Hesiod and the Theogony

Hesiod Biography

Greek literature begins with Homer and Hesiod, and while Homer’s works, the Iliad and the Odyssey, receive most of the attention, Hesiod’s contributions to Greek (and, by extension, Western) culture are arguably just as important.

The only surviving biographical information about Hesiod comes from the poet himself. Early in the Theogony, for example, Hesiod states that he was a shepherd tending sheep beneath Mount Helicon in Boeotia, a region of central Greece. It was there, he claims, that the Muses appeared to him and granted him the gift of poetry. In Works and Days, Hesiod also notes that he lived in Ascra, a small village near Mount Helicon; that he had a brother, Perses, with whom he was often at odds; that his and Perses’ father had come to Boeotia from Aeolian Cyme in Anatolia; and that Hesiod himself rarely travelled beyond his home region, save for a single short journey across the three-mile (4.8 km)-wide Euripus Strait from Aulis to Chalcis. There, he participated in the funeral games for Athamas of Chalcis and won a tripod in a singing competition—an event he cites as evidence of the poetic gift bestowed upon him by the Muses.

Whether these biographical details are historically accurate remains uncertain, but they nonetheless provide a starting point for investigating Hesiod’s writings. The question of when Hesiod wrote is more complex. It is, however, generally accepted that both Hesiod and Homer were active in the eighth century BCE, shortly after the emergence of the Greek alphabet. This period followed centuries of decline after the long Dark Age that began around 1200 BCE, when many of the major Mediterranean civilisations—including the Hittite, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Mycenaean worlds—collapsed as a result of natural catastrophes, internal upheaval, and invasions by groups known collectively in later sources as the Sea Peoples.

Hesiod vs Homer

Broadly speaking, Hesiod and Homer were writing during the same historical period. They also used a similar dialect of Greek, a variation of Ionic Greek usually referred to as Homeric Greek or Epic Greek—a form of the language as different from the Greek of the Classical period as Shakespeare’s English is from modern English. Given these linguistic similarities, it is not surprising that both authors employ many of the same poetic conventions, such as the use of epithets: descriptive phrases that identify a defining characteristic of a person or god (for example, “loud-thundering Zeus” or “grey-eyed Athena”).

Ultimately, what links Homer and Hesiod is the fact that both poets are concerned with the gods and heroes of the eastern Mediterranean—specifically a Mycenaean Greek culture that had ceased to exist hundreds of years before the poets were born and survived only in stories and legends. Each poet, however, approaches this material differently. Homer’s epics tell specific stories about key figures of the Trojan War and feature some of the most complex and fully realised characters in all of literature, both mortal figures such as Achilles and Odysseus and immortal gods such as Zeus and Athena.

By contrast, Hesiod’s Theogony uses a broader canvas and focuses on the largest themes: the creation of the world and the heavens, the birth of the gods, the disputes and battles between different generations of gods, and the various interactions between gods and mortals. This should come as no surprise, since the Greek word theogony literally means “the genealogy of the gods”. The principal purpose of this work, therefore, is to explain the origin of the universe and to trace the generational development of the gods, from primordial beings such as Nyx (Night) and Gaia (Earth) to the Olympian gods, including Zeus, Athena, and Hera.

That is not to say that there are no compelling stories here—far from it. In fact, this relatively brief work includes many of the most well-known episodes of Greek mythology, including Cronos’ castration of Ouranos, the births of Aphrodite and Athena, the war between the gods and the Titans, and myths involving Prometheus, Heracles, Pegasus, Pandora, Jason and Medea, and Perseus and Medusa. It also features a wide range of remarkable monsters, such as the Hundred-Handed Ones, the Cyclopes, the Harpies, the Gorgons, Echidna, Orthrus, Cerberus, the Hydra of Lerna, and the Chimera.

About the Theogony Summary

In short, Hesiod’s Theogony offers a fascinating overview of Greek mythology, though it can be a challenging read due to the sheer breadth and complexity of the Greek pantheon. The poem mentions more than 400 gods, demigods, and mythological beings. Many of these figures are explored in greater detail in our mythology anthology, within the section devoted to Ancient Greek mythology.

Below you will find a glossary with corresponding links to heroes and gods, each leading directly to the relevant mythological section.