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Ancient

Cicero

Quod si ita est, CaeU quoque parentes di habendi sunt, Aether et Dies, eorumque fratres et sorores, qui a genealogis antiquis sic nominantur, Amor Dolus Metus Labor Invidentia Fatum Senectus Mors Tenebrae Miseria Querella Gratia Fraus Pertinacia Parcae Hesperides Somnia, quos omnis Erebo et Nocte natos ferunt.

And if so, the parents of Caelus, the Aether and the Day, must be held to be gods, and their brothers and sisters, whom the ancient genealogists name Love, Guile, Fear, Toil [Labor], Envy, Fate, Old Age, Death, Darkness, Misery, Lamentation, Favour, Fraud, Obstinacy, the Parcae, the Daughters of Hesperus, the Dreams : all of these are fabled to be the children of Erebus and Night [Nocte]

Hesiod

Theogony 226–232

And loathsome Strife bore painful Toil and Forgetfulness and Hunger and tearful Pains, and Combats and Battles and Murders and Slaughters, and Strifes and Lies and Tales and Disputes, and Lawlessness and Recklessness, much like one another, and Oath, who indeed brings most woe upon human beings on the earth, whenever someone willfully swears a false oath.

Lucian

Timon 31-33

HERMES

Our friend Timon is digging in a hilly and stony piece of ground close by. Oho, Poverty is with him, and so is Toil; likewise Endurance, Wisdom, Manliness, and the whole host of their fellows that serve under Captain Starvation, a far better sort than your henchmen.

...

Sophocles

The Women of Trachis

29–30

...νὺξ γὰρ εἰσάγει

καὶ νὺξ ἀπωθεῖ διαδεδεγμένη πόνον.

night brings trouble, and the succeeding night pushes it away.

Modern

Caldwell

p. 40

212-232 The remaining children of Night are personifications ... The children of Eris are Hardship [Ponos], Forgetfulness (Lethe), Starvation [Limos], Pains [Algea], Battles [Hysminai], Wars [Machai], Murders [Phonoi], Manslaughters [Androktasiai], Quarrels [Neikea] Lies [Pseudea], Stories [Logoi], Disputes [Amphillogiai], Anarchy [Dysnomia], Ruin [Ate], Oath [Horkos].

The Cambridge Greek Lexicon

s.v. πόνος (vol. 2, p. 1164)

πόνος ου m. ... 1 (genre.) hard work, labour, toil, effort ... 3 hardship, suffering, distress, trouble ... 6 (personified., as son of Eris) Toil Hes.

Cartledge

Oxford Classical Dictionary

s.v. industry, Greek and Roman

Paul Cartledge

Industry in the sense of hard labour (Gk. ponos; Lat. labor) the Greeks and Romans knew all too much about; total freedom from productive labour (scholē, otium) remained a governing ideal from one end of pagan antiquity to the other. But industry in the modern sense of large-scale manufacturing businesses seeking to exploit economies of scale and the division of labour they knew hardly at all, let alone as the characteristic form of manufacturing unit. That role was always filled by the individual workshop (ergastērion), and it is no accident that the largest Greek or Roman industrial labour force on record barely tipped over into three figures. Nor did élite Greeks and Romans value labourers any more highly than labour as such; this was partly because manual labour, even when not actually conducted by slaves (see slavery), was nevertheless always apt to attract the opprobrium of slavishness. As Herodotus (2. 167) put it, the Corinthians (see corinth) despised manual craftsmen (cheirotechnai) the least, the Spartans the most—but all élite Greeks despised them. On the other hand, they always felt boundless admiration for skill (technē, ars), and some forms of ancient pre-industrial craftsmanship demanded that quality in the highest degree. See art, ancient attitudes to; artisans and craftsmen.

...

Gantz

p. 9

in art we find Eris ... Hesiod's [cont.]

p. 10

account goes on to list Eris' own children, born with no father mentioned and virtually all allegorizings: Ponos (Labor), Lethe (Forgetfulness), Limos (Famine), Algea (Pains), Hysminae (Combats), Machai (Battles), Phonoi (Slaughterings), Androktasiai (Slayings of Men), Neikea (Quarrels), Pseudea (Falsehoods), Logoi (Words), Amphillogiai (Unclear Words), Dysnomia (Bad Government), Horkos (Oath), and Ate (Folly) (226–32) Of this list only the last has any identity, [although as a daughter of Zeus with no mother mentioned]

Hard

p. 31

The children of Eris represent the many harmful and destructive things that arise from discord and strife, namely Toil (Ponos), Oblivion (Lethe), Famine, Sorrows, Fights, Battles, Murders, Manslayings, Quarrels, Lies, Disputes, Lawlessness, Delusion (Ate) and Oath (Horkos).⁵⁹ This is allegory of the most obvious kind for the most part; the last two alone require further comment.

LSJ

s.v. πόνος

A.work, esp. hard work, toil, in Hom. mostly of the toil of war, ...

II. stress, trouble, distress, suffering,

Millett

Oxford Classical Dictionary

s.v. labour

Paul C. Millett

Labour, as a factor in the production of wealth, has no equivalent in Greek or Latin. Association of the terms ponos and labor with drudgery reflects the negative attitudes of ancient élites, for whom ‘labour’ was the antithesis of scholē and otium (time available for leisure, politics, education, and culture). ...

Thurmann

Brill's New Pauly

s.v. Ponos

(Πόνος/Pónos). Personification of toil and stress, similar to the Latin Labor. Son of Erebus and Nyx (Soph. Trach. 29; Cic. Nat. D. 3,17,44) or Eris with no indication of the father (Hes. Theog. 226). As son of Eris, P. is placed first in the ranks of evil by Hesiod. However, he also has a positive aspect, in that he ends debauchery and sees to a virtuous life (Lucian. Timon 31-33).

Thurmann, Stephanie (Kiel)