Theogony

The Theogony is an epic poem by the archaic Greek poet Hesiod. It is both a theogony—or account of the origins of the gods—and a cosmogony, an explanation of the origins of the universe. At just over a thousand lines in length, the Theogony is among the earliest surviving works of Greek literature, dating to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. It is an epic poem, a genre defined by its meter (dactylic hexameter) and its subject matter: Mighty works of men and gods and the founding of civilizations. The Theogony’s focus on praising the king of the gods, Zeus, encourages comparison to similar celebrations of Zeus, including Cleanthes’s third century BCE “Hymn to Zeus” (Cleanthes. “Hymn to Zeus.” Translated by E.H. Blakeney, 1921).

Greco-Roman myth is famously slippery; there are many versions of various stories, and these versions sometimes contradict each other. That being said, Hesiod’s rendition of the creation myth in his Theogony made a substantial and continuous impact on Greek literature and, in turn, on the western canon as a whole. It is hard to overstate the impact of Hesiod’s works on Greek culture.