Hesiod (Hesiodos) was a farmer-poet who probably lived only a bit later than Homer—sometime between 750 and 650 B.C.E. Hesiod probably wrote or had his poems written down by others. Hesiod, like Homer, probably did not invent stories so much as retell and elaborate on stories passed down during the Dark Ages and the Archaic period. With Homer and the composers of the Homeric Hymns, he is a major source for what we know of Greek mythology. He is especially known for his Theogony (“birth of the gods”), in which we find the generally accepted creation myth of the Greeks and the story of the war between old and new gods that established the Olympian dynasty of Zeus. He also wrote Works and Days, in which we find the famous Pandora myth. He is said by some to have been the author of the Shield of Herakles, about a confrontation between Herakles and a son of the god Ares.