The Boeotian School
How did the continental school of epic poetry arise?
How did the continental school of epic poetry arise?
Hesiod
HESIOD, THE HOMERIC HYMNS, AND HOMERICA
This file contains translations of the following works:
Hesiod: "Works and Days", "The Theogony", fragments of "The Catalogues
of Women and the Eoiae", "The Shield of Heracles" (attributed to
Hesiod), and fragments of various works attributed to Hesiod.
Homer: "The Homeric Hymns", "The Epigrams of Homer" (both attributed to
Homer).
Various: Fragments of the Epic Cycle (parts of which are sometimes
attributed to Homer), fragments of other epic poems attributed to Homer,
"The Battle of Frogs and Mice", and "The Contest of Homer and Hesiod".
This file contains only that portion of the book in English; Greek texts
are excluded. Where Greek characters appear in the original English
text, transcription in CAPITALS is substituted.
PREPARER'S NOTE: In order to make this file more accessible to the
average computer user, the preparer has found it necessary to re-arrange
some of the material. The preparer takes full responsibility for his
choice of arrangement.
A few endnotes have been added by the preparer, and some additions have
been supplied to the original endnotes of Mr. Evelyn-White's. Where this
occurs I have noted the addition with my initials "DBK". Some endnotes,
particularly those concerning textual variations in the ancient Greek
text, are here omitted.
PREFACE
This volume contains practically all that remains of the post-Homeric
and pre-academic epic poetry.
I have for the most part formed my own text. In the case of Hesiod I
have been able to use independent collations of several MSS. by Dr.
W. H. D. Rouse; otherwise I have depended on the apparatus criticus of
the several editions, especially that of Rzach (1902). The arrangement
adopted in this edition, by which the complete and fragmentary poems are
restored to the order in which they would probably have appeared had
the Hesiodic corpus survived intact, is unusual, but should not need
apology; the true place for the "Catalogues" (for example), fragmentary
as they are, is certainly after the "Theogony".
In preparing the text of the "Homeric Hymns" my chief debt--and it is a
heavy one--is to the edition of Allen and Sikes (1904) and to the series
of articles in the "Journal of Hellenic Studies" (vols. xv. sqq. ) by T. W.
Allen. To the same scholar and to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press I
am greatly indebted for permission to use the restorations of the "Hymn
to Demeter", lines 387-401 and 462-470, printed in the Oxford Text of
1912.
Of the fragments of the Epic Cycle I have given only such as seemed to
possess distinct importance or interest, and in doing so have relied
mostly upon Kinkel's collection and on the fifth volume of the Oxford
Homer (1912).
The texts of the "Batrachomyomachia" and of the "Contest of Homer and
Hesiod" are those of Baumeister and Flach respectively: where I have
diverged from these, the fact has been noted.
Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Rampton, NR. Cambridge. Sept. 9th, 1914.
INTRODUCTION
General
The early Greek epic--that is, poetry as a natural and popular, and not
(as it became later) an artificial and academic literary form--passed
through the usual three phases, of development, of maturity, and of
decline.
No fragments which can be identified as belonging to the first period
survive to give us even a general idea of the history of the earliest
epic, and we are therefore thrown back upon the evidence of analogy
from other forms of literature and of inference from the two great
epics which have come down to us. So reconstructed, the earliest period
appears to us as a time of slow development in which the characteristic
epic metre, diction, and structure grew up slowly from crude elements
and were improved until the verge of maturity was reached.
The second period, which produced the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey", needs
no description here: but it is very important to observe the effect
of these poems on the course of post-Homeric epic. As the supreme
perfection and universality of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" cast into
oblivion whatever pre-Homeric poets had essayed, so these same qualities
exercised a paralysing influence over the successors of Homer. If they
continued to sing like their great predecessor of romantic themes, they
were drawn as by a kind of magnetic attraction into the Homeric style
and manner of treatment, and became mere echoes of the Homeric voice: in
a word, Homer had so completely exhausted the epic genre, that after him
further efforts were doomed to be merely conventional. Only the rare
and exceptional genius of Vergil and Milton could use the Homeric medium
without loss of individuality: and this quality none of the later epic
poets seem to have possessed. Freedom from the domination of the great
tradition could only be found by seeking new subjects, and such freedom
was really only illusionary, since romantic subjects alone are suitable
for epic treatment.
In its third period, therefore, epic poetry shows two divergent
tendencies. In Ionia and the islands the epic poets followed the Homeric
tradition, singing of romantic subjects in the now stereotyped heroic
style, and showing originality only in their choice of legends hitherto
neglected or summarily and imperfectly treated. In continental Greece
[1101], on the other hand, but especially in Boeotia, a new form of
epic sprang up, which for the romance and PATHOS of the Ionian School
substituted the practical and matter-of-fact. It dealt in moral and
practical maxims, in information on technical subjects which are
of service in daily life--agriculture, astronomy, augury, and the
calendar--in matters of religion and in tracing the genealogies of men.
