Page "Hesiod" Paragraph 17

Two different — yet early — traditions record the site of Hesiod's grave.

One, as early as Thucydides, reported in Plutarch, the Suda and John Tzetzes, states that the Delphic oracle warned Hesiod that he would die in Nemea, and so he fled to Locris, where he was killed at the local temple to Nemean Zeus, and buried there.

This tradition follows a familiar ironic convention: the oracle that predicts accurately after all.

The other tradition, first mentioned in an epigram by Chersias of Orchomenus written in the 7th century BC ( within a century or so of Hesiod's death ) claims that Hesiod lies buried at Orchomenus, a town in Boeotia.

According to Aristotle's Constitution of Orchomenus, when the Thespians ravaged Ascra, the villagers sought refuge at Orchomenus, where, following the advice of an oracle, they collected the ashes of Hesiod and set them in a place of honour in their agora, next to the tomb of Minyas, their eponymous founder.

Eventually they came to regard Hesiod too as their " hearth-founder " ( / oikistēs ).

Later writers attempted to harmonize these two accounts.