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Hesiod, Uranos, Kronos, and the Emasculation at the Beginning of Time *

Article  in  Classical World · May 2017

DOI: 10.1353/clw.2018.0036

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Hesiod, Uranos, Kronos, and the Emasculation at the Beginning of Time *

(Forthcoming in Classical World, CXI, 2018; this is the paenultimate version – please cite
printed version)

Johan Tralau, Uppsala

Johan.Tralau@statsvet.uu.se

Abstract: In this article, it is argued that Kronos’ emasculation of Uranos in Hesiod’s Theogony is depicted as the
genesis of the seasons and years. Hesiod insistently speaks of “afterwards” in the context of the emasculation,
suggesting that this “afterwards” is brought about by the deed. Moreover, Hesiod depicts the seed as the beginning
of agriculture, fertility, change, justice and the future. Furthermore, expressions designating duration and changing
time are only employed after the emasculation. Finally, it is pointed out that there are historically pertinent cases
of analogous time-creation in the Babylonian Enūma elîš and in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The account of the
beginning of time in Hesiod is thus an astonishing feat of intellectual abstraction.

Hesiod is increasingly being recognised as a systematic and, in his own way, rigorous thinker,
even as a proto-philosophical theorist. In the following, it will be argued that one of the most
famous passages in the Theogony, where Kronos emasculates his father Uranos, is an account
of the beginning of time. The story itself appears to be most bizarre, perhaps one of the strangest
myths in the Greek imaginary. Kronos cuts off his father’s genitals with a sickle and then throws
them behind his back, and blood from the severed parts falls on the earth, giving rise to
goddesses of revenge–Erinyes–and giants, and the nymphs of the ash-trees. Moreover, from the
foam surrounding the mutilated genitalia, floating in the sea for a long time, Aphrodite emerges.
Plato’s Socrates calls the account “the greatest lie”, τὸ μέγιστον … ψεῦδος, and says that it
should be prohibited.1 The thesis developed in this paper is that the myth, as told by Hesiod,
relates the prehistory and genesis of a fundamental category in human understanding: time.
Specifically, Hesiod depicts the violent act as the origin of changing time in the sense of the
year and the seasons, as a prefiguration of agriculture, and as the beginning of the conception
of the future, of justice, and of revenge.
The argument will unfold as follows. First, it is argued that Uranos holds back time, and
that Hesiod’s use of words implying “afterwards” and “behind” in this context adumbrates that

*
Acknowledgements: This article is part of the project The Origins of Political Philosophy in Ancient Greece,
funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation (dnr RFP12-0518:1). The author would like to thank
Dimitrios Iordanoglou, Charlotta Weigelt and the anonymous referees for comments on earlier versions of this
essay.

1
“afterwards” is actually brought about by the emasculation on the part of Kronos. Second, we
will see that the violent act has agricultural connotations, suggesting the beginning of time in
the sense of the seasons of the year. Third, it will be argued that the mutilated body parts
represent the beginning of fertility, change, justice and the future. Fourth, the case will be made
that words that imply changing time–quickness, precise moments, duration–only appear in the
poem after the emasculation. Finally, we will see that such acts of divine time-making can be
found in other sources that are historically relevant, the Enūma elîš and the Ovid’s
Metamorphoses. The article will thus step by step collect a series of seemingly small
observations that add up to a greater discovery: in the Theogony, Hesiod creates an
astonishingly sophisticated mythical and theoretical tale about the advent of a certain kind of
temporality.

I. Introduction
The fact that Hesiod develops his vision of the universe in a systematic manner is not a recent
discovery.2 It has often been recognised that there is a fundamental unity and coherence in both
the Theogony and Works and Days.3 Hesiod constructs a relatively strict system of thought, and
a fairly rigourous conceptual apparatus. 4 Hans Diller thus claims that Hesiod plays an important
part in the origins of philosophy precisely because of the precision and the logical consistency
with which he constructs his account of gods, monsters and human beings. 5 More recently,
Jenny Strauss Clay has developed an innovative interpretation of Hesiod’s work as a coherent
cosmological and moral doctrine. 6 In a similar vein, Owen Goslin has argued that the poet
depicts Zeus’s establishment of order in the world as the consistent ordering of sound, making
different sounds predictable and harmonious. 7
There are problems of interpretation arising from the fact that Hesiod’s “trains of thought
are” sometimes, in the words of Martin West, “interrupted” in a baffling manner. 8 Tensions,
such as contradictions between different passages in a single work, or between different works
in the corpus, have been handled in different ways in different scholarly traditions, with more
or less willingness to accept incongruencies of various kinds.9 Yet many scholars argue that
such tensions and contradictory accounts of, e.g., mythic origins are often purposeful, as
different and complementary ways of conveying the poet’s conception of the cosmic order. 10
This paper addresses Hesiod’s notion of the origins of time in the sense of the seasons
and years. In the literature on the poet, research about Hesiod and time appears to be less
abundant than that pertaining to other themes.11 The question of the beginning of the world has
been much discussed. 12 More pertinent to our study are interpretations of the beginning of time

