Works and Days in the context of "Dactylic hexameter"

Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories concern the ancient Greek religion's view of the origin and nature of the world; the lives and activities of deities, heroes, and mythological creatures; and the origins and significance of the ancient Greeks' cult and ritual practices. Modern scholars study the myths to shed light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Greece, and to better understand the nature of mythmaking itself.

The Greek myths were initially propagated in an oral-poetic tradition most likely by Minoan and Mycenaean singers starting in the 18th century BC; eventually the myths of the heroes of the Trojan War and its aftermath became part of the oral tradition of Homer's epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Two poems by Homer's near contemporary Hesiod, the Theogony and the Works and Days, contain accounts of the genesis of the world, the succession of divine rulers, the succession of human ages, the origin of human woes, and the origin of sacrificial practices. Myths are also preserved in the Homeric Hymns, in fragments of epic poems of the Epic Cycle, in lyric poems, in the works of the tragedians and comedians of the fifth century BC, in writings of scholars and poets of the Hellenistic Age, and in texts from the time of the Roman Empire by writers such as Plutarch and Pausanias.

Hesiod (/ˈhiːsiəd/ HEE-see-əd or /ˈhɛsiəd/ HEH-see-əd; Ancient Greek: Ἡσίοδος Hēsíodos; fl. c. 700 BC) was an Ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer.

Several of Hesiod's works have survived in their entirety. Among these are Theogony, which tells the origins of the gods, their lineages, and the events that led to Zeus's rise to power, and Works and Days, a poem that describes the five Ages of Man, offers advice and wisdom, and includes myths such as Pandora's box.

Ancient Greek literature is literature written in the Ancient Greek language from the earliest texts until the time of the Byzantine Empire. The earliest surviving works of ancient Greek literature, dating back to the early Archaic period, are the two epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, set in an idealized archaic past today identified as having some relation to the Mycenaean era. These two epics, along with the Homeric Hymns and the two poems of Hesiod, the Theogony and Works and Days, constituted the major foundations of the Greek literary tradition that would continue into the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods.

The lyric poets Sappho, Alcaeus, and Pindar were highly influential during the early development of the Greek poetic tradition. Aeschylus is the earliest Greek tragic playwright for whom any plays have survived complete. Sophocles is famous for his tragedies about Oedipus, particularly Oedipus the King and Antigone. Euripides is known for his plays which often pushed the boundaries of the tragic genre. The comedic playwright Aristophanes wrote in the genre of Old Comedy, while the later playwright Menander was an early pioneer of New Comedy. The historians Herodotus of Halicarnassus and Thucydides, who both lived during the fifth century BC, wrote accounts of events that happened shortly before and during their own lifetimes. The philosopher Plato wrote dialogues, usually centered around his teacher Socrates, dealing with various philosophical subjects, whereas his student Aristotle wrote numerous treatises, which later became highly influential.

Pandora's box is an artifact in Greek mythology connected with the myth of Pandora in Hesiod's c. 700 B.C. poem Works and Days. Hesiod related that curiosity led her to open a container left in the care of her husband, thus releasing curses upon mankind. Later depictions of the story have been varied, with some literary and artistic treatments focusing more on the contents than on Pandora herself.

The container mentioned in the original account was actually a large storage jar, but the word was later mistranslated. In modern times an idiom has grown from the story meaning "Any source of great and unexpected troubles", or alternatively "A present which seems valuable but which in reality is a curse".

Early Greek cosmology refers to beliefs about the origins, development, and structure of the universe in Ancient Greece that existed before the development of Ancient Greek astronomy. The basic elements of this early cosmology included a flat earth, heaven, a cosmic ocean, the afterworld (Hades), and the netherworld (Tartarus). The first three were represented by the gods Gaia, Uranus, and Oceanus (or sometimes Pontus). Ancient Greek cosmology was related to ancient Near Eastern cosmology, and was ultimately replaced by a more systematic and demythologized approach found in ancient Greek astronomy. Its main sources are the poetry of Homer (the Iliad and the Odyssey), Hesiod (the Theogony and the Works and Days), and surviving fragments from Mimnermus.

Beginning in the 5th century BC, elements of the traditional Greek cosmos began to be modified and challenged. One of the earliest of these challenges came from the emergence of the view that the cosmos as a whole was spherical (advocated by Xenophanes, Parmenides, Empedocles, and others). The rotation of the spherical cosmos was said to explain the visible rotation of the stars (an idea called "vortex"). Soon, a spherical model of the earth itself was proposed, which gradually gained acceptance, although the flat earth view never entirely disappeared during either classical antiquity or late antiquity, continuing to receive support from geographers and others like Ctesias, Ephorus, Strabo, Tacitus, and the Epicureans. The last Greek advocate of the traditional cosmology was Cosmas Indicopleustes.