Hesiod - the first after Homer, the poet of the gods and ordinary Hellenes.

In our previous article, we talked about the Lelantin War , the first large-scale event in the history of the Ancient Greece, about which there is evidence of ancient historians. And during this war, Hesiod became widely known - the greatest poet of antiquity, whose talent became known throughout Hellas after the victory of storytellers and singers in a competition in memory of King Amphidamantus of Chalkis, who died in the Lelantin War. Hesiod was the son of a bankrupt merchant who was engaged in agriculture in the village of Askra in Boeotia at the foot of Mount Gelion. According to him, he received a poetic gift from the nymphs who lived on the mountain. The period of life and fame of Hesiod falls on the end of the 8th-beginning of the 7th century BC. By that time, there already existed a huge poetic heritage of the heroic era of the Great Homer and his followers. To combine numerous legends about the gods into a single system and present a complete picture of their family ties was the purpose of the poem "Theogony" (Θεογονία). That picture of the relationship of the gods among themselves, their struggle and the change of generations, which was reflected in the poem, became canonical and was repeatedly reflected in subsequent works of ancient authors, who supplemented and detailed it in their works. Being, work and life of a simple Greek of the early archaic era were reflected in another famous work of Hesiod - the poem "Works and Days". This is the first work that reflects the idea of ​​the evolution of the world not from the point of view of gods and heroes, but from the point of view of a simple artisan or farmer, from the mythical golden age to the contemporary iron age. A poetically rethought experience of the real 8th century BC life is set out in practical advice on housekeeping and even choosing a wife! There are several other works, but the authorship of Hesiod is disputed by modern researchers.