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Contest of Homer and Hesiod

 

 
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The Contest of Homer and Hesiod (Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi ) is a Greek narrative that expands a remark made in Hesiod
Hesiod

Hesiod was a Greek language oral poet, his date is uncertain but leading scholars agree that Hesiod lived in the latter half of the Eighth-century BCE....
's Works and Days
Works and Days

Works and Days is a Greek poem of some 800 verses written by Hesiod . The poem revolves around two general truths: labour is the universal lot of Man, but he who is willing to work will get by....
 to recount an imagined poetical agon
Agon

Agon is an ancient Greek word with several meanings:*In one sense, it meant a contest, competition, or challenge that was held in connection with religious festivals....
 between Homer
Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
 and Hesiod, in which Hesiod bears away the prize, a bronze tripod
Tripod

Tripod is a word generally used to refer to a three-legged object, generally one used as a platform of some sort, and comes from the Greek language tripous, meaning "three feet"....
, which he dedicates to the Muses of Mount Helicon. The allegedly self-same tripod in the sacred grove
Sacred grove

Sacred groves were a feature of the mythological landscape and the cult of Old European culture, of the most ancient levels of Germanic paganism, Greek mythology, Slavic mythology, Roman mythology, and in Druidry practice....
 of the Muses was still being shown to tourists in Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Roman Greece traveller and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius....
' day.

The site of the contest is set in Chalcis
Chalcis

Chalcis or Chalkida, Halkida, Halkis or Chalkis , the chief town of the island of Euboea in Greece, is situated on the strait of the Euripus Strait at its narrowest point....
 in Euboea
Euboea

For the Greek mythology figure, see Euboea Euboea is the second largest of the Greece Aegean Islands and the second largest List of islands of Greece overall in area and population, after Crete....
.






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The Contest of Homer and Hesiod (Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi ) is a Greek narrative that expands a remark made in Hesiod
Hesiod

Hesiod was a Greek language oral poet, his date is uncertain but leading scholars agree that Hesiod lived in the latter half of the Eighth-century BCE....
's Works and Days
Works and Days

Works and Days is a Greek poem of some 800 verses written by Hesiod . The poem revolves around two general truths: labour is the universal lot of Man, but he who is willing to work will get by....
 to recount an imagined poetical agon
Agon

Agon is an ancient Greek word with several meanings:*In one sense, it meant a contest, competition, or challenge that was held in connection with religious festivals....
 between Homer
Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
 and Hesiod, in which Hesiod bears away the prize, a bronze tripod
Tripod

Tripod is a word generally used to refer to a three-legged object, generally one used as a platform of some sort, and comes from the Greek language tripous, meaning "three feet"....
, which he dedicates to the Muses of Mount Helicon. The allegedly self-same tripod in the sacred grove
Sacred grove

Sacred groves were a feature of the mythological landscape and the cult of Old European culture, of the most ancient levels of Germanic paganism, Greek mythology, Slavic mythology, Roman mythology, and in Druidry practice....
 of the Muses was still being shown to tourists in Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Roman Greece traveller and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius....
' day.

The site of the contest is set in Chalcis
Chalcis

Chalcis or Chalkida, Halkida, Halkis or Chalkis , the chief town of the island of Euboea in Greece, is situated on the strait of the Euripus Strait at its narrowest point....
 in Euboea
Euboea

For the Greek mythology figure, see Euboea Euboea is the second largest of the Greece Aegean Islands and the second largest List of islands of Greece overall in area and population, after Crete....
. Hesiod tells (Works and Days 650-59) that the only time he took passage in a ship was when he went from Aulis
Aulis

Aulis is:*In Greek mythology, Aulis was both**A daughter of King Ogyges and Thebe , and**Modern day Avlida, a port in Boeotia where the Greek navy rallied before setting off against Troy...
 to Chalcis, to take part in the funeral games
GAMES

GAMES may refer to:* GAMES Magazine* Georgia Academy of Mathematics, Engineering and Science...
 for Amphidamas
Amphidamas

Amphidamas may refer to both historical and mythological figures in ancient Greece :...
, a noble of Chalcis. Hesiod was victorious; he dedicated the prize bronze tripod to the Muses at Helicon. There is no mention of Homer.

In Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi the winning passage that Hesiod selects is the passage from Works and Days that begins "When the Pleiades
Pleiades

Pleiades can refer to:*Pleiades ? open cluster of stars in the constellation Taurus**Pleiades in folklore and literature - interpretations and traditional meanings of the star cluster among various human cultures...
 arise..." The judge, who is the brother of the late Amphidamas, awards the prize to Hesiod. The relative value of Homer and Hesiod is established in the poem by the relative value of their subject matter to the polis
Polis

A polis -- plural: poleis --is a city, a city-state and also citizenship and body of citizens. When used to describe Classical Athens and its contemporaries, polis is often translated as "city-state."...
, the community: Hesiod's work on agriculture and peace is pronounced of more value than Homer's tales of war and slaughter.

Manuscripts

The narrative as we have it is clearly of the second century CE, for it mentions Hadrian
Hadrian

Publius Aelius Hadrianus , as emperor Imperator Caesar Divi Traiani filius Traianus Hadrianus Augustus, and Divus Hadrianus after his apotheosis, known as Hadrian in English language, was Roman Emperor of Roman Empire from AD 117 to 138, as well as a Stoicism and Epicureanism philosopher....
 (line 33). Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th century philosophy Germans philosophy and classical philology. He wrote critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy, and science, using a distinctive German language style and displaying a fondness for metaphor and aphorism....
 deduced that it must have an earlier precedent in some form, and argued that it must derive from the sophist Alcidamas
Alcidamas

Alcidamas, of Elaea , in Aeolis, ancient Greece sophist and rhetorician, flourished in the 4th century BC.He was the pupil and successor of Gorgias and taught at Athens at the same time as Isocrates, whose rival and opponent he was....
' Mouseion, written in the fourth century BCE. Three fragmentary papyri discovered since have confirmed his view. One dates from the third century BCE, one from from the second century BCE (both of these contain versions of the text largely agreeing with the Hadrianic version) and one, identified in a colophon
Colophon (publishing)

A colophon, in publishing can refer to:* A brief description usually located at the end of a book, describing production notes relevant to the edition...
 text as the ending of Alcidamas, On Homer (University of Michigan Pap. 2754) from the second-third century CE.

That it derives in part from the Classical period has been shown most clearly by two lines from its riddle passage that appear in Aristophanes
Aristophanes

Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a prolific and much acclaimed comedy playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays have come down to us virtually complete....
' Peace
Peace

Peace is a term that most commonly refers to an absence of aggression, violence or hostility, but which also represents a larger concept wherein there are healthy or newly-healed interpersonal relationship or international relations, safety in matters of social or economic welfare, the acknowledgment of equality and fairness in political re...
 "It does seem easier to suppose that Aristophanes was quoting a pre-existing text of the Certamen than that Alcidamas appropriated the lines from Aristophanes for a Certamen-like story in his Mouseion," R.M. Rosen observes. The more profound influences of some version of the Contest on Aristophanes
Aristophanes

Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a prolific and much acclaimed comedy playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays have come down to us virtually complete....
' The Frogs
The Frogs

Frogs is a Greek comedy written by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed at the Lenaia, one of the Festivals of Dionysus, in 405 BC, and received first place....
 has been traced by Rosen, who notes the clearly traditional organising principle of the contest of wits (sophias), often involving riddling tests
Riddle

A riddle is a statement or question having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: enigmas, which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that require ingenuity and careful thinking for their solution, and conundrums, which are questions relying for the...
.

Modern edition

The modern edition of the Greek text is in volume 5 T.W. Allen's Oxford Classical Text of Homer (Oxford University Press) 1912. The brief text is embedded in the briefest of sketches of the poet's lives, their parentage and birth, the contest itself, followed by the challenges and riddles that Hesiod poses, to which Homer improvises masterfully, to the applause of the on-lookers, followed by their recitation of what they considered their best passage and the award to Hesiod; this takes up about half the text and is followed by accounts of the circumstances of their deaths.

Further reading