As to the mention of his country, if by country we are to suppose the place of his birth, it can only be understood by implication, and that not with certainty. Hesiod indeed relates that his father migrated from Cuma in Æolia, to Ascra, a Bœotian village at the foot of mount Helicon; but we are left to conjecture whether he himself was born at Cuma or at Ascra. His affirmation that he had never embarked in a ship but once, when he sailed across the Euripus to the Isle of Eubœa on occasion of a poetical contest, has been thought decisive of his having been born at Ascra; but the poet is speaking of his nautical experience: and even if he had originally come from Cuma, he would scarcely mention a voyage made in infancy. The observation respecting his parents tends to countenance the reading of Διου γενος; race of Dius; instead of διον γενος, race divine; but the name of one parent only is found. The reproachful mention of his country plainly alludes to his charge of corruption against the petty kings or nobles, who exercised the magistracy of Bœotia: and by the fine is meant the judicial award of the larger share of the patrimony to his brother. There seems a great probability that Virgil, in his fourth eclogue, had Hesiod’s golden and heroic ages in view; and that he alludes to the passage of Justice leaving the earth, where he says The virgin now returns: Saturnian times Roll round again: and to Hesiod himself in the verse, The last age dawns, in verse Cumæan sung:[4] and not, as is commonly thought, to the Sibyl of Campanian Cuma. Professor Heyne objects, that Hesiod makes no mention of the revolution of a better age: yet such an allusion is significantly conveyed in the following passage: Oh would that Nature had denied me birth Midst this fifth race, this iron age of earth; That long before within the grave I lay, Or long hereafter could behold the day! That Virgil elsewhere calls Hesiod’s verse Ascræan is no argument against his supposing him of Cuma: there seems no reason why either epithet should not be used: for the poet was at least of Cumæan extraction. That Ascræus was Hesiod’s received surname among the ancients proves nothing as to his birth-place, nor is any thing proved as to Virgil’s opinion by his adoption of the title in compliance with common usage. Apollonius was surnamed Rhodius from his residence at Rhodes, yet his birth-place was Ægypt. After all, nothing is established, even if it could be certified that Virgil thought him of Cuma, beyond the single weight of Virgil’s individual opinion. Plutarch relates, from a more ancient and therefore a more competent authority, that of Ephorus, the Cumæan historian, that Dius was the youngest of three brothers, and emigrated through distress of debt to Ascra; where he married Pycimede, the mother of Hesiod.