The Megalai Ehoiai or Great EhoiaiThe poem is also referred to with alternate Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 transliterations of the title: Megalae Ehoeae or Eoeae; occasionally the Latin translation of Megalai is also found: e.g. Magnae Eoeae. is a now fragmentary Greek

Ancient Greek literature

Ancient Greek literature refers to literature written in the Ancient Greek language until the 4th century.- Classical and Pre-Classical Antiquity :...

 hexameter

Dactylic hexameter

Dactylic hexameter is a form of meter in poetry or a rhythmic scheme. It is traditionally associated with the quantitative meter of classical epic poetry in both Greek and Latin, and was consequently considered to be the Grand Style of classical poetry...

 poem that was popularly, though not universally, attributed to Hesiod

Hesiod

Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...

 during antiquity. Like the more widely read Catalogue of Women

Catalogue of Women

thumb|275px|[[Guido Reni]]'s first Atalanta e Ippomene , depicting the race of [[Atalanta]], a myth which was known to Reni from [[Ovid]]'s [[Metamorphoses]], but is now also represented by several fragments of the Catalogue of Women.The Catalogue of Women —also known as...

, the Megalai Ehoiai was a genealogical

Genealogy

Genealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...

 poem, structured around the exposition of hero

Hero

A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...

ic family tree

Family tree

A family tree, or pedigree chart, is a chart representing family relationships in a conventional tree structure. The more detailed family trees used in medicine, genealogy, and social work are known as genograms.-Family tree representations:...

s among which myths concerning some of their members were narrated. It was once though that "Megalai Ehoiai" was simply an alternate title for the Catalogue, but today the vast majority of scholars consider these to be independent poems, though a few have proposed that the Megalai Ehoiai was an expanded edition of the Catalogue.