Hesiod tells us that his father came from Cyme in Asia Minor and settled in Ascra, a village in Boeotia. Hesiod’s poems, like Homer’s, have an Ionian origin, though they are heavily influenced by their Boeotian context. He worked as a shepherd on Mount Helicon where he received his calling to write poetry. He comes over as a cynical and pessimistic figure with a prejudice against women.
The aim of Theogony, the earliest of his works to survive, is, in his own words, to ‘tell how in the first place the gods and Earth came to be’. While Homer presents the gods of Mount Olympus as if they had always been in existence, Hesiod wants to go back to the act of creation itself. In this he draws not only on Greek traditions but on the creation myths of the East, with which his stories show many parallels.
He evokes primitive and tempestuous gods. The relationship between Uranus, god of heaven, and Gaia, goddess of Earth is a violent one. At one point their son, Cronus, cuts off his father’s genitals. They fall into the sea and as they float in their own blood and semen the goddess of love, Aphrodite, is born from the mixture. Cronus himself fathers the Olympian gods, who under the leadership of Zeus have to do battle with the Titans, children of Uranus and Gaia, before they can reign supreme. Woven into the Theogony are other myths such as that of Prometheus, the champion of humankind, who stole fire from heaven. Zeus’ revenge on men included, according to Hesiod, the creation of women.
Hesiod is also the author of a very different poem Works and Days. Most of this work is concerned with life on the land and consists of advice on the cultivation of crops: what should be sown, when harvest should take place, and how to fill the slack times of the year. Another theme of Works and Days is the concept of history moving forward through phases from ages of gold, silver and bronze to one of heroes before reaching the unhappy present, the age of iron. This is an age, Hesiod argues, with references to his quarrel over land with his brother, in which ethical standards have broken down and the rich landowner lords it over the poor peasant, who is defenceless against his power. However, all is not without hope. There is the possibility of justice and Zeus is evoked by Hesiod as its protector. It is up to human beings to work hard so that good order can be achieved in unity with the gods.
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