The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women: Constructions and Reconstructions

The Catalogue of Women, ascribed to Hesiod, one of the greatest figures of early hexameter poetry, maps the Greek world, its evolution, and its heroic myths through the mortal women who bore children to the gods. In this collection a team of international scholars offers an attempt to explore the poem\'s meaning, significance and reception. Individual chapters examine the organisation and structure of the poem, its social and political context, its relation to other early epic and Hesiodic poetry, its place in the development of a pan-Hellenic consciousness, and attitudes to women. The wider influence of the Catalogue is considered in chapters on Pindar and the lyric tradition, on Hellenistic poetry, and on the poem\'s reception at Rome. This collection provides a significant approach to the study of the Catalogue.

• Offers a full-scale consideration of the meaning, influence and reception of this major ancient poem • Illuminates archaic Greek culture and society, including attitudes to women • Unites literary and historical studies and a range of methodological approaches with essays by an international team of experts

Notes on contributors; Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; Introduction; 1. Ordering women in Hesiod’s Catalogue Robin Osborne; 2. The beginning and end of the Catalogue of Women and its relation to Hesiod Jenny Strauss Clay; 3. Gods among men? The social and political dynamics of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women Elizabeth Irwin; 4. Heracles in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women Johannes Haubold; 5. Mestra at Athens: Hesiod fr. 43 and the poetics of panhellenism Ian Rutherford; 6. A catalogue within a catalogue: Helen’s suitors in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women (frr. 196–204) Ettore Cingano; 7. Pulp epic: the Catalogue and the Shield Richard P. Martin; 8. The Megalai Ehoiai: a survey of the fragments Giovan Battista D\'Alessio; 9. Ordered from the Catalogue: Pindar, Bacchylides and Hesiodic genealogical poetry Giovan Battista D\'Alessio; 10. The Hesiodic Catalogue and Hellenistic poetry Richard Hunter; 11. From genealogy to Catalogue: the Hellenistic adaptation of the Hesiodic catalogue form Helen Asquith; 12. The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women and Latin poetry Philip Hardie; 13. Or such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses … Richard Fletcher; Bibliography; Index of passages discussed; General index.