Hesiod, Catalogus feminarum, Fragment 50: the race of Atalanta and Hippomenes/Melanion

Hesiod, Catalogus feminarum, Fragment 50: the race of Atalanta and Hippomenes/Melanion

8th cent. BCE

Epic

Literary source

Reference to Hesiod from Scholia T on Homer's Iliad (23.683b). The scholion argues that Hesiod is later than Homer. The assumption is that competing naked in ancient Greek athletics was an innovation that is to be dated later than Homer, who mentions the hero putting on his belt before the contest in the passage in the Iliad to which the scholion refers (23.683).

Thus Hesiod is more recent (i.e., than Homer), for he introduces Hippomenes competing naked with Atalanta.

Glenn W. Most, Hesiod. The Shield. Catalogue of Women. Other Fragments, (= Loeb Classical Library; 503), Cambridge, MA 2018.

νεώτερος οὖν Ἡσίοδος γυμνὸν εἰσάγων Ἱππομένη ἀγωνιζόμενον Ἀταλάντῃ.

Glenn W. Most (ed.), Hesiod. The Shield. Catalogue of Women. Other Fragments, (= Loeb Classical Library; 503), Cambridge, MA 2018.