Theogony, Works and Days, and the Shield of Heracles

Hesiod was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have lived between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is regarded as the first written poet in the Western tradition to view himself as an individual persona with an active role to play in his subject. Modern scholars refer to him as a major source on Greek mythology, farming techniques, early economic thought, archaic Greek astronomy and ancient time-keeping. It is probable that Hesiod wrote his poems down, or dictated them, rather than passed them on orally, as rhapsodes did-otherwise the pronounced personality that now emerges from the poems would surely have been diluted through oral transmission from one rhapsode to another. Pausanias asserted that Boeotians showed him an old tablet made of lead on which the Works were engraved. If he did write or dictate, it was perhaps as an aid to memory or because he lacked confidence in his ability to produce poems extempore, as trained rhapsodes could do. It certainly wasn't in a quest for immortal fame since poets in his era had probably no such notions for themselves. However, some scholars suspect the presence of large-scale changes in the text and attribute this to oral transmission. Possibly he composed his verses during idle times on the farm, in the spring before the May harvest or the dead of winter.