Theogony facts for kids

Ancient bronze bust, known as Pseudo-Seneca. This is now believed to be an imaginative portrait of Hesiod.

The Theogony (Greek: Θεογονία, Theogonía, the birth of the gods) is a poem by Hesiod. It was written in the 8th or 7th century BC, and uses the same dialect of Ancient Greek as Homer. This dialect is known as Epic dialect today. With the exception of the Illiad and the Odyssey, the Theogony is the oldest known source of Greek mythology.

The poem is a synthesis of different Greek stories and traditions. It is a story that tells how the gods came to be and how they established permanent control over the cosmos. It is the first Greek mythical cosmogony. In the beginning, the state of the universe is chaos - a dark indefinite void. Everything else appeared from divine chaos.

Selected translations

• Most, Glenn, translator, Hesiod, 2 vols., Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2006-07.
• Schlegel, Catherine M., and Henry Weinfield, translators, Theogony and Works and Days, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 2006

Images for kids

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  A Greek manuscript of the beginning of Hesiod's Theogony

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  The nine muses on a Roman sarcophagus (second century AD)—Louvre, Paris

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  The Birth of Minerva by René-Antoine Houasse (before 1688)

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  Venus and Anchises by William Blake Richmond (1889 or 1890).

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  Laconic bowl depicting Prometheus and Atlas enduring their respective punishments, circa 550 B.C.

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  Stele of Anaximander, ancient Greek natural philosopher

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  Babylonian depiction of a scene from the Enûma Eliš