- The Oxford Handbook of Hesiod
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Notes on Contributors
- Introduction
- The Hesiodic Question
- Seventh-Century Material Culture in Boiotia
- In Hesiod’s World
- The Prehistory and Analogues of Hesiod’s Poetry
- Hesiodic Poetics
- Hesiod’s <i>Theogony</i> and the Structures of Poetry
- Hesiod’s Temporalities
- Hesiodic Theology
- Hesiod in Performance
- Hesiod’s Rhetoric of Exhortation
- Gender in Hesiod: A Poetics of the Powerless
- Solon’s Reception of Hesiod’s <i>Works and Days</i>
- The Reception of Hesiod by the Early Pre-Socratics
- Deviant Origins: Hesiod’s <i>Theogony</i> and the Orphica
- Hesiod and the Visual Arts
- Hesiod and Pindar
- Hesiod and Tragedy
- Hesiod and Comedy
- Plato’s Hesiods
- Hellenistic Hesiod
- Hesiod from Aristotle to Posidonius
- Hesiod, Virgil, and the Georgic Tradition
- Ovid’s Hesiodic Voices
- Hesiod Transformed, Parodied, and Assaulted: Hesiod in the Second Sophistic and Early Christian Thought
- Hesiod in the Byzantine and Early Renaissance Periods
- Hesiod and Christian Humanism, 1471–1667
- Hesiod in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
- Theorizing with Hesiod: Freudian Constructs and Structuralism
- The Reception of Hesiod in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries
- Index
- Index Locorum Antiquorum
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter covers pagan and early Christian authors of the period 50–250 ce, known as the “second sophistic.” The first section focuses on the Certamen, Athenaeus and Plutarch, considering their revisions of Hesiodic wisdom and the contemporary forms of scholarship on his poems. The second section uses Lucian to showcase “Hesiod parodied” before discussing Aelian, Babrius, and the Sibylline Oracles. Points treated include the cross-referencing of Hesiodic poems and the dominance of certain Hesiodic passages, such as Hesiod’s initiation by the Muses, the “Two Roads,” and the “Myth of the Races,” in appropriations of Hesiod for new (especially rhetorical) projects. Finally, “Hesiod assaulted” is discussed in view of the Christian apologists, in particular Clement of Alexandria and Theophilus, who attacked Hesiod’s inconsistency and immorality but, like Lucian, co-opted aspects of his narratives into their own.
Keywords: Certamen, Athenaeus, Plutarch, Lucian, Sibylline Oracles, Clement of Alexandria, Theophilus, Muses, Two Roads, Myth of the Races
Helen Van Noorden is the Wrigley Fellow and senior lecturer in classics at Girton College, University of Cambridge, and affiliated lecturer in the Faculty of Classics. Her undergraduate and graduate degrees come from Trinity College, University of Cambridge, and she held a junior research fellowship at Clare College. She is the author of Playing Hesiod: The “Myth of the Races” in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 2014), and her publications continue to explore ancient legacies of Homeric and Hesiodic epic, especially Hellenistic and later didactic literature, philosophy, and “apocalyptic” writing. She is currently occupied with the later Sibylline Oracles and is coediting a large volume on eschatology in antiquity. Broader research interests include cultural interaction and concepts of authorship in antiquity.
Access to the complete content on Oxford Handbooks Online requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.
Please subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.
For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us.
- The Oxford Handbook of Hesiod
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Notes on Contributors
- Introduction
- The Hesiodic Question
- Seventh-Century Material Culture in Boiotia
- In Hesiod’s World
- The Prehistory and Analogues of Hesiod’s Poetry
- Hesiodic Poetics
- Hesiod’s <i>Theogony</i> and the Structures of Poetry
- Hesiod’s Temporalities
- Hesiodic Theology
- Hesiod in Performance
- Hesiod’s Rhetoric of Exhortation
- Gender in Hesiod: A Poetics of the Powerless
- Solon’s Reception of Hesiod’s <i>Works and Days</i>
- The Reception of Hesiod by the Early Pre-Socratics
- Deviant Origins: Hesiod’s <i>Theogony</i> and the Orphica
- Hesiod and the Visual Arts
- Hesiod and Pindar
- Hesiod and Tragedy
- Hesiod and Comedy
- Plato’s Hesiods
- Hellenistic Hesiod
- Hesiod from Aristotle to Posidonius
- Hesiod, Virgil, and the Georgic Tradition
- Ovid’s Hesiodic Voices
- Hesiod Transformed, Parodied, and Assaulted: Hesiod in the Second Sophistic and Early Christian Thought
- Hesiod in the Byzantine and Early Renaissance Periods
- Hesiod and Christian Humanism, 1471–1667
- Hesiod in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
- Theorizing with Hesiod: Freudian Constructs and Structuralism
- The Reception of Hesiod in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries
- Index
- Index Locorum Antiquorum