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 Homert) that the poet “ died at Ios of disease contracted 
on his arrival there, and not of grief at failing to understand 
the riddle of the fishers,” lies the account of the death given 
in the “Ayav ‘Hoddouv Kal ‘Outpov, or The Contest between 
Hesiod and Homer. 
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.”’ 2 
1 The ’Ayoy 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 
generally 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 ’Ayév, the Life of Homer by Plutarch, and 
by Suidas, all conveniently placed together. Mr. Allen,in the Jour. Hell. 
Studies, KXXV. (1915), 85-99, has an elaborate article on ‘ the Date of Hesiod,’ 
which for astronomical and other reasons he now fixes as 846-777 B.c. 
2 «Jt is difficult to understand how the author could derive from Works 
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