Page:Hesiod, and Theognis.djvu/84



geographer Pausanias was the first to cast a doubt upon the received belief of the ancients that the 'Theogony' and the 'Works and Days' originated from one and the same author. On the other hand, Herodotus attributed to Hesiod the praise of having been one of the earliest systematisers of a national mythology; and Plato in his Dialogues has references to the 'Theogony' of Hesiod, which apparently correspond with passages in the work that has come down to us as such. Unless, therefore, there is strong internal evidence of separate authorship in the two poems, the testimony of a writer four hundred years before Christ is entitled to outweigh that of one living two hundred years after. But so far from such internal evidence being forthcoming, it would be easy to enumerate several strong notes of resemblance, which would go far towards establishing a presumption that both were from the same hand. The same economical spirit which actuates the poet of the 'Works' is visible also in the 'Theogony,' where the head and front of Pandora's