia, active around 700 BCE, who composed two surviving masterworks: the Theogony, which systematises the genealogy of the gods from Chaos to Zeus's established rule, and Works and Days, a practical poem combining agricultural advice with moral instruction addressed to his brother Perses. Unlike Homer's aristocratic heroes, Hesiod speaks as a farmer and presents the gods' relationship to human toil and justice. He claims the Muses visited him on Mount Helicon and breathed song into him. His Theogony became the canonical account of Greek cosmogony and divine genealogy, the source from which nearly all later mythographers drew their framework for understanding the gods' origins and relationships.
Parents
None recorded
Symbols
Fun Fact
Hesiod is the first European poet to name himself and describe his own life in his verses
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth. See our full guide to English words from Greek mythology.
Explore Further
Theogony
💭 conceptLiterature
Hesiod's epic poem describing the origins and genealogies of the Greek gods
Homeric Hymns
💭 conceptLiterature
A collection of thirty-three ancient Greek hymns celebrating individual Olympian and chthonic deities
Nonnus
💭 conceptEpic poetry, Dionysus
Late antique poet who composed the Dionysiaca, the longest surviving epic poem from Greco-Roman antiquity
Ovid
💭 conceptPoetry, transformation, love
Roman poet whose Metamorphoses became the most influential retelling of Greek myth in Western culture
Virgil
💭 conceptEpic poetry, Rome, fate
Roman poet who composed the Aeneid linking Rome's founding to the Trojan War through Aeneas's journey
Dionysiaca
💭 conceptLiterature
Nonnus's sprawling epic poem narrating the life and conquests of the god Dionysus in forty-eight books
Bibliotheca
💭 conceptLiterature
An alternative title for the mythological handbook attributed to Apollodorus, cataloguing the full scope of Greek myth
Works and Days
💭 conceptLiterature
Hesiod's didactic poem on agriculture, morality, and the five ages of mankind
Fasti
💭 conceptLiterature
Ovid's poetic calendar explaining the religious festivals and mythological origins of the Roman year
Xenophon
💭 conceptHistory, philosophy, horsemanship
Athenian soldier-writer whose works preserve mythological allusions within practical and philosophical contexts
Plato
💭 conceptPhilosophy, myth, forms
Athenian philosopher who both critiqued traditional myths and created powerful new ones in his dialogues
Homer
💭 conceptEpic poetry, Troy, Odyssey
Legendary blind poet credited with composing the Iliad and the Odyssey