Divine and Human Inventors in Greek Didactic Poetry

Abstract: In this article I examine how three didactic poems (Hesiod's Works and Days , Aratus' Phaenomena , Oppian's Halieutica) envisage the role of divine intervention in equipping humans with knowledge in the field that they purport to teach. By asking what gods teach men and what kind of impact this knowledge has on human life, it will emerge that the interaction between gods and men has ramifications for the extent of the poets' belief in progress and their conceptualization of the difference between man and god and man and animal.