BiblioVault - Books about Gods, Greek

The Gods of the Greeks

Erika Simon, Translated by Jakob Zeyl, Edited by Alan Shapiro

University of Wisconsin Press, 2021

Originally published in Germany fifty years ago, The Gods of the Greeks has remained an enduring work. Influential scholar Erika Simon was one of the first to emphasize the importance of analyzing visual culture alongside literature to better understand how ancient Greeks perceived their gods. Giving due consideration to cult ritual and the phenomenon of genealogical relationships between mortals and immortals, this pioneering volume remains one of the few to approach the Greek gods from an archaeological perspective. From Zeus to Hermes, each of the major deities is considered in turn, with Simon’s insights on their nature and attributes guiding the reader to a fuller understanding of how their followers perceived and worshipped them in the ancient world.

This careful and fluid translation finally makes Simon’s landmark edition accessible to English-language readers. With an abundance of beautiful illustrations, the book examines portrayals of the thirteen major gods in art over the course of two millennia. Scholars who study the lives and practices of those living in ancient Greece will value this newest contribution.

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Homeric Hymns. Epic Cycle. Homerica

Hesiod

Harvard University Press, 1982

Hesiod (Hesiodus), an epic poet apparently of the eighth century BC, was born in Asia Minor but moved to Boeotia in central Greece. He was regarded by later Greeks as a contemporary of Homer.

Three works survive under Hesiod's name: (1) "Works and Days," addressed to his brother. In it he gives us the allegories of the two Strifes, and the myth of Pandora; stresses that every man must work; describes the accepted Five Ages of the world; delivers moral advice; surveys in splendid style a year's work on a farm; gives precepts on navigation; and propounds lucky and unlucky days. (2) "Theogony," a religious work about the rise of the gods and the universe from Chaos to the triumph of Zeus, and about the progeny of Zeus and of goddesses in union with mortal men. (3) "The Shield" (not by Hesiod), an extract from a "Catalogue of Women," the subject being Alcmena and her son Heracles and his contest with Cycnus, with a description of Heracles' shield. All three works are of great literary interest.

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New Heroes in Antiquity

From Achilles to Antinoos

Christopher P. Jones

Harvard University Press, 2010

Heroes and heroines in antiquity inhabited a space somewhere between gods and humans. In this detailed, yet brilliantly wide-ranging analysis, Christopher Jones starts from literary heroes such as Achilles and moves to the historical record of those exceptional men and women who were worshiped after death. He asks why and how mortals were heroized, and what exactly becoming a hero entailed in terms of religious action and belief. He proves that the growing popularity of heroizing the dead—fallen warriors, family members, magnanimous citizens—represents not a decline from earlier practice but an adaptation to new contexts and modes of thought. The most famous example of this process is Hadrian’s beloved, Antinoos, who can now be located within an ancient tradition of heroizing extraordinary youths who died prematurely. This book, wholly new and beautifully written, rescues the hero from literary metaphor and vividly restores heroism to the reality of ancient life.

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Stoic Theology

Proof for the Existence of the Cosmic God and of the Traditional Gods

P. A. Meijer

Eburon Academic Publishers, 2008

The ancient Stoics constructed an elaborate set of proofs for the existence of the Greek gods which proved highly influential for later theological and philosophical proofs. P. A. Meijer’s Stoic Theology, the first book on the subject in almost thirty years,analyzes these proofs from a fresh perspective. This valuable resource features a thorough examination of pre-Christian theological argumentation as well as new insights on the relationship between God and the deities in ancient Greek thought, in a book sure to interest scholars of philosophy and religion.

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Theogony and Works and Days

Hesiod

University of Michigan Press, 2006

Written in the late eighth century BC by Hesiod, one of the oldest known of Greek poets, Theogony and Works and Days represent the earliest account of the origin of the Greek gods, and an invaluable compendium of advice for leading a moral life, both offering unique insights into archaic Greek society. There are a number of modern translations of Hesiod available, rendered in serviceable English, but until now no one has created a work of literature equal to the original. This translation is the result of a unique collaboration between a classicist and a poet, capturing in English fourteeners the works’ true poetic flavor while remaining faithful to the Greek text and the archaic world in which it was composed.

