Chapter 6

This tendency to introduce romantic episodes led to an important development. Several poems are ascribed to Hesiod, such as the _Epithalamium of Peleus and Thetis_, the _Descent of Theseus into Hades_, or the _Circuit of the Earth_ (which must have been connected with the story of Phineus and the Harpies, and so with the Argonaut-legend), which yet seem to have belonged to the _Catalogues_. It is highly probable that these poems were interpolations into the _Catalogues_ expanded by later poets from more summary not…