2
in the context of the early gods, particularly with reference to the emasculation of Kronos. Clay
briefly notes that the actions of Uranos, making it impossible for his children to be born, “turn
back the clock, so to speak,” and submits that “the birth of Day” marks “the genesis of time.”13
In a fascinating study, Alex Purves has argued that Hesiod operates with a conception of time
in which the past and the future are conceived of as being encapsulated in underground jars,
that is, the traditional way of storing food; moreover, Uranos, Kronos and Zeus all attempt to
stop time, Uranos by keeping his and Gaia’s offspring under ground, hindering time from
moving forward, “hold[ing] back [...] the plot’s chronological sequence.”14 Kathryn Stoddard
suggests, however, that there is a “rift between the mortal and divine realms,” and that linear
time is only to be found in the former, not in the latter. 15 By contrast, Gérard Naddaf argues
that the events related in Hesiod all take place within “un temps parfaitement linéaire.”16
Moreover, Robert Mondi contends that in Hesiod’s cosmogony, time begins already at the
generation of the first cosmic entity, Chaos. 17 Most germane to the interpretation that will be
developed here, however, Paula Philippson argues that the Theogony depicts the beginning of
time and a transition from “zeitloses Sein” to “einer kontinuierlich ablaufenden Zeit”; according
to Philippson, this fundamental transformation of the world is brought about by Zeus. 18
We have seen a plethora of divergent interpretations. Time begins by the genesis of Day,
or of Chaos, time is linear, the world of gods is without time, time is created by Zeus. In the
following, a different thesis will be developed; Philippson is correct in saying that the Theogony
portrays the beginning of changing time, but only in the sense of the seasons and the year, and
this transformation is not (as argued by Philippson) to be located in the rule of Zeus, but in the
previous generation–in Kronos. Kronos sets time in motion in a specific sense.
Looking back further, to a different kind of scholar, we find Cicero making the case that
Κρόνος actually means Χρόνος, that Kronos is the personification of time. 19 The claim is made
in passing, and Cicero’s interpretation has been rejected as being anachronistic, as constructions
emanating from times when “religious worship [was] supplanted by philosophical speculation”;
consequently, in the words of Erwin Panofsky, the similarity between Kronos and Chronos was
simply “fortuitous.”20 Yet although Cicero’s equation of Kronos and time may be exaggerated,
in the following it will be argued that a possible connection between the god and time should
be taken seriously.
This is not to say that there is an etymological link between Κρόνος and Χρόνος. Hjalmar
Frisk and Pierre Chantraine both claimed that the etymology of the words was in these cases
unknown or contested, and that any perceived link between them was mere folk etymology;
later scholarship has mostly accepted this thesis.21 We will not quarrel with it either. Nor will

3
we generalise the thesis about Kronos as Time to the Greek mythic universe at large. Such a
claim would require different and more encompassing investigations. We note that Pherekydes
of Syros, an eccentric thinker, may have equated Kronos with Chronos, though this is a debated
issue.22 Be this as it may–we will argue that Hesiod depicts Kronos as generating time in the
sense of setting the seasons and years in motion. Given the importance of Hesiod as one of the
most important sources for subsequent developments in the ancient world, the interpretation
suggested here may open new avenues of research on time and Kronos, but this is not the aim
of the paper.23
The interpretation developed below will mainly address the Theogony, most importantly
verses 161-206, and particularly the emasculation of Uranos and the consequences and
offspring of the violent deed. We have already discussed interpretations of Hesiod and time.
The literature pertinent to the emasculation itself and of the things that issue from it will be
probed continually in the paper, and it will become evident how the thesis differs from previous
interpretations.

II. Emasculation and the Beginning of “Afterwards”

There appears to be very little or no evidence for the presence of Kronos in Greek cult. While
some Greek calendars had a month called Kronion, the location of this month varied. It has
been pointed out that the Athenian festival dedicated to Kronos, the Kronia, resembled New
Year festivals in being an occasion when social norms were inversed. 24 And elsewhere in Greek
literature, we find Kronos being connected with disconcerting rituals, such as human sacrifice. 25
Moreover, the offical New Year in the Athenian calendar happened in the month of
Hekatombaion, which was previously called Kronion.26 What is important here is what we can
grasp about the role of Kronos in the Hellenic imaginary. According to Versnel, the Kronia was
a “festival of incision” between major festivals, dedicated to the “god of the periods of reversal
and chaos.”27 If we accept this interpretation, then the various months associated with Kronos
would appear to be gloomy or disconcerting times, and times of transition. In the following, it
will be argued that Kronos marks a cosmological transition with regard to a certain temporality.
The portrayal of Kronos harbours peculiar allusions to time. Let us look at the act of
emasculation closely. Gaia is in pain because of the offspring that she retains within. She
devises a plan for the liberation of the children and the ousting of Uranos. She gives Kronos a
sickle.

4
 ἦλθε δὲ νύκτ᾽ ἐπάγων μέγας Οὐρανός, ἀμφὶ δὲ Γαίῃ
ἱμείρων φιλότητος ἐπέσχετο καὶ ῥ᾽ ἐτανύσθη
πάντη· ὃ δ᾽ ἐκ λοχέοιο πάις ὠρέξατο χειρὶ
σκαιῇ, δεξιτέρῃ δὲ πελώριον ἔλλαβεν ἅρπην,
μακρὴν καρχαρόδοντα, φίλου δ᾽ ἀπὸ μήδεα πατρὸς
ἐσσυμένως ἤμησε, πάλιν δ᾽ ἔρριψε φέρεσθαι
ἐξοπίσω. τὰ μὲν οὔ τι ἐτώσια ἔκφυγε χειρός·
ὅσσαι γὰρ ῥαθάμιγγες ἀπέσσυθεν αἱματόεσσαι,
πάσας δέξατο Γαῖα· περιπλομένου δ᾽ ἐνιαυτοῦ
γείνατ᾽ Ἐρινύς τε κρατερὰς μεγάλους τε Γίγαντας,
τεύχεσι λαμπομένους, δολίχ᾽ ἔγχεα χερσὶν ἔχοντας,
Νύμφας θ᾽ ἃς Μελίας καλέουσ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἀπείρονα γαῖαν.
μήδεα δ᾽ ὡς τὸ πρῶτον ἀποτμήξας ἀδάμαντι
κάββαλ᾽ ἀπ᾽ ἠπείροιο πολυκλύστῳ ἐνὶ πόντῳ,
ὡς φέρετ᾽ ἂμ πέλαγος πουλὺν χρόνον· ἀμφὶ δὲ λευκὸς
ἀφρὸς ἀπ᾽ ἀθανάτου χροὸς ὤρνυτο· τῷ δ᾽ ἔνι κούρη
ἐτρέφθη [...] (Hes. Th. 176-192)

