Abstract

In the proem of the “Theogony” Hesiod describes the conception and birth of the Muses. At ll. 58-60 he specifies that Mnemosyne’s pregnancy lasted one entire year, ένιαντός. This unusual one-year pregnancy puzzles Hesiod’s commentators; West, for example, translates ένιαντός as ‘due time’ rather than ‘year’. The purpose of this article is to argue that Hesiod intended ένιαντός to mean ‘year’.