Its attitude is summed up in the words of the Muses to the writer of the
"Theogony": `We can tell many a feigned tale to look like truth, but we
can, when we will, utter the truth' ("Theogony" 26-27). Such a poetry
could not be permanently successful, because the subjects of which it
treats--if susceptible of poetic treatment at all--were certainly not
suited for epic treatment, where unity of action which will sustain
interest, and to which each part should contribute, is absolutely
necessary. While, therefore, an epic like the "Odyssey" is an organism
and dramatic in structure, a work such as the "Theogony" is a merely
artificial collocation of facts, and, at best, a pageant. It is not
surprising, therefore, to find that from the first the Boeotian school
is forced to season its matter with romantic episodes, and that later
it tends more and more to revert (as in the "Shield of Heracles") to the
Homeric tradition.
The Boeotian School
How did the continental school of epic poetry arise? There is little
definite material for an answer to this question, but the probability is
that there were at least three contributory causes. First, it is likely
that before the rise of the Ionian epos there existed in Boeotia a
purely popular and indigenous poetry of a crude form: it comprised,
we may suppose, versified proverbs and precepts relating to life in
general, agricultural maxims, weather-lore, and the like. In this sense
the Boeotian poetry may be taken to have its germ in maxims similar to
our English
'Till May be out, ne'er cast a clout,'
or
'A rainbow in the morning
Is the Shepherd's warning. '
Secondly and thirdly we may ascribe the rise of the new epic to the
nature of the Boeotian people and, as already remarked, to a spirit of
revolt against the old epic. The Boeotians, people of the class of which
Hesiod represents himself to be the type, were essentially unromantic;
their daily needs marked the general limit of their ideals, and, as a
class, they cared little for works of fancy, for pathos, or for fine
thought as such. To a people of this nature the Homeric epos would
be inacceptable, and the post-Homeric epic, with its conventional
atmosphere, its trite and hackneyed diction, and its insincere
sentiment, would be anathema. We can imagine, therefore, that among
such folk a settler, of Aeolic origin like Hesiod, who clearly was
well acquainted with the Ionian epos, would naturally see that the
only outlet for his gifts lay in applying epic poetry to new themes
acceptable to his hearers.
Though the poems of the Boeotian school [1102] were unanimously assigned
to Hesiod down to the age of Alexandrian criticism, they were clearly
neither the work of one man nor even of one period: some, doubtless,
were fraudulently fathered on him in order to gain currency; but it is
probable that most came to be regarded as his partly because of their
general character, and partly because the names of their real authors
were lost. One fact in this attribution is remarkable--the veneration
paid to Hesiod.
Life of Hesiod
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 Magnum" (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. "
The Hesiodic Poems
The Hesiodic poems fall into two groups according as they are didactic
(technical or gnomic) or genealogical: the first group centres round the
"Works and Days", the second round the "Theogony".
I. "The Works and Days":
The poem consists of four main sections. a) After the prelude, which
Pausanias failed to find in the ancient copy engraved on lead seen by
him on Mt. Helicon, comes a general exhortation to industry. It begins
with the allegory of the two Strifes, who stand for wholesome Emulation
and Quarrelsomeness respectively. Then by means of the Myth of Pandora
the poet shows how evil and the need for work first arose, and goes on
to describe the Five Ages of the World, tracing the gradual increase in
evil, and emphasizing the present miserable condition of the world, a
condition in which struggle is inevitable. Next, after the Fable of the
Hawk and Nightingale, which serves as a condemnation of violence
and injustice, the poet passes on to contrast the blessing which
Righteousness brings to a nation, and the punishment which Heaven
sends down upon the violent, and the section concludes with a series
of precepts on industry and prudent conduct generally. b) The second
section shows how a man may escape want and misery by industry and care
both in agriculture and in trading by sea. Neither subject, it should
be carefully noted, is treated in any way comprehensively. c) The third
part is occupied with miscellaneous precepts relating mostly to actions
of domestic and everyday life and conduct which have little or no
connection with one another. d) The final section is taken up with
a series of notices on the days of the month which are favourable or
unfavourable for agricultural and other operations.
It is from the second and fourth sections that the poem takes its name.
At first sight such a work seems to be a miscellany of myths, technical
advice, moral precepts, and folklore maxims without any unifying
principle; and critics have readily taken the view that the whole is a
canto of fragments or short poems worked up by a redactor. Very probably
Hesiod used much material of a far older date, just as Shakespeare
used the "Gesta Romanorum", old chronicles, and old plays; but close
inspection will show that the "Works and Days" has a real unity and that
the picturesque title is somewhat misleading. The poem has properly no
technical object at all, but is moral: its real aim is to show men
how best to live in a difficult world. So viewed the four seemingly
independent sections will be found to be linked together in a real bond
of unity. Such a connection between the first and second sections is
easily seen, but the links between these and the third and fourth are no
less real: to make life go tolerably smoothly it is most important to
be just and to know how to win a livelihood; but happiness also largely
depends on prudence and care both in social and home life as well, and
not least on avoidance of actions which offend supernatural powers and
bring ill-luck. And finally, if your industry is to be fruitful, you
must know what days are suitable for various kinds of work. This
moral aim--as opposed to the currently accepted technical aim of the
poem--explains the otherwise puzzling incompleteness of the instructions
on farming and seafaring.
