Page:Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica.djvu/26

 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 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 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

xx