(And great Sky came, bringing night with him; and spreading himself out around Earth
in his desire for love he lay outstretched in all directions. Then his son reached out from his
ambush with his left hand, and with his right hand he grasped the monstrous sickle, long and
jagged-toothed, and eagerly he reaped the genitals from his dear father and threw them behind
him to be borne away. But not in vain did they fall from his hand: for Earth received all the
bloody drops that shot forth, and when the years had revolved she bore the mighty Erinyes and
the great Giants, shining in their armor, holding long spears in their hands, and the Nymphs
whom they call the Melian ones, over the boundless earth. And when at first he had cut off the
genitals with the adamant and thrown them from the land into the strongly surging sea, they
were borne along the water for a long time, and a white foam rose up around them from the
immortal flesh; and inside this grew a maiden.) 28

Uranos comes, νύκτ᾽ ἐπάγων, “bringing Night.” Again, it looks as if the god wants to
maintain or re-create some sort of primordial obscurity. We learn that Kronos is right-handed,
for he “reached out … with his left hand” (ὠρέξατο χειρὶ / σκαιῇ), presumably to grasp his

5
father’s genitals, and in his right hand he takes the sickle. We will return to this intriguing
sickle, ἅρπη, in a few pages. But, to begin with, how are we to understand the act of
emasculation, what Plato complained of as the “biggest lie”?29 The first, and most obvious,
interpretation is that it separates heaven from earth–a theme found in the Near Eastern myths
from which Hesiod derives much of his visions, such as the Hurro-Hittite cosmogonical myth
of Kumarbi.30 (This idea is arguably still faintly present in Anaximander’s cosmology.31) It has
also been argued that the emasculation corresponds, in the architecture of the Theogony and in
another lineage originating from Gaia, to the fertile sea god Pontos–and as we will see, the
violent act will prove to be most fecund. 32 Another scholar has claimed that in the series of
strange births depicted by Hesiod, this is a “birth through schism.”33 Pietro Pucci instead argues
that the deed sets up “the first model of a father’s hostility to his children”, a recurring theme
in the divine succession.34
These interpretations are not mutually exclusive, nor do they appear to be incompatible
with the thesis developed in this paper. We will focus on a different possibility of interpretation,
one that has not yet been explored. Having cut off the member, Hesiod tells us, Kronos “threw”
it (ἔρριψε) “backwards”, “behind him”–or so we may think. Interestingly, this “backwards” can
be found in two words in this brief passage, πάλιν and ἐξοπίσω. And the first question would
appear to be why Kronos throws the severed parts “behind” him. Walter Burkert claims that the
background of this must be found in some ritual–”sicher ein Ritual”, and, in another text, “ein
eindeutig ritueller Gestus in dem spekulativ gestalteten Mythos, auch wenn wir das Ritual nicht
mehr lokalisieren können.”35 The question is, however, if the issue can be so “unequivocal” if
we cannot find any such ritual. Burkert is not the only one to make this claim. In an older
commentary, Wolf Aly suggests that “Die Entmannung des Uranus wird im Ritus ihr Analogon
gefunden haben.”36 The interpretation would appear to be a quasi-instinctive application of the
conception of myth as ritual, according to which the tale is always a reflection of a ritual, even
“ritual misunderstood.”37 Looming somewhere, there is arguably also an aversion to allegorical
readings of myths, which attempt to find fundamental insights pertaining to the world of men
and gods.38 This is not to say that there was no such ritual–in fact, some enigmatic verses of
agricultural instruction in Works and Days about the necessity of sowing, ploughing and
reaping naked may be reminiscent of Kronos’ deed, given that Uranos was either naked or his
genitals exposed before the mutilation–but merely to argue that such an interpretation does not
conclusively solve the problems of interpretation. 39
Yet there are other possibilities. Pucci suggests that the act of throwing something behind
one may have an apotropaic function. 40 West claims that Kronos’ throwing of the mutilated