Of the Hesiodic poems similar in character to the "Works and Days", only
the scantiest fragments survive. One at least of these, the "Divination
by Birds", was, as we know from Proclus, attached to the end of the
"Works" until it was rejected by Apollonius Rhodius: doubtless it
continued the same theme of how to live, showing how man can avoid
disasters by attending to the omens to be drawn from birds. It is
possible that the "Astronomy" or "Astrology" (as Plutarch calls it) was
in turn appended to the "Divination". It certainly gave some account of
the principal constellations, their dates of rising and setting, and the
legends connected with them, and probably showed how these influenced
human affairs or might be used as guides. The "Precepts of Chiron" was
a didactic poem made up of moral and practical precepts, resembling the
gnomic sections of the "Works and Days", addressed by the Centaur Chiron
to his pupil Achilles.
Even less is known of the poem called the "Great Works": the title
implies that it was similar in subject to the second section of the
"Works and Days", but longer. Possible references in Roman writers
[1106] indicate that among the subjects dealt with were the cultivation
of the vine and olive and various herbs. The inclusion of the judgment
of Rhadamanthys (frag. 1): 'If a man sow evil, he shall reap evil,'
indicates a gnomic element, and the note by Proclus [1107] on "Works
and Days" 126 makes it likely that metals also were dealt with. It is
therefore possible that another lost poem, the "Idaean Dactyls", which
dealt with the discovery of metals and their working, was appended to,
or even was a part of the "Great Works", just as the "Divination by
Birds" was appended to the "Works and Days".
II. The Genealogical Poems:
The only complete poem of the genealogical group is the "Theogony",
which traces from the beginning of things the descent and vicissitudes
of the families of the gods. Like the "Works and Days" this poem has no
dramatic plot; but its unifying principle is clear and simple. The gods
are classified chronologically: as soon as one generation is catalogued,
the poet goes on to detail the offspring of each member of that
generation. Exceptions are only made in special cases, as the Sons of
Iapetus (ll. 507-616) whose place is accounted for by their treatment
by Zeus. The chief landmarks in the poem are as follows: after the
first 103 lines, which contain at least three distinct preludes,
three primeval beings are introduced, Chaos, Earth, and Eros--here an
indefinite reproductive influence. Of these three, Earth produces
Heaven to whom she bears the Titans, the Cyclopes and the hundred-handed
giants. The Titans, oppressed by their father, revolt at the instigation
of Earth, under the leadership of Cronos, and as a result Heaven and
Earth are separated, and Cronos reigns over the universe. Cronos knowing
that he is destined to be overcome by one of his children, swallows each
one of them as they are born, until Zeus, saved by Rhea, grows up and
overcomes Cronos in some struggle which is not described. Cronos is
forced to vomit up the children he had swallowed, and these with Zeus
divide the universe between them, like a human estate. Two events mark
the early reign of Zeus, the war with the Titans and the overthrow of
Typhoeus, and as Zeus is still reigning the poet can only go on to give
a list of gods born to Zeus by various goddesses. After this he formally
bids farewell to the cosmic and Olympian deities and enumerates the sons
born of goddess to mortals. The poem closes with an invocation of the
Muses to sing of the 'tribe of women'.
This conclusion served to link the "Theogony" to what must have been
a distinct poem, the "Catalogues of Women". This work was divided into
four (Suidas says five) books, the last one (or two) of which was known
as the "Eoiae" and may have been again a distinct poem: the curious
title will be explained presently. The "Catalogues" proper were a series
of genealogies which traced the Hellenic race (or its more important
peoples and families) from a common ancestor. The reason why women are
so prominent is obvious: since most families and tribes claimed to be
descended from a god, the only safe clue to their origin was through a
mortal woman beloved by that god; and it has also been pointed out that
'mutterrecht' still left its traces in northern Greece in historical
times.
