Chersias
Chersias (Ancient Greek: Χερσίας) of Orchomenus (fl. late 7th century BCE) was an archaic Greek epic poet whose work is all but lost today.[1] Plutarch presents Chersias as an interlocutor in the Banquet of the Seven Sages, making him a contemporary of Periander and Chilon.[2] Chersias is also said to have been present when Periander's father Cypselus dedicated a treasury at Delphi.[3] According to Pausanias, Chersias' poetry had already fallen out of circulation by his day, but the geographer quotes the only extant fragment of his epic poetry, citing a speech delivered by Callippus of Corinth (5th century BCE) to the Orchomenians as the source:[4]
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From Poseidon and much-famed Mideia |
ἐκ δὲ Ποσειδάωνος ἀγακλειτῆς τε Μιδείης |
This fragment suggests that Chersias, like his apparent contemporary Asius of Samos, composed in the genre of genealogical epic best represented today by the fragmentary Hesiodic Catalogue of Women.[5] Pausanias goes on to relate that Chersias composed the epitaph which the Orchomenians inscribed upon the base of a statue they erected in Hesiod's honor:[6]
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Ascra rich in wheat was his fatherland, but in death |
Ἄσκρη μὲν πατρὶς πολυλήιος· ἀλλὰ θανόντος |
References
- ↑ Robert 1877, pp. 145–6, argued that the verses quoted by Pausanias were the invention of Callippus of Corinth, but this view has not gained traction; cf. West 2003, p. 32.
- ↑ Plut. Moralia 156e–f.
- ↑ Plut. Moralia 164a.
- ↑ Paus. 9.38.9.
- ↑ West 2003, pp. 31–2.
- ↑ Paus. 9.38.10. This epitaph is also preserved in the Contest of Homer and Hesiod; cf. West 2003, p. 267 n. 38.
Bibliography
- Robert, C. (1877), "De Gratiis Atticis", Commentationes philologiae in honorem Th. Mommseni scripserunt amici, Berlin.
- West, M.L. (2003), Greek Epic Fragments, Loeb Classical Library, no. 497, Cambridge, MA, ISBN 978-0-674-99605-2. (Greek text with facing English translation)