Time in Ancient Historiography

Abstract

Before I get down to those problems about time that seem to me relevant to ancient historiography, I have to eliminate a series of faulty questions, part of which at least derive from an arbitrary introduction of the notion of eternity into the historian's business; for this conception even in the form of eternal return is likely to lead to confusion and errors of various kinds.2 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. To the untutored eye of the non-theological reader this seems to be clear evidence that the priestly author of Genesis I knew that from the beginning of the world events followed each other in a chronological order. (The exact translation of the difficult Hebrew text is irrelevant to our point.) same priestly author speaks of the first, second, third day, and so forth. The wrath do thou sing, o goddess, of Peleus' son, Achilles, . . . sing thou thereof from the time when at the first there parted in strife Atreus' son, king of men, and goodly Achilles. To the untutored eye of the nonphilologist this seems to be clear evidence that the author of the first book