The following analysis (after Marckscheffel) [1108] will show the
principle of its composition. From Prometheus and Pronoia sprang
Deucalion and Pyrrha, the only survivors of the deluge, who had a son
Hellen (frag. 1), the reputed ancestor of the whole Hellenic race. From
the daughters of Deucalion sprang Magnes and Macedon, ancestors of the
Magnesians and Macedonians, who are thus represented as cousins to the
true Hellenic stock. Hellen had three sons, Dorus, Xuthus, and Aeolus,
parents of the Dorian, Ionic and Aeolian races, and the offspring
of these was then detailed. In one instance a considerable and
characteristic section can be traced from extant fragments and notices:
Salmoneus, son of Aeolus, had a daughter Tyro who bore to Poseidon two
sons, Pelias and Neleus; the latter of these, king of Pylos, refused
Heracles purification for the murder of Iphitus, whereupon Heracles
attacked and sacked Pylos, killing amongst the other sons of Neleus
Periclymenus, who had the power of changing himself into all manner of
shapes. From this slaughter Neleus alone escaped (frags. 13, and
10-12). This summary shows the general principle of arrangement of the
"Catalogues": each line seems to have been dealt with in turn, and the
monotony was relieved as far as possible by a brief relation of famous
adventures connected with any of the personages--as in the case of
Atalanta and Hippomenes (frag. 14). Similarly the story of the Argonauts
appears from the fragments (37-42) to have been told in some detail.
This tendency to introduce romantic episodes led to an important
development. Several poems are ascribed to Hesiod, such as the
"Epithalamium of Peleus and Thetis", the "Descent of Theseus into
Hades", or the "Circuit of the Earth" (which must have been
connected with the story of Phineus and the Harpies, and so with the
Argonaut-legend), which yet seem to have belonged to the "Catalogues".
It is highly probable that these poems were interpolations into the
"Catalogues" expanded by later poets from more summary notices in the
genuine Hesiodic work and subsequently detached from their contexts
and treated as independent. This is definitely known to be true of the
"Shield of Heracles", the first 53 lines of which belong to the
fourth book of the "Catalogues", and almost certainly applies to other
episodes, such as the "Suitors of Helen" [1109], the "Daughters of
Leucippus", and the "Marriage of Ceyx", which last Plutarch mentions as
'interpolated in the works of Hesiod. '
To the "Catalogues", as we have said, was appended another work, the
"Eoiae". The title seems to have arisen in the following way [1110]:
the "Catalogues" probably ended (ep. "Theogony" 963 ff. ) with some such
passage as this: 'But now, ye Muses, sing of the tribes of women with
whom the Sons of Heaven were joined in love, women pre-eminent above
their fellows in beauty, such as was Niobe (? ). ' Each succeeding heroine
was then introduced by the formula 'Or such as was. . . ' (cp. frags. 88,
92, etc. ). A large fragment of the "Eoiae" is extant at the beginning of
the "Shield of Heracles", which may be mentioned here. The "supplement"
(ll. 57-480) is nominally Heracles and Cycnus, but the greater part
is taken up with an inferior description of the shield of Heracles, in
imitation of the Homeric shield of Achilles ("Iliad" xviii. 478 ff. ).
Nothing shows more clearly the collapse of the principles of the
Hesiodic school than this ultimate servile dependence upon Homeric
models.
At the close of the "Shield" Heracles goes on to Trachis to the house
of Ceyx, and this warning suggests that the "Marriage of Ceyx" may have
come immediately after the 'Or such as was' of Alcmena in the "Eoiae":
possibly Halcyone, the wife of Ceyx, was one of the heroines sung in
the poem, and the original section was 'developed' into the "Marriage",
although what form the poem took is unknown.
Next to the "Eoiae" and the poems which seemed to have been developed
from it, it is natural to place the "Great Eoiae". This, again, as we
know from fragments, was a list of heroines who bare children to the
gods: from the title we must suppose it to have been much longer that
the simple "Eoiae", but its extent is unknown. Lehmann, remarking that
the heroines are all Boeotian and Thessalian (while the heroines of
the "Catalogues" belong to all parts of the Greek world), believes the
author to have been either a Boeotian or Thessalian.
Two other poems are ascribed to Hesiod. Of these the "Aegimius" (also
ascribed by Athenaeus to Cercops of Miletus), is thought by Valckenaer
to deal with the war of Aegimus against the Lapithae and the aid
furnished to him by Heracles, and with the history of Aegimius and
his sons. Otto Muller suggests that the introduction of Thetis and of
Phrixus (frags. 1-2) is to be connected with notices of the allies of
the Lapithae from Phthiotis and Iolchus, and that the story of Io was
incidental to a narrative of Heracles' expedition against Euboea. The
remaining poem, the "Melampodia", was a work in three books, whose plan
it is impossible to recover. Its subject, however, seems to have been
the histories of famous seers like Mopsus, Calchas, and Teiresias, and
it probably took its name from Melampus, the most famous of them all.
Date of the Hesiodic Poems
There is no doubt that the "Works and Days" is the oldest, as it is the
most original, of the Hesiodic poems.
