Theogony and Works and Days: Elegies

Together the poetry of Hesiod and Theognis offers a superb introduction to the life and thought of ancient Greece. Hesiod's Theogoney (c. 725 BCE) is a powerful creation myth: an epic, bloody tale of dark forces, sex and violence, tracing the history of the world from primeval Chaos to the establishment of Zeus as supreme king of the gods. In contrast, Hesiod's Works and Days, written to advise his indolent brother Perseus, is an intriguing, sophisticated combination of ethical maxims, social and political comment and superstitious law. Elegiac rather than epic, the works of Theognis - written some two centuries after Hesiod - include theological speculations, love lyrics and moral advice for his protigi Kurnos, reflecting the moods and themes of an aristocratic poet who mourned a changing Greek society.

About The Authors

Very little is known about Hesiod and it cannot definitely be proved that the same man wrote both the Theogony and Works and Days. He probably lived in the eighth century BC (contemporary with Homer) in Boeotia on the Greek mainland.

Theognis lived and wrote chiefly in the sixth century BC. He came from Megara, probably the one on the Greek mainland, and was an aristocrat. There was a popular revolution, in which he lost his status and possibly his money. He appears to have been exiled and might have moved to Megara in Sicily. He had a friend called Kurnos, the son of Polypaos, an aristocrat like himself. to whom he wrote numerous poems.