Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/456

442 racter of a distinct being. The whole condudes with an account of some of the most illustrious heroes, whereby the poem enters into some kind of connection with the Homeric epics. The whole poem may be divided into three parts : 1. The cos- mogony, which widely differs from the simple Homeric notion {II. xiv. 200), and afterwards served as the groundwork for the various physical speculations of the Greek philosophers, who looked upon the Theogony of Hesiod as containing in an allegorical fonn all the physical wisdom that they were able to propound, though Hesiod himself was believed not to have been aware of the profound philosophical and theological wisdom he was utter- ing. The cosmogony extends from v. 116 to 452. 2. The theogony, in the strict sense of the word, from 453 to 962 ; and ?. the last portion, which is in fact a heroogony, being an account of the heroes born by mortal mothers whose charms had drawn the immortals from Olyrnpus. This part is very brief, extending only from v. QQ'd to 1021, and forms the transition to the Eoeae, of which we shall speak presently. If we ask for the sources from which Hesiod drew his information respecting the origin of the world aud the gods, the answer cannot be much more than a conjecture, for there is no direct information on the point. Herodotus asserts that Homer and Hesiod made the theogony of the Greeks ; and, in reference to Hesiod in par- ticular, this probably means that Hesiod collected and combined into a system the various local le- gends, especially of northern Greece, such as they had been handed down by priests and bards. The assertion of Herodotus further obliges us to take into consideration the fact, that in the earliest Greek theology the gods do not appear in any de- finite forms, whereas Hesiod strives to anthropo- morphise all of them, the ancient elementary gods as well as the later dynasties of Cronus and Zeus. Now both the system of the gods and the forms under which he conceived them afterwards became firmly established in Greece, and, considered in this way, the assertion of Herodotus is perfectly correct. Whether the form in which the Theogony has come down to us is the original and genuine one, and whether it is complete or only a fragment, is a question which has been much discussed in modern times. There can be little doubt but that in the course of time the poets of the Hesiodic school and the rhapsodists introduced various interpolations, which produced many of the inequalities both in the substance and form of the poem which we now perceive ; many parts also may have been lost. Hermann has endeavoured to show that there ex- ist no less than seven different introductions to the Theogony, and that consequently there existed as many different recensions and editions of it. But as our present form itself belongs to a verj"- early date, it would be useless to attempt to deter- mine what part of it formed the original kernel, and what is to be considered as later addition or interpolation. (Comp, Creuzer and Hermann, Brie/e iiber Horn, und Hes., Heidelberg, 1817, 8vo. ; F. K. L. Sickler, Cadmus I. Erkl'drung der Tlieogonie des Hesiod, Hildburghausen, 1818, 4 to. ; J. D. Guigniant, De la Theogonie d"" Hesiod, Paris, 1835, 8vo. ; J. C. Mutzell, De Emendatione Tkeo- goniae Hesiodi, Lips. 1833, 8vo. ; A. Soetbeer, Verstcch die Urform der Hesiod. Tlieogonie nach- zuweisen, Berlin, 1837, 8vo. ; 0. F. Gruppe, U^r die Tluiog. des Hesiodf Utr VerderOniss und i/ire ursprungliche Bescliajfenlmt, Berlin, 1841, 8vo. The last two works are useless and futile attempts; comp. Th. Kock, De pristina Theogoniae Hesiodeue Forma, pars i. Vratislav. 1842, 8vo.)

3, 'HoTat or rjotat u^yaKai, also called Kora- Ao7ot yvvaiKoiu. The name ijoiai was derived, according to the ancient grammarians, from the fact that the heroines who, by their connection with the immortal gods, had become the mothers of the most illustrious heroes, were introduced in the poem by the expression ^ ot'77. The poem itself, which is lost, is said to have consisted of four books, the last of which was by far the longest, and was hence called ^o7ai (x^ydKai, whereas the titles KaraXoyoi or Tjolai belonged to the whole body of poetry, containing accounts of the women who had been beloved by the gods, and had thus become the mothers of the heroes in the various parts of Greece, from Avhom the ruling families derived their origin. The two last verses of the Theogony formed the beginning of the ijoiaj, which, from its nature, might justly be regarded as a continuation of the Theogony, being as a heroogony {ripwo'yovia) the natural sequel to the Theogony. The work, if we may regard it as one poem, thus contained the genealogies or pedigrees of the most illustrious Greek families. Whether the Eoeae or Catalogi was the work of one and the same poet was a disputed point among the ancients them- selves. From a statement of the scholiast on ApoUonius Rhodius (ii. 181), it appears that it consisted of several works, which were afterwards put together; and while ApoUonius Rhodius and Crates of Mallus attributed it to Hesiod (Schol. ad Hes. Theog. 142), Aristophanes and Aristarchus were doubtful. (Anonym. Gram, in Gottling's ed. of Hes. p. 92 ; Schol. ad Horn. II. xxiv. 30 ; Suid. and Apollon. s. v. ixax^ocrvvi].) The anony- mous Greek grammarian just referred to states that the first fifty-six verses of the Hesiodic poem 'AcTrii 'HpaKKeous (Scutum Hercidis) belonged to the fourth book of the Eoeae, and it is generally supposed that this poem, or perhaps fragment of a poem, originally belonged to the Eoeae. The 'hairXs 'HpaKovs, which is still extant, consists of three distinct parts ; that from v. 1 to 56 was taken from the Eoeae, and is probably the most ancient portion ; the second from 57 to 140, which must be connected with the verses 317 to 480 ; and the third from 141 to 317 contains the real description of the shield of Heracles, which is introduced in the account of the fight between Heracles and Cycnus. When therefore ApoUonius Rhodius and others considered the 'ActttIs to be a genuine Hesiodic production, it still remains doubtful whether they meant the whole poem as it now stands, or only some particular portion of it. The description of the shield of Heracles is an imitation of the Ho- meric description of the shield of Achilles, but is done with less skUl and ability. It should be remarked, that some modern critics are inclined to look upon the 'Aa-ivis as an independent poem, and wholly unconnected with the Eoeae, though they admit that it may contain various interpolations by later hands. The fragments of the Eoeae are collected in Lehmann, De Hesiodi Carminilrus per- ditis, pars i. Berlin, 1828, in Gottling's edition of Hesiod, p. 209, &c., and in Heraiann's Opuscula, vi. 1, p. 255, &c. We possess the titles of several Hesiodic poems, viz. Ktivkos •ydfioi, ©riaeus els "Aidrjv KOTogcMrts, and 'EnidaXoifuos IItjA^ujs Koi