The Boeotian School
How did the continental school of epic poetry arise? There is little
definite material for an answer to this question, but the probability is
that there were at least three contributory causes. First, it is likely
that before the rise of the Ionian epos there existed in Boeotia a
purely popular and indigenous poetry of a crude form: it comprised,
we may suppose, versified proverbs and precepts relating to life in
general, agricultural maxims, weather-lore, and the like. In this sense
the Boeotian poetry may be taken to have its germ in maxims similar to
our English
'Till May be out, ne'er cast a clout,'
or
'A rainbow in the morning
Is the Shepherd's warning. '
Secondly and thirdly we may ascribe the rise of the new epic to the
nature of the Boeotian people and, as already remarked, to a spirit of
revolt against the old epic. The Boeotians, people of the class of which
Hesiod represents himself to be the type, were essentially unromantic;
their daily needs marked the general limit of their ideals, and, as a
class, they cared little for works of fancy, for pathos, or for fine
thought as such. To a people of this nature the Homeric epos would
be inacceptable, and the post-Homeric epic, with its conventional
atmosphere, its trite and hackneyed diction, and its insincere
sentiment, would be anathema. We can imagine, therefore, that among
such folk a settler, of Aeolic origin like Hesiod, who clearly was
well acquainted with the Ionian epos, would naturally see that the
only outlet for his gifts lay in applying epic poetry to new themes
acceptable to his hearers.
Though the poems of the Boeotian school [1102] were unanimously assigned
to Hesiod down to the age of Alexandrian criticism, they were clearly
neither the work of one man nor even of one period: some, doubtless,
were fraudulently fathered on him in order to gain currency; but it is
probable that most came to be regarded as his partly because of their
general character, and partly because the names of their real authors
were lost. One fact in this attribution is remarkable--the veneration
paid to Hesiod.
Life of Hesiod
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 Magnum" (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. "
The Hesiodic Poems
The Hesiodic poems fall into two groups according as they are didactic
(technical or gnomic) or genealogical: the first group centres round the
"Works and Days", the second round the "Theogony".
I. "The Works and Days":
The poem consists of four main sections. a) After the prelude, which
Pausanias failed to find in the ancient copy engraved on lead seen by
him on Mt. Helicon, comes a general exhortation to industry. It begins
with the allegory of the two Strifes, who stand for wholesome Emulation
and Quarrelsomeness respectively. Then by means of the Myth of Pandora
the poet shows how evil and the need for work first arose, and goes on
to describe the Five Ages of the World, tracing the gradual increase in
evil, and emphasizing the present miserable condition of the world, a
condition in which struggle is inevitable. Next, after the Fable of the
Hawk and Nightingale, which serves as a condemnation of violence
and injustice, the poet passes on to contrast the blessing which
Righteousness brings to a nation, and the punishment which Heaven
sends down upon the violent, and the section concludes with a series
of precepts on industry and prudent conduct generally. b) The second
section shows how a man may escape want and misery by industry and care
both in agriculture and in trading by sea. Neither subject, it should
be carefully noted, is treated in any way comprehensively. c) The third
part is occupied with miscellaneous precepts relating mostly to actions
of domestic and everyday life and conduct which have little or no
connection with one another. d) The final section is taken up with
a series of notices on the days of the month which are favourable or
unfavourable for agricultural and other operations.
It is from the second and fourth sections that the poem takes its name.
At first sight such a work seems to be a miscellany of myths, technical
advice, moral precepts, and folklore maxims without any unifying
principle; and critics have readily taken the view that the whole is a
canto of fragments or short poems worked up by a redactor. Very probably
Hesiod used much material of a far older date, just as Shakespeare
used the "Gesta Romanorum", old chronicles, and old plays; but close
inspection will show that the "Works and Days" has a real unity and that
the picturesque title is somewhat misleading. The poem has properly no
technical object at all, but is moral: its real aim is to show men
how best to live in a difficult world. So viewed the four seemingly
independent sections will be found to be linked together in a real bond
of unity. Such a connection between the first and second sections is
easily seen, but the links between these and the third and fourth are no
less real: to make life go tolerably smoothly it is most important to
be just and to know how to win a livelihood; but happiness also largely
depends on prudence and care both in social and home life as well, and
not least on avoidance of actions which offend supernatural powers and
bring ill-luck. And finally, if your industry is to be fruitful, you
must know what days are suitable for various kinds of work. This
moral aim--as opposed to the currently accepted technical aim of the
poem--explains the otherwise puzzling incompleteness of the instructions
on farming and seafaring.
Of the Hesiodic poems similar in character to the "Works and Days", only
the scantiest fragments survive. One at least of these, the "Divination
by Birds", was, as we know from Proclus, attached to the end of the
"Works" until it was rejected by Apollonius Rhodius: doubtless it
continued the same theme of how to live, showing how man can avoid
disasters by attending to the omens to be drawn from birds. It is
possible that the "Astronomy" or "Astrology" (as Plutarch calls it) was
in turn appended to the "Divination". It certainly gave some account of
the principal constellations, their dates of rising and setting, and the
legends connected with them, and probably showed how these influenced
human affairs or might be used as guides. The "Precepts of Chiron" was
a didactic poem made up of moral and practical precepts, resembling the
gnomic sections of the "Works and Days", addressed by the Centaur Chiron
to his pupil Achilles.