6
body parts behind him can be explained by an ancient notion to the effect that miraculous events
can only take place behind one’s back, where one cannot see them. Moreover, West argues, the
throwing can be due to the wish to avoid pollution–if one cannot see or know where they end
up, dirty phenomena cannot pollute one. 41 But there is actually another possibility in this, or
rather these, “behind.”
ἐξοπίσω does not only mean “behind”; it means “afterwards.” Our own time, or at least
many cultures in our time, typically conceives of the future as something that is ahead of us,
and hence in front of us. We look toward the future, and the past is “behind” us. But the Greeks
spoke of the future as “behind”, as if they walked into the future with their back to it. This kind
of conception of time can be found in the early Mesopotamian civilisations: in Sumerian and
Akkadian, which were spoken in the first three millennia BC, words that denote “earlier” and
“before” derive from “face” and “front”, whereas “future” and “afterwards” are expressed by
words meaning “behind.” In these early civilisations, then, the origin was the point to which
one looked, and at a very early stage kings actually conducted archaeological excavations in
order to discover the original plan for certain buildings–the origin conceived of as the model
for any subsequent action. 42 Consequently, the future is “behind”, and so it is in Greek too, at
least etymologically.
But why is this relevant for our understanding of Hesiod? It is, to begin with, a contested
issue whether the future is behind us in Greek thinking, or behind humans, or behind the present
time.43 Now, if the god has a special relation to time, it is not clear how this could be a problem
for the interpretation that will be developed below. Yet the Akkadian conception of the past as
being in front of us, and the past behind, is evidently a visualisation of humans’ understanding
of temporality as backward-looking. And it could be objected that the Greeks developed a very
different idea of time, and that at least in the classical period, they did not think of themselves
as bound to the past as an eternal and ever-present model, as epitomised in the Babylonian
notion of time–in this vein, Christian Meier has claimed that the 5th century Athenian polity
conceived of itself as independent of the past and at complete liberty to re-design its
institutions.44 But regardless of whether Meier is right or not, Hesiod is much older than that.
And in Greek, so much younger than Akkadian and Sumerian, a word like ἐξοπίσω means both
“behind”, “backwards” and “afterwards”, “in the future.”
The point here is not to argue that Hesiod’s understanding of origins is identical to that
of the Mesopotamian civilisations. Rather, we need to interrogate Hesiod’s use of a word like
ἐξοπίσω. Kronos “threw” (ἔρριψε) the genitals “to be borne away“ by the stream. It would be
tempting to read “bear fruit” into “to be borne away“ or “carried away”, φέρεσθαι–which is, of

7
course, what the severed genitalia do–but φέρειν only carries this meaning in the active voice.
Yet as we shall see, conceptions of fertility still abound; we will look more closely at these
fertile body parts and their offspring shortly. And the sentence has an interesting feature. There
are, as we said, the words in it that signify “backwards”–πάλιν and ἐξοπίσω. Perhaps the
redundancy involved in employing two words purportedly expressing the same meaning should
not disturb us in the language of epic. πάλιν, however, also means “again.” The severed limb is
thrown, perhaps not only backwards but again. Uranos’ genitals have begot a number of beings,
Titans and others; but even when they are separated from the body, they will do it–again. If this
possibility of interpretation is reasonable, then it would seem that Hesiod plays on the possible
meanings of πάλιν, both as “back”, “backwards” and as “again.” Such an ambiguity is already
there when Kronos replies to his mother (αἶψ᾽ αὖτις – again “back”, and “again”, Th. 169).
Moreover, ἐξοπίσω appears to be ambiguous as well. Kronos may be throwing the
mutilated body parts “behind”, but not only that: he may be throwing them so that they may be
fertile “afterwards”, “in the future”–precisely ἐξοπίσω. The god casts them into the future,
thereby bringing about the future, from a time that knew of little change except the alternation
of day and night, and less measurement of time, into a state where there was time in a fuller
sense.
Later, in the Works and Days, ἐξοπίσω and related words abound, and sometimes it is not
clear in which sense they are used, “afterwards” or “behind.” ἐξοπίσω is spatial in Op. 88,
μετόπισθεν temporal in Op. 127. This may not be spectacular, for in Greek it is often unclear
in which sense these terms are used–or rather, depending on the context, there may sometimes
not have been much of a difference to a Greek eye or ear.45 Yet at one point Hesiod seems to
play on, or emphasise, the double meaning of ἐξοπίσω and its companions. In Works and Days,
we learn that a slave should go “behind”, ὄπισθε (Op. 469), the farmer when he sows in order
to conceal the seeds from birds. And little later, the poet talks about Zeus granting a great
harvest “afterwards” (ὄπισθεν, Op. 474). This afterwards-behind, in two senses, is thus used in
an agricultural context, that of sowing.
At other times, Hesiod employs ὀπίσσω (Op. 741) in a clearly temporal sense about divine
punishment, and insistently when singing about punishment for perjury: those who wrong Dike
will be dealt with “afterwards”, μετόπισθε (Op. 284), whereas just people–so we learn
immediately afterwards–will fare better, precisely “afterwards”, μετόπισθεν (Op. 285).
So “afterwards-behind” in the shape of ὀπίσσω and all its relatives appears to be
fundamental in considerations of justice. In fact, when Gaia tricks Kronos and gives him a stone
to devour instead of Zeus, we hear that Kronos did not understand ὥς οἱ ὀπίσσω / ἀντὶ λίθου

8
ἑὸς υἱὸς ἀνίκητος καὶ ἀκηδὴς / λείπεθ᾽, “that in place of the stone his son remained hereafter,
unconquered and untroubled” (Th. 488, cf. 490-91). Did Zeus remain behind Kronos? Or did
he remain afterwards? Probably both. Yet the transformation into the future is completed, or
opened, when Zeus forces his father to vomit, thus liberating the siblings and the stone, which
was henceforth a monument, a memento–σῆμ᾽ ἔμεν ἐξοπίσω, “to be a sign hereafter” (Th. 500).
The stone, Pausanias tells us, was on display in Delphi. 46 Some have speculated that the
rock may have been a meteor. 47 And here we are told that it remained as a “sign”, σῆμ᾽, and a
“wonder”, θαῦμα (Th. 500), for the future, “afterwards”, ἐξοπίσω. Then Zeus liberated his
uncles, and they were grateful and “remembered” that, ἀπεμνήσαντο (Th. 503), and gave him
the thunderbolt, which Gaia had “previously” (τὸ πρίν, Th. 505) hidden under the surface of the
earth. The consciousness of the future, memory, and remembrance of things past: it is all there.
The idea that Kronos brings about the future, or “afterwards”, may appear to be an
exuberantly imaginative way of interpreting Hesiod’s curious use of double spatial
designations, a passage containing two words that happen to be ambiguous. But there is other
evidence, pertaining to images of agriculture and the seasons on the one hand, and temporal
concepts in the architecture of the Theogony on the other hand.

