Catalogue of Women
Also known as: Ehoiai, Catalogue of Heroines, Women’s Catalogue, Hesiodic Ehoiai, Great Ehoiai
An archaic hexameter catalogue of mortal women whose unions with gods produced the heroic lineages of Greece, linking city-founders and epic figures through genealogies framed by the recurring "or such as" formula.
Description
The Catalogue of Women (Ehoiai) was an extensive genealogical epic that organized mythic history around notable mortal women. Each entry typically began with the formula introducing a heroine, then related her parentage, beauty, and the god who consorted with her, culminating in children who became heroes, kings, or founders. The poem connected disparate regional traditions—Argive, Boeotian, Thessalian, Ionian—into a coherent nexus of lineages stretching from the immediate aftermath of the Theogony to the generations preceding and including the Trojan cycle. Fragmentary yet influential, the work shaped later mythographers’ understanding of heroic chronologies and provided a narrative scaffold for epic episodes centered on figures like Heracles, Perseus, and Theseus.
Historiography
The poem survives only in fragments preserved on papyri (especially from Oxyrhynchus) and in quotations by later authors and scholia. Ancient testimony often ascribes it to Hesiod, though modern scholarship debates its authorship and redactional layers. Evidence suggests a multi-book arrangement and an organizing device built on the ehoiai formula, with expansions and local interpolations likely accrued over time. Hellenistic editors may have shaped the transmitted sequence and integrated related poems such as the Great Ehoiai.
Date Notes
Traditionally ascribed to Hesiod; composition likely Archaic Greece. Survives in fragments quoted by later authors and papyri (notably Oxyrhynchus), with evidence for multi-book arrangement.
Themes
Archetypes
Major Characters
- Zeus
- Helen
- Alcmene
- Heracles
- Perseus
- Theseus
- Jason
Myths
- Genealogies from Deucalion
- Divine Unions with Mortal Women
- Foundations of Heroic Lineages
- Deeds of the Sons of Heracles and Helen
Facts
- The poem organized heroic myth around mortal heroines introduced by the recurring ehoiai formula (“or such as…”).
- Ancient testimonia attribute the work to Hesiod, though authorship and unity remain debated.
- Surviving material consists of quotations in later authors and numerous papyrus fragments, many from Oxyrhynchus.
- The Catalogue likely comprised multiple books; five-book arrangements are reported in antiquity.
- It functioned as a bridge between divine myth (Theogony) and human heroic cycles, mapping lineages to epic figures.
- Local genealogies from regions such as Boeotia, Thessaly, Argos, and Crete were woven into a pan-Hellenic network.
- Related or overlapping material circulated under titles like the Great Ehoiai.
- Its structure and content strongly influenced later mythographers and chronographers in organizing heroic history.
- Episodes within the Catalogue underlie narratives of Heracles, Perseus, Theseus, and the Trojan cycle.
- Formulaic openings and hexameter style align the work with archaic epic technique and diction.