Even less is known of the poem called the "Great Works": the title
implies that it was similar in subject to the second section of the
"Works and Days", but longer. Possible references in Roman writers
[1106] indicate that among the subjects dealt with were the cultivation
of the vine and olive and various herbs. The inclusion of the judgment
of Rhadamanthys (frag. 1): 'If a man sow evil, he shall reap evil,'
indicates a gnomic element, and the note by Proclus [1107] on "Works
and Days" 126 makes it likely that metals also were dealt with. It is
therefore possible that another lost poem, the "Idaean Dactyls", which
dealt with the discovery of metals and their working, was appended to,
or even was a part of the "Great Works", just as the "Divination by
Birds" was appended to the "Works and Days".
II. The Genealogical Poems:
The only complete poem of the genealogical group is the "Theogony",
which traces from the beginning of things the descent and vicissitudes
of the families of the gods. Like the "Works and Days" this poem has no
dramatic plot; but its unifying principle is clear and simple. The gods
are classified chronologically: as soon as one generation is catalogued,
the poet goes on to detail the offspring of each member of that
generation. Exceptions are only made in special cases, as the Sons of
Iapetus (ll. 507-616) whose place is accounted for by their treatment
by Zeus. The chief landmarks in the poem are as follows: after the
first 103 lines, which contain at least three distinct preludes,
three primeval beings are introduced, Chaos, Earth, and Eros--here an
indefinite reproductive influence. Of these three, Earth produces
Heaven to whom she bears the Titans, the Cyclopes and the hundred-handed
giants. The Titans, oppressed by their father, revolt at the instigation
of Earth, under the leadership of Cronos, and as a result Heaven and
Earth are separated, and Cronos reigns over the universe. Cronos knowing
that he is destined to be overcome by one of his children, swallows each
one of them as they are born, until Zeus, saved by Rhea, grows up and
overcomes Cronos in some struggle which is not described. Cronos is
forced to vomit up the children he had swallowed, and these with Zeus
divide the universe between them, like a human estate. Two events mark
the early reign of Zeus, the war with the Titans and the overthrow of
Typhoeus, and as Zeus is still reigning the poet can only go on to give
a list of gods born to Zeus by various goddesses. After this he formally
bids farewell to the cosmic and Olympian deities and enumerates the sons
born of goddess to mortals. The poem closes with an invocation of the
Muses to sing of the 'tribe of women'.
This conclusion served to link the "Theogony" to what must have been
a distinct poem, the "Catalogues of Women". This work was divided into
four (Suidas says five) books, the last one (or two) of which was known
as the "Eoiae" and may have been again a distinct poem: the curious
title will be explained presently. The "Catalogues" proper were a series
of genealogies which traced the Hellenic race (or its more important
peoples and families) from a common ancestor. The reason why women are
so prominent is obvious: since most families and tribes claimed to be
descended from a god, the only safe clue to their origin was through a
mortal woman beloved by that god; and it has also been pointed out that
'mutterrecht' still left its traces in northern Greece in historical
times.
The following analysis (after Marckscheffel) [1108] will show the
principle of its composition. From Prometheus and Pronoia sprang
Deucalion and Pyrrha, the only survivors of the deluge, who had a son
Hellen (frag. 1), the reputed ancestor of the whole Hellenic race. From
the daughters of Deucalion sprang Magnes and Macedon, ancestors of the
Magnesians and Macedonians, who are thus represented as cousins to the
true Hellenic stock. Hellen had three sons, Dorus, Xuthus, and Aeolus,
parents of the Dorian, Ionic and Aeolian races, and the offspring
of these was then detailed. In one instance a considerable and
characteristic section can be traced from extant fragments and notices:
Salmoneus, son of Aeolus, had a daughter Tyro who bore to Poseidon two
sons, Pelias and Neleus; the latter of these, king of Pylos, refused
Heracles purification for the murder of Iphitus, whereupon Heracles
attacked and sacked Pylos, killing amongst the other sons of Neleus
Periclymenus, who had the power of changing himself into all manner of
shapes. From this slaughter Neleus alone escaped (frags. 13, and
10-12). This summary shows the general principle of arrangement of the
"Catalogues": each line seems to have been dealt with in turn, and the
monotony was relieved as far as possible by a brief relation of famous
adventures connected with any of the personages--as in the case of
Atalanta and Hippomenes (frag. 14). Similarly the story of the Argonauts
appears from the fragments (37-42) to have been told in some detail.
This tendency to introduce romantic episodes led to an important
development. Several poems are ascribed to Hesiod, such as the
"Epithalamium of Peleus and Thetis", the "Descent of Theseus into
Hades", or the "Circuit of the Earth" (which must have been
connected with the story of Phineus and the Harpies, and so with the
Argonaut-legend), which yet seem to have belonged to the "Catalogues".