This translation contains a general introduction, a translator’s introduction, notes, and a glossary. It will be of interest to general readers, students of and specialists in classical literature, and lovers of poetry.

"This Schlegel-Weinfield translation of Hesiod is superbly crafted: compelling, unforgettable poetry to be read aloud with delight and gratitude."
—Allen Mandelbaum, Endowed Kenan Professor of Humanities, Wake Forest University

"This exciting and unique collaboration between a classical philologist and a poet will not just provide insight into archaic Greek society, but also offer something new: the opportunity to experience the richness of Hesiod's style, language, and modes of thought with remarkable fidelity to the ancient Greek. Weinfield and Schlegel make Hesiod sing."
—Carole Newlands, Classics Department, University of Wisconsin

"Schlegel and Weinfield have produced one of the most remarkable of a current resurgence of translations from the classics, allowing the modern world to hear a poet who may have known Homer. Hesiod’s song makes us understand why the Greeks thought a poet could draw dolphins through the seas or raise the walls of Thebes. Weinfield translates by ear and transfers what he hears to the page, resonant fourteeners, a worthy echo of the past."

—Charles Stanley Ross, Professor, Department of English, and Director, Comparative Literature, PurdueUniversity

Catherine Schlegel is Associate Professor of Classics, University of Notre Dame. Henry Weinfield is Professor and Chair of Liberal Studies, University of Notre Dame, and translator of The Collected Poems of Stephane Mallarme.

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Theogony and Works and Days

A New Bilingual Edition

Hesiod, Translated from the Greek by Kimberly Johnson

Northwestern University Press, 2017

Widely considered the first poet in the Western tradition to address the matter of his own experience, Hesiod occupies a seminal position in literary history. His Theogony brings together and formalizes many of the narratives of Greek myth, detailing the genealogy of its gods and their violent struggles for power. The Works and Days seems on its face to be a compendium of advice about managing a farm, but it ranges far beyond this scope to meditate on morality, justice, the virtues of a good life, and the place of humans in the universe. These poems are concerned with orderliness and organization, and they proclaim those ideals from small-scale to vast, from a handful of seeds to the story of the cosmos. Presented here in a bilingual edition, Johnson’s translation takes care to preserve the structure of Hesiod’s lines and sentences, achieving a sonic and rhythmic balance that enables us to hear his music across the millennia.

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Works of Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns

Including Theogony and Works and Days

Edited by Daryl Hine

University of Chicago Press, 2004

Winner of the 2005 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets.

In Works of Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns, highly acclaimed poet and translator Daryl Hine brings to life the words of Hesiod and the world of Archaic Greece. While most available versions of these early Greek writings are rendered in prose, Hine's illuminating translations represent these early classics as they originally appeared, in verse. Since prose was not invented as a literary medium until well after Hesiod's time, presenting these works as poems more closely approximates not only the mechanics but also the melody of the originals.

This volume includes Hesiod's Works and Days and Theogony, two of the oldest non-Homeric poems to survive from antiquity. Works and Days is in part a farmer's almanac—filled with cautionary tales and advice for managing harvests and maintaining a good work ethic—and Theogony is the earliest comprehensive account of classical mythology—including the names and genealogies of the gods (and giants and monsters) of Olympus, the sea, and the underworld. Hine brings out Hesiod's unmistakable personality; Hesiod's tales of his escapades and his gritty and persuasive voice not only give us a sense of the author's own character but also offer up a rare glimpse of the everyday life of ordinary people in the eighth century BCE.

In contrast, the Homeric Hymns are more distant in that they depict aristocratic life in a polished tone that reveals nothing of the narrators' personalities. These hymns (so named because they address the deities in short invocations at the beginning and end of each) are some of the earliest examples of epyllia, or short stories in the epic manner in Greek.

This volume unites Hine's skillful translations of the Works of Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns—along with Hine's rendering of the mock-Homeric epic The Battle of the Frogs and the Mice—in a stunning pairing of these masterful classics.

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