1924/04/01 by A. A. Trever · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Classical Antiquity Studies #Historical and Literary Studies #Hesiod #Philology #History #Classics #Literature #Art #Political science #Poetry #Law #Feminism
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/360574
published in Classical Philology 19(2), 157-168 (University of Chicago Press)
openalex publication_date 1924/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/04/04
The use commonly made of Hesiod's Works and Days as a historical source for economic conditions in the early Greek world leaves much to be desired. The usual method is first to determine the date of the poet, somewhat arbitrarily, and without due reference to the actual picture of economic life presented by him. Then, instead of giving an organized account of the economy of Hesiod's day, the historian frequently forgets his date, and cites a few passages from the poet loosely, as evidence for conditions anywhere in Greece, anv time between 850 and 550 B.C. One otherwise careful scholar quotes the " Erga " as evidence for the peasant farmer in the Homeric age, for the extreme individualism, social strife, and violence resulting from advanced economic conditions such as did not exist even in the centers until the latter seventh century, and for the undeveloped character of sea commerce and shipping in the eighth century. Moreover, in his use of Hesiod, he makes no attempt to discriminate between the economic life of the crude Boeotian country, and the contemporary stage of development in the chief commercial and industrial cities of the Greek world.