It is highly probable that these poems were interpolations into the
"Catalogues" expanded by later poets from more summary notices in the
genuine Hesiodic work and subsequently detached from their contexts
and treated as independent. This is definitely known to be true of the
"Shield of Heracles", the first 53 lines of which belong to the
fourth book of the "Catalogues", and almost certainly applies to other
episodes, such as the "Suitors of Helen" [1109], the "Daughters of
Leucippus", and the "Marriage of Ceyx", which last Plutarch mentions as
'interpolated in the works of Hesiod. '
To the "Catalogues", as we have said, was appended another work, the
"Eoiae". The title seems to have arisen in the following way [1110]:
the "Catalogues" probably ended (ep. "Theogony" 963 ff. ) with some such
passage as this: 'But now, ye Muses, sing of the tribes of women with
whom the Sons of Heaven were joined in love, women pre-eminent above
their fellows in beauty, such as was Niobe (? ). ' Each succeeding heroine
was then introduced by the formula 'Or such as was. . . ' (cp. frags. 88,
92, etc. ). A large fragment of the "Eoiae" is extant at the beginning of
the "Shield of Heracles", which may be mentioned here. The "supplement"
(ll. 57-480) is nominally Heracles and Cycnus, but the greater part
is taken up with an inferior description of the shield of Heracles, in
imitation of the Homeric shield of Achilles ("Iliad" xviii. 478 ff. ).
Nothing shows more clearly the collapse of the principles of the
Hesiodic school than this ultimate servile dependence upon Homeric
models.
At the close of the "Shield" Heracles goes on to Trachis to the house
of Ceyx, and this warning suggests that the "Marriage of Ceyx" may have
come immediately after the 'Or such as was' of Alcmena in the "Eoiae":
possibly Halcyone, the wife of Ceyx, was one of the heroines sung in
the poem, and the original section was 'developed' into the "Marriage",
although what form the poem took is unknown.
Next to the "Eoiae" and the poems which seemed to have been developed
from it, it is natural to place the "Great Eoiae". This, again, as we
know from fragments, was a list of heroines who bare children to the
gods: from the title we must suppose it to have been much longer that
the simple "Eoiae", but its extent is unknown. Lehmann, remarking that
the heroines are all Boeotian and Thessalian (while the heroines of
the "Catalogues" belong to all parts of the Greek world), believes the
author to have been either a Boeotian or Thessalian.
Two other poems are ascribed to Hesiod. Of these the "Aegimius" (also
ascribed by Athenaeus to Cercops of Miletus), is thought by Valckenaer
to deal with the war of Aegimus against the Lapithae and the aid
furnished to him by Heracles, and with the history of Aegimius and
his sons. Otto Muller suggests that the introduction of Thetis and of
Phrixus (frags. 1-2) is to be connected with notices of the allies of
the Lapithae from Phthiotis and Iolchus, and that the story of Io was
incidental to a narrative of Heracles' expedition against Euboea. The
remaining poem, the "Melampodia", was a work in three books, whose plan
it is impossible to recover. Its subject, however, seems to have been
the histories of famous seers like Mopsus, Calchas, and Teiresias, and
it probably took its name from Melampus, the most famous of them all.
Date of the Hesiodic Poems
There is no doubt that the "Works and Days" is the oldest, as it is the
most original, of the Hesiodic poems. It seems to be distinctly earlier
than the "Theogony", which refers to it, apparently, as a poem already
renowned. Two considerations help us to fix a relative date for the
"Works". 1) In diction, dialect and style it is obviously dependent
upon Homer, and is therefore considerably later than the "Iliad" and
"Odyssey": moreover, as we have seen, it is in revolt against the
romantic school, already grown decadent, and while the digamma is still
living, it is obviously growing weak, and is by no means uniformly
effective.
2) On the other hand while tradition steadily puts the Cyclic poets
at various dates from 776 B. C. downwards, it is equally consistent in
regarding Homer and Hesiod as 'prehistoric'. Herodotus indeed puts both
poets 400 years before his own time; that is, at about 830-820 B. C. , and
the evidence stated above points to the middle of the ninth century
as the probable date for the "Works and Days". The "Theogony" might be
tentatively placed a century later; and the "Catalogues" and "Eoiae" are
again later, but not greatly later, than the "Theogony": the "Shield of
Heracles" may be ascribed to the later half of the seventh century, but
there is not evidence enough to show whether the other 'developed' poems
are to be regarded as of a date so low as this.
