be a genuine Hesiodic production, it still remains doubtful whether they meant the whole poem as it now stands, or only some particular portion of it. The description of the shield of Hercules is an imitation of the Homeric description of the shield of Achilles, but is done with less skill and ability. It should be remarked that some critics are inclined to look upon the Shield of Hercules as an independent poem, and wholly unconnected with the Eoæ, though they admit that it may contain various interpolations by later hands. The fragments of the Eoae are collected in Lehmann, De Hesiodi Carminibus perditis, pars 1, Berlin, 1828; in Goettling's edition of Hesiod, p. 209, etc.; and in Hermann's Opuscula VI. 1. p. 255, etc. We possess the titles of several Hesiodic poems, but they seem to have been only portions of the Eoæ.
4. Ægimius, an epic poem, consisting of several books or rhapsodies on the story of Ægimius, the famous ancestral hero of the Dorians, and the mythical history of the Dorians in general. Some of the ancients attribute this poem to Cercops of Miletus. The fragments of the Ægimius are collected in Goettling's edition of Hesiod.
5. Melampodia, an epic poem, consisting of at least three books. Some of the ancients denied that this was an Hesiodic poem. It contained the stories about the seer Melampus, and was thus of a similar character to the poems which celebrated the glory of the heroic families of the Greeks. Some writers consider the Melampodia to have been only a portion of the Eoae, but there is no evidence for it, and others regard it as indentical with the Epe Mantike (Prophecy or Sooth-Saying), an Hesiodic work mentioned by Pausanias. The fragments of the Melampodia are collected in Goettling, p. 228, etc.
6. Exegesis epiterasin (Explanations of Signs) is mentioned as an Hesiodic work by Pausanias, and distinguished by him from Epe Mantike; but it is not improbable that both were indentical with, or portions of an astronomical work ascribed to Hesiod, under the title of Astrike Biblos or Astrologia (Star Book, or Astrology.) See the fragment in Goettling.
7. Cheiron Upothekœ (Admonitions of Chirons to Achilles) seems to have been an imitation of the Works. See Goettling, p. 230, etc.
The poems of Hesiod, especially the Theogony, was looked up to by the Greeks from very early times as a great authority in theological and philosophical matters, and philosophers of nearly every school attempted by various modes of interpretation, to bring about a harmony between the statements of Hesiod and their own theories. The scholars of Alexandria and