Hesiod

Hesiod (fl. c. 700 BCE) was an ancient Greek poet from Ascra in Boeotia, traditionally counted among the earliest named figures in Western literature. Although little is certain about his life, his poetry offers a window into early Greek religion, society, and rural life. He wrote in an epic-didactic style that would influence later Greek poets and the tradition of epic and didactic verse.

His two best-known works are Theogony and Works and Days. Theogony presents a systematized account of the origins of the gods and the world, tracing divine genealogies and establishing a cosmic order under which the gods rule. The poem opens with an invocation to the Muses, who grant Hesiod the knowledge he recounts. Works and Days is a farmer’s almanac and ethical treatise, combining practical advice on agriculture, weather, and work with reflections on justice, prosperity, and the proper conduct of households and communities. It features the myth of Pandora and the famous account of the Five Ages of Man, framed as lessons about labor, virtue, and the contingencies of human life.

Hesiod’s influence was wide in antiquity and beyond. He helped shape the Greek oral and literary tradition by providing a model for mythography, genealogy, and moral instruction in verse. His syntax and thematic concerns—divine/political order, human labor, and divine justice—also left a mark on later poets and writers. The surviving body of Hesiod’s work includes, besides Theogony and Works and Days, fragments such as the Shield of Heracles and the Catalogue of Women, known from later quotations.