Chersias of Orchomenus (fl. late 7th c. BCE) was an archaic Greek epic poet whose work is all but lost today. Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

 presents Chersias as an interlocutor in the Banquet of the Seven Sages

Seven Sages of Greece

The Seven Sages or Seven Wise Men was the title given by ancient Greek tradition to seven early 6th century BC philosophers, statesmen and law-givers who were renowned in the following centuries for their wisdom.-The Seven Sages:Traditionally, each of the seven sages represents an aspect of worldly...

, making him a contemporary of Periander

Periander

Periander was the second tyrant of Corinth, Greece in the 7th century BC. He was the son of the first tyrant, Cypselus. Periander succeeded his father in 627 BC. He died in 585 BC....

 and Chilon

Chilón

Chilón is a town and one of the 119 Municipalities of Chiapas, in southern Mexico.As of 2005, the municipality had a total population of 77,686. It covers an area of 2490 km²....

. Chersias is also said to have been present when Periander's father Cypselus

Cypselus

Cypselus was the first tyrant of Corinth in the 7th century BC.With increased wealth and more complicated trade relations and social structures, Greek city-states tended to overthrow their traditional hereditary priest-kings; Corinth, the richest archaic polis, led the way...

 dedicated a treasury at Delphi

Delphi

Delphi is both an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis.In Greek mythology, Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and a major site for the worship of the god...

. According to Pausanias

Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...

, Chersias' poetry had already fallen out of circulation by his day, but the geographer quotes the only extant fragment of his epic poetry, citing a speech delivered by Callippus of Corinth (5th c. BCE) to the Orchomenians as the source:

	From Poseidon Poseidon Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...  and much-famed Mideia Aspledon was born, a son in the wide-wayed city.

This fragment suggests that Chersias, like his apparent contemporary Asius of Samos

Asius of Samos

Asius of Samos was an ancient Greek poet whose work survives in the form of fragments quoted by other ancient authors. All that is known about the man is that he was from Samos and that his father's name was Amphiptolemus. His era is inferred from the style and content of the remains, which suit...

, composed in the genre of genealogical epic best represented today by the fragmentary Hesiodic Catalogue of Women

Catalogue of Women

thumb|275px|[[Guido Reni]]'s first Atalanta e Ippomene , depicting the race of [[Atalanta]], a myth which was known to Reni from [[Ovid]]'s [[Metamorphoses]], but is now also represented by several fragments of the Catalogue of Women.The Catalogue of Women —also known as...

. Pausanias goes on to relate that Chersias composed the epitaph which the Orchomenians inscribed upon the base of a statue they erected in Hesiod's honor:

	Ascra rich in wheat was his fatherland, but in death    the land of the horsedriving Minyans holds the bones of Hesiod, whose fame is greatest among humans    when men are judged by the touchstone of art.