How The Histories drew on Theogony/Works and Days
A documented line of influence: Herodotus 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 Histories
Herodotus · c. 430 BCE
Ancient GreeceRelevance
6/10
On The Histories’s page
- The Histories names Hesiod by name and credits his Theogony, with Homer, for fixing the Greek gods' names, functions, and forms (2.53)
- It's the most famous attribution in Greek religious history — Herodotus treating Hesiod as the source of his culture's whole divine framework
- Read the Theogony and you're reading the document Herodotus is pointing back to
On Theogony/Works and Days’s page
- Herodotus pays Hesiod the highest compliment in Greek religious history — naming him, alongside Homer, as the man who taught the Greeks their gods
- In The Histories (2.53), Hesiod's Theogony is credited with giving the gods their names, their honors, and their forms
- For Herodotus, this isn't a literary debt but a founding fact: the Theogony is where Greek theology comes from