Literary Value of Homer
Quintillian's [1111] judgment on Hesiod that 'he rarely rises to great
heights. . . and to him is given the palm in the middle-class of speech'
is just, but is liable to give a wrong impression. Hesiod has nothing
that remotely approaches such scenes as that between Priam and Achilles,
or the pathos of Andromache's preparations for Hector's return, even as
he was falling before the walls of Troy; but in matters that come
within the range of ordinary experience, he rarely fails to rise to the
appropriate level. Take, for instance, the description of the Iron
Age ("Works and Days", 182 ff. ) with its catalogue of wrongdoings and
violence ever increasing until Aidos and Nemesis are forced to leave
mankind who thenceforward shall have 'no remedy against evil'. Such
occasions, however, rarely occur and are perhaps not characteristic of
Hesiod's genius: if we would see Hesiod at his best, in his most natural
vein, we must turn to such a passage as that which he himself--according
to the compiler of the "Contest of Hesiod and Homer"--selected as best
in all his work, 'When the Pleiades, Atlas' daughters, begin to rise. . . '
("Works and Days," 383 ff. ). The value of such a passage cannot be
analysed: it can only be said that given such a subject, this alone is
the right method of treatment.
Hesiod's diction is in the main Homeric, but one of his charms is the
use of quaint allusive phrases derived, perhaps, from a pre-Hesiodic
peasant poetry: thus the season when Boreas blows is the time when 'the
Boneless One gnaws his foot by his fireless hearth in his cheerless
house'; to cut one's nails is 'to sever the withered from the quick
upon that which has five branches'; similarly the burglar is the
'day-sleeper', and the serpent is the 'hairless one'. Very similar is
his reference to seasons through what happens or is done in that season:
'when the House-carrier, fleeing the Pleiades, climbs up the plants from
the earth', is the season for harvesting; or 'when the artichoke flowers
and the clicking grass-hopper, seated in a tree, pours down his shrill
song', is the time for rest.
Hesiod's charm lies in his child-like and sincere naivete, in his
unaffected interest in and picturesque view of nature and all that
happens in nature. These qualities, it is true, are those pre-eminently
of the "Works and Days": the literary values of the "Theogony" are of a
more technical character, skill in ordering and disposing long lists of
names, sure judgment in seasoning a monotonous subject with marvellous
incidents or episodes, and no mean imagination in depicting the awful,
as is shown in the description of Tartarus (ll. 736-745). Yet it remains
true that Hesiod's distinctive title to a high place in Greek literature
lies in the very fact of his freedom from classic form, and his grave,
and yet child-like, outlook upon his world.
The Ionic School
The Ionic School of Epic poetry was, as we have seen, dominated by
the Homeric tradition, and while the style and method of treatment are
Homeric, it is natural that the Ionic poets refrained from cultivating
the ground tilled by Homer, and chose for treatment legends which lay
beyond the range of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey". Equally natural it is
that they should have particularly selected various phases of the
tale of Troy which preceded or followed the action of the "Iliad" or
"Odyssey". In this way, without any preconceived intention, a body of
epic poetry was built up by various writers which covered the whole
Trojan story. But the entire range of heroic legend was open to these
poets, and other clusters of epics grew up dealing particularly with the
famous story of Thebes, while others dealt with the beginnings of the
world and the wars of heaven. In the end there existed a kind of epic
history of the world, as known to the Greeks, down to the death of
Odysseus, when the heroic age ended. In the Alexandrian Age these
poems were arranged in chronological order, apparently by Zenodotus of
Ephesus, at the beginning of the 3rd century B. C. At a later time the
term "Cycle", 'round' or 'course', was given to this collection.
Of all this mass of epic poetry only the scantiest fragments survive;
but happily Photius has preserved to us an abridgment of the synopsis
made of each poem of the "Trojan Cycle" by Proclus, i. e. Eutychius
Proclus of Sicca.
The pre-Trojan poems of the Cycle may be noticed first. The
"Titanomachy", ascribed both to Eumelus of Corinth and to Arctinus of
Miletus, began with a kind of Theogony which told of the union of Heaven
and Earth and of their offspring the Cyclopes and the Hundred-handed
Giants. How the poem proceeded we have no means of knowing, but we may
suppose that in character it was not unlike the short account of the
Titan War found in the Hesiodic "Theogony" (617 ff. ).
What links bound the "Titanomachy" to the Theben Cycle is not clear.
This latter group was formed of three poems, the "Story of Oedipus", the
"Thebais", and the "Epigoni". Of the "Oedipodea" practically nothing is
known, though on the assurance of Athenaeus (vii. 277 E) that Sophocles
followed the Epic Cycle closely in the plots of his plays, we may
suppose that in outline the story corresponded closely to the history of
Oedipus as it is found in the "Oedipus Tyrannus". The "Thebais" seems
to have begun with the origin of the fatal quarrel between Eteocles and
Polyneices in the curse called down upon them by their father in his
misery. The story was thence carried down to the end of the expedition
under Polyneices, Adrastus and Amphiarus against Thebes. The "Epigoni"
(ascribed to Antimachus of Teos) recounted the expedition of the
'After-Born' against Thebes, and the sack of the city.
