CHAPTER IV.

THE THEOGONY. THE geographer Pausanias was the first to cast a doubt upon the received belief of the ancients that the ' The- ogony ' and the ' Works and Days ' originated from one and the same author. On the other hand, Herodotus attributed to Hesiod the praise of having been one of the earliest systematisers of a national mythology; and Plato in his Dialogues has references to the ' Theogony ' of Hesiod, which apparently correspond with passages in the work that has come down to us as such. Un- less, therefore, there is strong internal evidence of sepa- rate authorship in the two poems, the testimony of a writer four hundred years before Christ is entitled to outweigh that of one living two hundred years after. But so fer from such internal evidence being forth- coming, it would be easy to enumerate several strong ^ notes of resemblance, which would go far towards establishing a presumption that both were from the same hand. The same economical spirit which actu- ates the poet of the ' Works ' is visible also in the 'Theogony/ where the head and front of Pandora's