III. The Seeds of Mutilation and the Prefiguration of Agriculture

In order to proceed, we will need to look at images of agriculture, of fertility, and the beginnings
of humans, for these themes will prove to be significant.
Gaia invents a sickle (ἅρπη, Th. 175, 179, δρέπανον, 162) that she gives to Kronos. We
learn that she first creates the mythic metal “grey adamant”, πολιοῦ ἀδάμαντος (161), from
which the sickle is made. But what is the meaning of the sickle in this context? It has been
argued that the invention is an allegorical portrait of the discovery of technical thinking. 48 The
tool is, in any case, “the first manufactured object” in Hesiod’s world. 49 Yet the first possibility
that comes to mind would be that it signifies agriculture in some way. Martin P. Nilsson
defended this interpretation, saying that Kronos was a god of the harvest. 50 West has, however,
pointed out that myth often has the sickle employed as a weapon against phantasmagorical
creatures; he thus claims that Kronos’ tool is to be understood merely as the “normal weapon
[…] for the amputation of monsters.”51 This is, in a way, a curious argument. 52 Uranos is,
namely, not a “monster” according to standard terminology, and Hesiod does not talk of him
as, e.g., a τέρας or a πέλωρ, the words most often used of monsters. Intriguingly, however, Gaia
is precisely in this context called πελώρη, and the poet speaks of the sickle itself as πελώριον

9
… ἅρπην, “the monstrous sickle” (Th. 159, 173, 179). πέλωρ and its close relatives are
sometimes used simply in the sense of “enormous”, so one should perhaps not expect it to be
very significant.53 Still, let us note that in this section of the Theogony, Gaia and the sickle may
have a slightly monstrous connotation.
Moreover, Hesiod emphasises the fact that the implement is καρχαρόδοντα (Th. 175,
180). The word is usually rendered by “saw-toothed.” This was Nilsson’s most important
argument for understanding Kronos as an agricultural deity. Sickles were often saw-toothed
since it made the reaping of corn easier, whereas a blade of that shape would not make sense as
a weapon.54 This is a reasonable argument. At the same time, however, we should note that at
this stage–that is, roughly, in Homer and Hesiod–we elsewhere find καρχαρόδοντα used of
dog’s teeth, not of human tools. 55 Does this suggest, then, that the word carries an allusion to
dogs, so important to life at a farm like Hesiod’s? Or to teeth? If that is true, then the sickle is
monstrous and reminiscent of sharp, saw-like teeth. Given parallels in other myths, the
dimension of monstrous teeth may be significant: in the Derveni papyrus, Zeus swallows the
αἰδοῖον–the genitals, some argue–of his father, and in the Hittite Song of Kumarbi, Kumarbi
bites off the genitals of his father Anu, and the river Tigris is born from the semen that Kumarbi
spits out.56
In light of this, the reference to fertility and agriculture would, notwithstanding West’s
earlier objections, appear to be more than plausible. 57 What is more, the verb used of Kronos’
cutting is ἤμησε, “reaped” (Th. 181). Pucci says that the word is “gruesomely consonant with
the implement used.”58 That is true. Moreover, however, ἤμησε is unambiguously an
agricultural term. It refers to the cutting of plants. If anything, this would appear to make the
argument for the connection Kronos-agriculture compelling. It could be objected that ἀμάω
could have been established in the metaphorical sense of attacking and eliminating someone,
and that it was possibly so naturalised that the literal meaning of “mowing” was no longer felt
(for what it is worth, it could be noted that in a language such as modern Swedish, the verb
deriving from the same root, meja, is the standard military term for the use of automatic fire to
cover a surface, typically horizontally). 59 The metaphorical use of the verb is, e.g., found in the
Oresteia.60 But elsewhere in Hesiod and the Corpus Hesiodeum, the word is used in its literal
sense or, if metaphorically, in a less bold manner. 61 Consequently, the reader would have heard,
and should hear, ἤμησε as an echo of agriculture.62 It is time, then, to look at the fruit reaped
and grown from Kronos’ seminal violence.

