CHAPTER III 



THE CONTEST BETWEEN HOMER AND HESIOD — 

 homer's DEATH 



The cause and circumstances of Homer's death remain un- 

 certain and disputed. For them some writers hold fisherfolk 

 responsible. 



Midway between (A) the tradition that Homer took so to 

 heart his impotency to read — be it remembered he had been 

 acclaimed " of mortals far the wisest " — the riddle of the 

 fisher boys, that he took also to bed and shortly after died, 

 and (B) the absolute assertion by Herodotus the Grammarian 

 {Vita Homeri) that the poet " died at los of disease contracted 

 on his arrival there, and not of grief at failing to understand 

 the riddle of the fishers," Ues the account of the death given 

 in the 'Aywv 'Ho-toSou koI 'O/xiipov, or The Contest between 

 Hesiod and Horner.^ 



The Contest, despite the rather laboured thrusts of the 

 antagonists full of curious if not connected touches, makes the 

 funeral solemnities of King Amphidamas the occasion and 

 Chalcis (not Aulis or Delos) the scene of the encounter. 



Victory and prize were adjudged to Hesiod, because he 

 " sang of Tilth and Peace, not of War and Gore." ^ 



1 The 'kyicv is found in only a few of the editions of Hesiod. I have 

 followed the text of C. Goettling, 1843. The author Herodotus, who wrote 

 probably about 60 to 100 a.d., lived of course centuries after Hesiod, who is 

 generalh- dated some 100 to 200 years subsequent to Homer. The account 

 given by Suidas varies in several small details, for instance the riddle is rendered 

 in prose as well as in metre. He definitely states that illness, not the riddle, 

 was accountable for the poet's death. 



Since writing this Note, I have come across in the Oxford Homer, vol. v. 

 (1912), edited by T. W. Allen, the '\y'Lv, the Life of Homer by Plutarch, and 

 by Suidas, all conveniently placed together. Mr. Allen, in the Jour. Hell. 

 Studies, XXXV. (1915), S5-99, has an elaborate article on ' the Date of Hesiod," 

 which for astronomical and other reasons he now fixes as 846-777 B.C. 



2 "It is difficult to understand how the author could derive from Works 



86 



