is prepared to supply. Hesiod’s poetry is designed both to flatter and to teach the basileis, who are
expected to put up with being lectured to by a poet who is their social inferior. This is because the song of
a poet is felt to be a product of divine inspiration; consequently, it confers prestige on the basileus and is
the most effective instrument of what today would be thought of as “public relations.”
In the Theogony, Hesiod’s lessons for the basileis are subtle and implicit. In the Works and Days, which
was composed later than the Theogony, Hesiod speaks directly to the basileis. He also addresses his
brother Perses who, we are told, had bribed the basileis to judge in Perses’ favor when a dispute between
Perses and Hesiod arose concerning their inheritance. Having received more of the inheritance than he
deserved, Perses proceeded to squander his portion and, impoverished, came begging to Hesiod. The
lesson to be learned from this, which Hesiod does not hesitate to propound, is that injustice is invariably
punished by Zeus. Justice, on the other hand, leads to prosperity, benefiting not only the individual but the
wider community as well. Prosperity, Hesiod tells us, is the result of being industrious and frugal, and the
Works and Days is filled with very specific advice on the details of household management, farming,
husbandry, and so on, in many instances with close parallels in the “wisdom literature” of western Asia.
As we saw in the case of the Theogony, Hesiod is especially concerned with origins and explanations,
even going back to the very beginning of the cosmos. The same is true of the Works and Days, and in it the
poet informs us (along with Perses and the basileis) exactly why it is necessary to work hard and why life
for mortals is so onerous. The explanation takes the form of a myth, part of which was also recounted in
the Theogony, concerning Prometheus, one of the many immortals who populate Hesiod’s mythical
account. There was a time, it seems, when men did not have to work and when men feasted in the
company of the gods. At one of these feasts Prometheus tried to deceive Zeus, by unevenly dividing the
remains of a slaughtered ox in such a way that the inedible portion looked more appealing. Zeus chose the
inedible portion, although Hesiod assures us that Zeus saw through the trick and only chose as he did so
that he could punish Prometheus for injustice. Zeus also punished men, who secured the edible portion of
the ox as a result of Zeus’ choice, by withholding fire from them. At this point, Prometheus, again
challenging Zeus’ authority, stole fire from the gods and gave it back to men. To counterbalance the
blessing of fire, Zeus inflicted upon mankind what Hesiod and his contemporaries appear to have
regarded as the worst evil imaginable, womankind. Like the inedible portion of the ox, the first woman is
superficially attractive, and so mankind is seduced into accepting this “gift” from the gods. Hesiod in fact
considers the name of this woman, Pandora, to mean “the gift of all” the gods to men. For his part,
Prometheus is punished by being bound to a pillar, where an eagle visits him on a daily basis to feast on
his liver, which grows back every night (figure 21).