IV. The Seed and the Origins of Human Beings

10
Kronos throws away the parts from Uranos’ body that he has cut off. From the blood drops
falling on the ground, on Gaia, three races emerge: the Furies, or Erinyes, the Giants, and the
Melian Nymphs. This would at first appear quite confusing. Why these three? What do they
have in common? It looks like an “odd brood”, in the words of Clay. 63 Let us begin from the
end. The nymphs (Νύμφας [...] Μελίας, Th. 187) are ash-tree nymphs. Ash-trees are important
in Greek thinking. The conception of human beings originating from ash-trees can be found
here as well as in other Indo-European cultures–in Norse myth, for instance, the first man and
the first woman, Askr and Embla, originated from an ash-tree and an elm, respectively. 64 And
Hesiod himself later speaks of human beings as μελίῃσι (Th. 563), “ashen,” so the notion of
humans as ash-people is at play here as well. 65
The Giants are surely less well-known. But Hesiod tells us that they carry arms–and not
just any arms. They bear spears, δόλιχ᾽ ἔγχεα, “long spears” (Th. 186). And spears were
typically made of ash. And this may connect the Giants with the Melian nymphs.
Schwabl states briefly that the Melian nymphs were “Stammesmütter.”66 The connection
with humans appears to be made by Hesiod, as we said, since humans–or men–are μελίῃσι. Yet
Clay adds the interpretation that the origin of man is to be found here. Other scholars have
argued that Hesiod says nothing in this poem about the beginning of men, or human beings. 67
Yet according to Clay, the ash-tree nymphs procreated with the spear-bearing giants, giving
rise to the human race. 68 Stoddard has criticised the interpretation, saying that Hesiod
“ostentatiously conceals” the origin of mankind in the Theogony.69
In this context, we will not commit to any of these views, but merely note that Clay’s
interpretation of the origin of human beings would make the emasculation of Uranos an even
more fundamental event in the universe, and related to procreation, vegetation, and fertility.
But we have not yet accounted for the Furies. They were generated in and from the blood of
the deposed god. But what role do they play? The first thing to note is that they are goddesses
of revenge and justice. They bring about future retaliation. And when Zeus in turn usurps the
throne of his father, it is, Hesiod tells us, because of Uranos’ Erinys, τείσαιτο δ᾽ Ἐρινὺς πατρὸς
ἑοῖο, “to take retribution for the avenging deities of her father” (472). The Furies are thus in a
very special sense mythic creatures concerned with the future. They will punish wrongdoing
afterwards–“afterwards,” again, and Hesiod explicitly relates the punishment of the Titans to
Uranos’ Erinys as well as to the future: τίσιν μετόπισθεν, “vengeance … at some later time”
(Th. 210). Further on in the poem, we find more avenging powers, the Keres (in West’s words,
“[t]he Erinyes are to some extent duplicated by the Keres”).70 Once again we find their function

11
and nature emphatically related to future retaliation: οὐδέ ποτε λήγουσι ... πρίν, “never cease
… until” (Th. 221-222). The creation of the Furies and the Keres–indeed, the idea of justice and
retaliation–presupposes the “afterwards.”
Furthermore, as we were told, Aphrodite arises from the foam surrounding the genitals
floating in the sea. Aphrodite’s connection with fertility is evident, in the sense of sexuality and
procreation. But Hesiod takes care to point toward another kind of fecundity, more evidently
akin to agriculture: when the love goddess steps on the ground of Cyprus after having been
born, ἀμφὶ δὲ ποίη ... ἀέξετο, “grass grew up around” (Th. 194-195). It is as if vegetation
emerges because of the strange seed of Uranos.
We have thus seen that the seed of Uranos may (if Clay’s interpretation is correct) be
intimately related to the beginning of mankind, and that it is, in any case, connected to the
future, especially future revenge, and to the fertility of plants, possibly even as a precondition
of agriculture.
If we accept these possibilities of interpretation, some difficulties will present themselves.
The first is how we are to reconcile the idea about the origin of mankind with the notion of the
beginning of agriculture. Once we consider the catalogue of the ages of mankind, we will have
to face the problem that Hesiod states that the men of the golden age lived under Kronos. 71 This
probably means that agriculture cannot have come into being until later. On the one hand, then,
the pre-agricultural golden age was during the reign of Kronos; on the other hand, Kronos is
still associated with agriculture. Moreover, the second problem would be how we can reconcile
the origin of man, agriculture, and the future, with the origin of woman–for according to Hesiod,
Zeus had the first woman created as a nuisance to man. 72
In Hesiod’s golden age, when everything edible grew automatically, so to speak, there
was in all likelihood no bread–bread was invented in tandem with agriculture. 73 This is not just
a question of different accounts in different works: Hesiod speaks of the first woman as πῆμ᾽
ἀνδράσιν ἀλφηστῇσιν, “a woe for men who live on bread” in this context in the Works and
Days (Op. 82). Some have downplayed the bread connotation in the word ἀλφηστής.74 Glenn
Most’s translation offers “who live on bread”, however, and the reference to ἄλφι, barley, would
arguably have been felt. Again, however, we should not expect Hesiod to provide exactly the
same account each time, but to tell tales that expound cosmological and theological views in
different ways in order to elaborate on a systematic and, to a relatively great extent, coherent
vision of the human, divine and natural world. 75 Moreover, if Stoddard is at least partly correct
in claiming that human time and divine time are incompatible and only rarely meet, then these

12
different accounts do not have to be pedantically consistent, but may find their coherence in the
overall cosmological teaching of Hesiod. 76
Yet fertility, mankind, agriculture and the notion of the future all converge in one
fundamental phenomenon: the year and the seasons as predictable, measureable, and distinct
time. The final part of the argument will thus attempt to prove that this is what Kronos’ act of
aggression brings about.

