The Textualization of Works and Days

Abstract In the ancient eastern Mediterranean, written texts of special cultural prestige, such as the Homeric epics and the Hebrew Bible, present variable texts. Both performers and scribes made minor changes in what they had inherited not only through errors of memory or to display their own skill, but also to meet particular needs or make it easier to understand. The evidence does not suggest, however, that most readers cared about these small changes. While the length of the Homeric epics, though not the precise wording, stabilized in the mid-second century BCE , Works and Days , although it does not fluctuate dramatically, is still fluid in the Imperial period.