a very ancient Greek poet; but whether contemporary with Homer, or a little older or younger than him, is not yet agreed among the learned; nor is there light enough in antiquity to settle the matter exactly. His father, as he tells us in his Opera et Dies, was an inhabitant of Cuma, one of the Eolian-isles, now called Taio Nova; and removed from thence to Ascrea, a little village of Boeotia, at the foot of mount Helicon, where Hesiod was probably born, and called, as he often is, Aforeus, from it. Of what quality his father was, is nowhere said; but that he was driven by his misfortunes from Cuma to Ascrea, Hesiod himself informs us. His father seems to have prospered better at Ascrea than he did in his own country; yet Hesiod could arrive at no higher fortune than keeping sheep on the top of mount Helicon. Here the muses met with him, and entered him into their service:

Erewhile as they the fleecy herd swain behold, Feeding beneath the sacred mount his fold, With love of charming song his breast they fir'd, There me the heav'nly muses first inspir'd; There, when the maids of Jove the silence broke, To Hesiod thus, the shepherd swain, they spoke, &c.

To this account, which is to be found in the beginning of his Generation Deorum, Ovid alludes in these two lines:

Nec mihi sunt uiva Clia, Chisique forent, Serventis pecudes vallibus Ascrea iuvi. Nor Clia nor her litter have I seen, As Hesiod saw them in th' Ascrean green. On the death of the father, an estate was left, which ought to have been equally divided between the two brothers Hefiod and Perseus; but Perseus defrauded him in the division, by corrupting the judges. Hefiod was so far from resenting this injustice, that he expresses a concern for those mistaken mortals who place their happiness in riches only, even at the expense of their virtue. He lets us know, that he was not only above want, but capable of afflicting his brother in time of need; which he often did though he had been so ill used by him. The last circumstance he mentions relating to himself is his conquest in a poetical contention. Archidamus, king of Euboea, had instituted funeral games in honour of his own memory, which his sons afterwards took care to have performed. Here Hefiod was a competitor for the prize in poetry; and won a tripod, which he consecrated to the muses. Hefiod having entered himself in the service of the muses, left off the pastoral life, and applied himself to the study of arts and learning. When he was grown old, for it is agreed by all that he lived to a very great age, he removed to Locri, a town about the same distance from mount Parnassus as Aesculapius was from Helicon. His death was tragic. The man with whom he lived at Locri, a Mileian born, ravished a maid in the same house; and though Hefiod was entirely ignorant of the fact, yet being maliciously accused to her brothers as an accomplice, he was injuriously slain with the ravisher, and thrown into the sea.

The Theogony, and Works and Days, are the only undoubted pieces of this poet now extant: though it is supposed that these poems have not descended perfect and finished to the present time. A good edition of Hefiod's works was published by Mr Le Clerc at Amsterdam in 1701.