nor to have sung in any but an
impromptu, local festival, so that the supposed interpolation lacks
a sufficient motive. And there is nothing in the context to show that
Hesiod's Amphidamas is to be identified with that Amphidamas whom
Plutarch alone connects with the Lelantine War: the name may have been
borne by an earlier Chalcidian, an ancestor, perhaps, of the person to
whom Plutarch refers.

The story of the end of Hesiod may be told in outline. After the contest
at Chalcis, Hesiod went to Delphi and there was warned that the 'issue
of death should overtake him in the fair grove of Nemean Zeus.' Avoiding
therefore Nemea on the Isthmus of Corinth, to which he supposed
the oracle to refer, Hesiod retired to Oenoe in Locris where he was
entertained by Amphiphanes and Ganyetor, sons of a certain Phegeus. This
place, however, was also sacred to Nemean Zeus, and the poet, suspected
by his hosts of having seduced their sister [1105], was murdered there.
His body, cast into the sea, was brought to shore by dolphins and buried
at Oenoe (or, according to Plutarch, at Ascra): at a later time his
bones were removed to Orchomenus. The whole story is full of miraculous
elements, and the various authorities disagree on numerous points of
detail. The tradition seems, however, to be constant in declaring that
Hesiod was murdered and buried at Oenoe, and in this respect it is at
least as old as the time of Thucydides. In conclusion it may be worth
while to add the graceful epigram of Alcaeus of Messene ("Palatine
Anthology", vii 55).

"When in the shady Locrian grove Hesiod lay dead, the Nymphs
washed his body with water from their own springs, and
heaped high his grave; and thereon the goat-herds sprinkled
offerings of milk mingled with yellow-honey: such was the
utterance of the nine Muses that he breathed forth, that old
man who had tasted of their pure springs."

The Hesiodic Poems

The Hesiodic poems fall into two groups according as they are didactic
(technical or gnomic) or genealogical: the first group centres round the
"Works and Days", the second round the "Theogony".

I. "The Works and Days":

The poem consists of four main sections. a) After the prelude, which
Pausanias failed to find in the ancient copy engraved on lead seen by
him on Mt. Helicon, comes a general exhortation to industry. It begins
with the allegory of the two Strifes, who stand for wholesome Emulation
an