APPENDIX.
45
twenty years, and most modern critics assume that Hesiod lived about a century later than Homer, which is pretty much in accordance with the statements of some ancient writers who place him about the eleventh Olympiad, that is, about B.C. 735. Respecting the life of the poet we derive some information from one of the poems ascribed to him, namely the Works and Days, We learn from that poem (648, etc.) that he was born in the village of Ascra, Bœotia, whither his father had emigrated from the Eolian Cuma in Asia Minor. Ephorus and Suidas state that both Homer and Hesiod were natives of Cuma, and even represent them as kinsmen,—a statement which probably arose from the belief that Hesiod was born before his father's emigration to Ascra; but if this were true, Hesiod could not have said that he never crossed the sea, except from Aulis to Euboea. Ascra, moreover, is mentioned as his birthplace in the epitaph on Hesiod (Pausanias IX. 38) and by Proclus in his life of Hesiod. The poet describes himself (Theogony, 23) as tending a flock on the side of Mount Helicon, and from this, as well as from the fact of his calling himself an Atimetos,[1] we must infer that he belonged to an humble station, and was engaged in rural pursuits. But subsequently his circumstances seem to have been bettered, and after the death of his father, lie was involved in a dispute with his brother Perses about his small patrimony, which was decided in favor of Perses. He then seems to have emigrated to Orchomenus, where he spentthe remainder of his life. At Orchomenus he is also said to have been buried, and his tomb was shown there in later times. This is all that can be said, with any degree of certainty, about the life of Hesiod. Proclus, Tzetzes, and others relate a variety of anecdotes and marvellous tales about his life and death, but very little value can be attached to them, though they may have been derived from comparatively early sources. We have to lament the loss of some ancient works on the life of Hesiod, especially those written by Plutarch and Cleomenes, for they would undoubtedly have enlightened us upon many points respecting which we are now completely in the dark. We must, however, observe that many of the stories related about Hesiod refer to his whole school of poetry (but not to the poet personally), and arose from the relation in which the Bœotian or Hesiodic school stood to the Homeric or Ionian school. In this light we consider, for example, the traditions that Stesichorus was a son of Hesiod, and that Hesiod had a poetical
- ↑ An Atimetos, in Greek, meant one who was dishonored, or rather one-without-honor. But technically and politically speaking, it meant one who had not as yet been honored with citizenship.
