At Oinoë he abode with his hosts, until suspecting that he had debauched their sister (Hesiod seems to have been endowed with superhuman powers, for according to Proclus and Suidas he was a youth twice!), they slew him and threw him into the sea. But on the third day his body was borne back to land by dolphins. On hue and cry for the murderers being raised the brothers seized a fishing boat and set sail for Crete.[193] But they found not favour in the “pure eyes and perfect witness of all-judging” Zeus, who thundered and sank them. “But the maiden, their sister, after the rape hanged herself.” To conclude in the words of the Ἀγών, “So much for Hesiod!” FOOTNOTES: [183] The Ἀγὼν 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 Ἀγὼν, the _Life of Homer_ by Plutarch, and by Suidas, all conveniently placed together. Mr. Allen, in the _Jour. Hell. Studies_, XXXV. (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. [184] “It is difficult to understand how the author could derive from _Works_ _and Days_ a reputation like that enjoyed by Hesiod, especially if we remember that at Thespiæ, to which the village of Ascra, the birthplace and early home of Hesiod, was subject, agriculture was held degrading to a freeman” (Smith, _Dict. Gk.-Rom. Biog. and Myth._, _s. v._ “Hesiod”). [185] When Pausanias came to Thespiæ on his Bœotian round, the representatives of the Corporation who owned the land told him dogmatically that the _Works and Days_ alone came from the Master’s hand, and showed him the _ne varietur_ copy on lead, wanting the proœmium which we read at the head of the poem (Paus., 9. 31. 4). [186] The passage, attributed by Euthydemus (in his _Treatise on Pickled Fish_) to Hesiod, which mentions seven fish, does not upset my statement, because the paternity of the work has long been deemed spurious. Even Athenæus brands the verses as “the work of some cook, rather than that of the great accomplished Hesiod,” and concludes from intrinsic evidence, such as the mention of Byzantium, etc., and the Campanians, etc., “when Hesiod was many years more ancient than any of these places or tribes,” that they were written by Euthydemus. See Athen., III. 84. [187] Ἁλλὰ νέων παίδων αἴνιγμα φύλαξαι. For other epigrammata, see _Anth. Pal._ VII. 1 to 7, and Plutarch, _de vita Homeri_, 1. 4. [188] From _Anth. Pal._, IX. 448.