V. Kronos, Chronos, and the Beginning of the Seasons

In order to make the case for Kronos and the mutilation of Uranos as the beginning of time, we
will look at the passages in which Hesiod sings of certain temporal qualities–specifically,
actions and events that he explicitly speaks of as quick, at moments in the text when he says
that something happened at a certain time, and finally, at junctures where we learn the duration
of events.
When, in the history of the cosmos, did the first quick event come to pass? The question
may sound odd. Yet in a key place in the poem, Hesiod insistently speaks of quickness. When
Kronos cuts off the genitals of his father, we hear that he “mowed quickly”, ἐσσυμένως ἤμησε
(Th.181). Immediately afterwards, Hesiod tells us that the blood drops of Uranos ἀπέσσυθεν
(Th. 183)–and regardless of how we choose to translate the word (“ran away” would probably
be a possible but unsatisfactory literal way of rendering the Greek) we should note that it derives
from the same root as ἐσσυμένως and that it appears to connote speed. And later, in the poem
as well as in the internal chronology of the work, we hear that things happen quickly. Zeus grew
“quickly” (καρπαλίμως, Th. 492). Quickness is likewise connected with time in the context of
the Harpies, who fly with “quick wings”, ὠκείῃς πτερύγεσσι, and who are μεταχρόνιαι (Th.
269)–often taken to mean “high in the air”, but possibly “swift” (the original meaning being
“delayed,” yet we should note that Aly, e.g., suggests “zeitgeschwind”, “as fast as time”).77 So
does quickness come into the world at the point of the emasculation of Uranos? It could
reasonably be objected that we should not be over-bold regarding such conclusions given the
fact that it would seem to be no surprise that the preceding powers, e.g., Chaos, do not act
quickly. But this presupposes a certain understanding of Chaos that would require an argument.
In any case, the first quickness recorded in the cosmogony would be Gaia’s invention of
adamant, which was done “suddenly,” αἶψα (Th. 161), thus foreshadowing the emasculation
undertaken by means of the new invention.

13
 And after this great theogonic, indeed chronogonic, event, Hesiod feels free to use
temporal expressions that pinpoint the more exact time at which something happens–”on that
very day,” ἤματι κείνῳ (Th. 667, 836). In the calendrical precepts in the Works & Days, such
indications are paramount: the life prescribed by Hesiod depends on all these considerations
about the right day. 78 Likewise, this is true of the seasons, often in the sense of “the right time”
(ὥρην, Th. 754). It is not clear how we should relate this to the Horai to whom Themis gives
birth–they are clearly in some respect called “seasons”, but they are not to be equated with the
parts of the year (Th. 901). Yet the importance of ὥρη and related words is shown by their
frequent use in the Works and Days to indicate the right, appropriate time. 79
Most importantly, however, when looking at the expressions that state the duration of an
event, we find them abundantly after the displacement of Uranos. The genitals floating in the
sea, from which Aphrodite emerges, float “for a long time,” πουλὺν χρόνον (Th. 190). This
information is admittedly not very precise, but it is the first time χρόνος is used. Yet a more
exact designation has already been brought about: Gaia gives birth to the Furies, Giants and
Melian Nymphs περιπλομένου δ᾽ ἐνιαυτοῦ, “when the year had revolved”.80 This may not
sound sensational, for the expression is used of pregnancy in Homer. 81 Yet this is the first
instance of a year, and of the duration of time, expressed in the Theogony. Later, we hear similar
expressions: ἐπιπλομένου δ᾽ ἐνιαυτοῦ, “when a year had revolved” (Th. 493, Op. 386, 561, F
17(a).6 Merkelbach West). We also find a length of time stated as a specific number of years,
such as δέκα πλείους ἐνιαυτούς, “for ten full years”.82 But nowhere is a year, or the possibility
of year, mentioned before the emasculation of Uranos.
It is true that in the poem itself, words signifying length of time, and the parts of the year,
occur before this episode. Intriguingly, this is in the description of the birth of the Muses
themselves. Zeus procreates with Memory, Mnemosyne, and in accordance with the same
divine duration of gestation, we hear of the year that passes.

ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δή ῥ᾽ἐνιαυτὸς ἔην, περὶ δ᾽ ἔτραπον ὧραι,

μηνῶν φθινόντων, περὶ δ᾽ἤματα πόλλ᾽ ἐτελέσθη,
ἣ δ᾽ ἔτεκ᾽ἐννέα κούρας ὁμόφρονας (Th. 58-60)

(and when a year had passed, and the seasons had revolved as the months waned, and
many days had been completed, she bore nine maidens–like-minded ones)

14
 Hesiod proceeds from the great cycle to the shorter ones, from the year to the seasons,
then from months to days, and then Mnemosyne delivers her nine daughters. All the parts of
the year are in place. 83 But in the poem, while this is to be found in the proem, “before” the
description of the dethroning of Uranos, it is precisely, in the internal theogonic chronology,
after the emasculation of Kronos and the beginning of time. The proem begins in recent history,
in Hesiod’s initiation as a singer. Of course, Ἡμέρη, Day, comes into being at a very early stage
of–well, “time” (in Th. 124). And later in the Theogony, we find “day” used of the duration of
a day, as well as in the sense of “all days,” ἤματα πάντα.84 But nowhere is “day” used as a
concept designating duration of time before the mutilation of Uranos.
Clay has, as we said, argued that Hesiodic time begins with the emergence of Day and
Night.85 Surely, a “day,” in the sense of the time elapsing from sunrise to sunset, or from sunrise
to sunrise, is a fundamental unit of time measurement. While Clay’s argument makes perfect
sense, the emasculation of Uranos appears to bring about a new kind of temporality, different
from that of days and nights. As Hellenic and other Mediterranean societies were aware, there
were other, just as important intervals–the solar year and the lunar year were necessary in Greek
and other calendars, the lunar period because of its predictability and precision, the solar year
because of its necessary relation to agriculture. 86 Since the solar year is approximately 365.24
days and the lunar year is only 354 days, any calendar has to intercalate months or days in order
for the months (or some of them) to approximate the seasons, as the Gregorian calendar does
through leap years. (For what it is worth, it can be noted that Aristophanes wittily has Helios
and Selene conspiring against the Greeks by taking out days of the year, thus emphasising the
incompatibility of lunar periods and solar years with human calendars.)87 Consequently, for a
Greek like Hesiod, “time” in the sense of Day and Night would not be identical to “time” in the
sense of seasons, months, and the greater cycle of the year. Indeed, the one month that Hesiod
does mention, Lenaion, presupposes such intercalation. Hesiod says that it is a grim winter
month (Op. 504,) and this implies that there must have have been intercalary months to ensure
that Lenaion would remain a winter month (as opposed to travelling through the entire solar
year, as is the case with the months of the Islamic calendar). 88 In short, the calendrical tensions
between days, months and solar years were perceived by Archaic societies and thinkers, and
perhaps especially so by a thinker with such enormous interest in hemerology. It could, then,
make sense for time to originate in the genesis of Day in one sense, and in the genesis of seasons
and the changing year in another sense. These would be different aspects of time in Hesiod’s
account, coming about at different points in the early history of the cosmos.

