Hesiod
Hesiod,one of the oldest known Greek poets, often coupled or contrasted with Homer as the other main representative of early epic. Which was the older of the two was much disputed from the 5th cent. bc on (Xenophanes in Aulus Gellius Noctes Atticae 3. 11. 2; Herodotus 2. 53; Ephorus, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 70 F 101, etc.): Homer's priority was carefully argued by Aristarchus, and generally accepted in later antiquity. Hesiod's absolute date is now agreed to fall not far before or after 700 BC. Of his life he tells us something himself: that his father had given up a life of unprofitable sea-trading and moved from Aeolian Cyme to Ascra in Boeotia (Opera et Dies 633–40); that he, as he tended sheep on Mt. Helicon, had heard the Muses calling him to sing of the gods (Theogonia 22–35, a celebrated passage); and that he once won a tripod for a song at a...
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