Hesiod (Greek poet)

   HESIOD (700's B.C.), was the first major Greek poet after Homer. He was the first poet to write didactic (instructional) poetry, and the first to reveal his personality through his poetry.
   His major work, Works and Days, is addressed to his brother Perses. In it, Hesiod speaks of his town of Ascra in Boeotia as being "cold in winter, hot in summer, and pleasant at no time." Instead of glorifying warrior heroes as Homer did, Hesiod advocated hard work, frugality, and prudence. Works and Days includes practical advice on how to live and farm, and specifies dates on which certain tasks ought to be done. It also contains a story of the fall of man through Pandora's untimely curiosity. It describes the deterioration of the world through five stages: the Age of Gold; the Silver Age; the Bronze Age; the Age of Heroes; and the Age of Iron. Hesiod lived in the Age of Iron. Another work believed to be Hesiod's is Theogony. In it, he tried to solve conflicting accounts of the Greek gods and their functions.