Our information respecting Hesiod is derived in the main from notices
and allusions in the works attributed to him, and to these must be
added traditions concerning his death and burial gathered from later
writers.
Hesiod’s father (whose name, by a perversion of _Works and Days_, 299
PERSE DION GENOS to PERSE, DION GENOS, was thought to have been 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 Magnu_
(_s.v._ {H}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 1103 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 1104,
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 Lelantine Wars between Chalcis and Eretria, whose death may be
placed _circa_ 705 B.C.—a date which is obviously too low for the
genuine Hesiod. Nevertheless, there is much to be said in defence of
the passage. Hesiod’s claim in the _Works and Days_ is modest, since he
neither pretends to have met Homer, nor to have sung in any but an
impromptu, local festival, so that the supposed interpolation lacks a
sufficient motive. And there is nothing in the context to show that
Hesiod’s Amphidamas is to be identified with that Amphidamas whom
Plutarch alone connects with the Lelantine War: the name may have been
borne by an earlier Chalcidian, an ancestor, perhaps, of the person to
whom Plutarch refers.
The story of the end of Hesiod may be told in outline. After the
contest at Chalcis, Hesiod went to Delphi and there was warned that the
‘issue of death should overtake him in the fair grove of Nemean Zeus.’
Avoiding therefore Nemea on the Isthmus of Corinth, to which he
supposed the oracle to refer, Hesiod retired to Oenoe in Locris where
he was entertained by Amphiphanes and Ganyetor, sons of a certain
Phegeus. This place, however, was also sacred to Nemean Zeus, and the
poet, suspected by his hosts of having seduced their sister 1105, was
murdered there. His body, cast into the sea, was brought to shore by
dolphins and buried at Oenoe (or, according to Plutarch, at Ascra): at
a later time his bones were removed to Orchomenus. The whole story is
full of miraculous elements, and the various authorities disagree on
numerous points of detail. The tradition seems, however, to be constant
in declaring that Hesiod was murdered and buried at Oenoe, and in this
respect it is at least as old as the time of Thucydides. In conclusion
it may be worth while to add the graceful epigram of Alcaeus of Messene
(_Palatine Anthology_, vii 55).
“When in the shady Locrian grove Hesiod lay dead, the Nymphs washed his
body with water from their own springs, and heaped high his grave; and
thereon the goat-herds sprinkled offerings of milk mingled with
yellow-honey: such was the utterance of the nine Muses that he breathed
forth, that old man who had tasted of their pure springs.”