How The Eclogues drew on Theogony/Works and Days
A documented line of influence: Virgil demonstrably engaged Hesiod’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Theogony/Works and Days
Hesiod · c. 700 BCE
Ancient GreeceThe influenced
The Eclogues
Virgil · c. 37 BCE
Ancient RomeRelevance
6/10
On The Eclogues’s page
- Eclogue 4's promised return of the Golden Age runs straight out of Hesiod's Ages of Man in Works and Days
- Virgil names Hesiod within the poems, casting the old farmer-poet as the ancestor of his own pastoral line
- Reading Hesiod first shows you the descending myth Virgil is trying, hopefully, to reverse
On Theogony/Works and Days’s page
- Hesiod's Ages of Man — the long decline from a Golden Age — is the scheme Virgil reaches for when he promises its return
- Virgil names the old Ascraean poet inside the Eclogues, claiming Hesiod as a pastoral ancestor rather than just borrowing from him quietly
- Works and Days is the didactic template Virgil would build on again, openly, in the Georgics