Homeric quotations in the ancient scholia to Hesiod’s poem Works and Days

Abstract

In the scholia vetera for Hesiod’s poem Works and Days, 35 verses are explained with a reference to Homer’s poems and one verse is commented on with a reference to Homer as Hesiod’s rival in a poetic contest. As a rule, scholia do not contain argumentation or references to sources, so scholia that use references to another text as an argument stand out and are interesting material for research. For Hesiod’s Works and Days, the main precedent texts, i. e. texts used to interpret the main one, are the Iliad and the Odyssey, which is explained by the traditional perception in antiquity of Hesiod and Homer as close, even related authors. Using Diaz Lavado’s proposed classification of Homeric quotations in Plutarch’s treatises as the basis for our approach, we consider the references to Homer in the corpus of antique scholia to Works and Days from the point of view of their function: whether they serve to embellish the commentary or do they in fact help to clarify the meaning of Hesiod’s text. Our study shows that Homer’s poems are mostly referred to in order to clarify Works and Days (32 verses are commented in this way) — realities, meanings of words and various points which probably needed clarification already in the Hellenistic era. The ancient scholiasts perceive the Homeric texts as the basis for Hesiod’s use of mythological, historical, linguistic and figurative material, and in constructing their own reflections they themselves actively rely on Homeric material. Only in three cases the appeal to the Homeric texts likely serves exclusively to demonstrate the scholiasts’ knowledge of Homeric texts and points to the most famous fragments of Homeric poems cited in antiquity.