15
 Stoddard has argued that the Muses are outside of time, in the “timelessness of divine
time”, and stresses the fact that they dance in a circular movement, which would represent
circular time or the eternal return. 89 If we accept Stoddard’s argument, then linear time,
changing time, and the distinct periods, making it possible to mark off different durations of
time, come into being only for humans–and time, in the case of the Muses, only comes to be
through their interaction with Hesiod himself, who is subjected to human time. 90 But this does
not seem to be the case, for there appears to be time in the world before the poet is consecrated
as a–or the–singer; in the verses that we just read, Mnemosyne’s pregnancy and the birth of the
Muses are insistently depicted in temporal terms. This makes perfect sense in light of the
interpretation that we have suggested above: for time, in the sense of months, seasons and years,
emerges through the violent act of Kronos.
Philippson claims that time is brought into being through the actions and rule of Zeus.
Before Zeus, time was “dauerlos”; under Zeus, when order prevails in the cosmos, time is “nach
Tagen und Jahren bemessen.”91 The observation about measurable time and the implication of
expressions such as ἐπιπλομένου δ᾽ ἐνιαυτοῦ is fecund and correct. Yet Philippson fails to see
that this does not come about during the reign of Zeus, but precedes it; such a wording is used
of the immediate outcome of the very act by which Kronos usurps the throne of Uranos.
In fact, after the advent of time it appears that even the most “timeless being” becomes
measureable. In the famous passage in which Hesiod speaks of the distance between heaven
and earth on the one hand, and between earth and Tartaros on the other hand, we learn of the
exact time it would take for an anvil to fall from one place to the other: ἐννέα … νύκτας τε καὶ
ἤματα, “for nine days and nights” (Th. 722, 724).92 Little later, the poet speaks of a chasm,
χάσμα, that is much deeper, in which it would take more than a year, τελεσφόρον εἰς ἐνιαυτόν,
“not … in a whole long year”, to reach the bottom; we cannot solve the vexed problem of the
relation of this abyss to Tartaros, but just note that even this enormous chasm is (negatively)
circumscribed by the measure of a year. 93 Likewise, Styx’s punishment of the gods for perjury
is measured in years–it is insistently, four times, described with reference to years (Th. 795,
799, 800, 803).
The year, the seasons and the months as distinct periods with which we can measure time
thus originate in the core event portrayed in what Plato calls the “biggest lie.” Let us finally add
two close parallels in other cosmogonic accounts that are of great relevance to the
understanding of the Theogony.
The Babylonian Enūma elîš is generally considered to be one of the sources, or reflect
the sources, from which Hesiod incorporated components into his own work. 94 The epic depicts

16
the defeat of the primordial sea goddess Tiamat by the god Marduk, who splits her in two,
making heaven and earth. Most importantly in our context, Marduk sets the constellations and
seasons in order. On the fifth tablet, Marduk regularises and establishes time by ordering the
stars; moreover, he sets up the year itself and makes the months and the days predictable. 95
Unlike Hesiod, then, the poet of the Enūma elîš appears to let the deity array the temporal units
of days, months and years at the same time. Yet just like in Hesiod, the making of order, and
the ordering of the world, is thus also presented as time-making: Marduk sets up the cycle of
time-units. And this close parallel would appear to make the interpretation ventured in this
paper more plausible.
Moreover, in Ovid–admittedly so much later, but arguably more knowledgeable than we
of the world that Hesiod helped create–we find Jupiter-Zeus deposing his father, Saturn-
Kronos, and thus engendering the four seasons. Ovid makes clear that this restructuring of time
is a civilisational feat: it makes agriculture and architecture possible.96 Fertility, agriculture and
the emergence of the seasons thus coincide with a generational succession in the Roman poet
as well, though Ovid transfers it to a later generation of gods. And likewise, this divine
intervention is an act of creating time and regularities in time.
It may appear strange to imagine the beginning of time in the sense of seasons, and the
establishment of this temporal change by a divine act. Yet Enūma elîš and the Metamorphoses
provide parallels that are clearly historically pertinent. We have thus seen how a certain
temporality, and the possibility of measuring time and its continual transformation, is brought
about after, and by, Kronos’ violent act of emasculation.

Conclusion: Hesiod and the Origin of Time

We began in a brutal act, and we have, step by step, seen that Hesiod seems to relate the
emasculation to the beginning of time.
First, we saw that Uranos held back time, and we noted that Hesiod insistently speaks of
“afterwards” and “behind” in the context of the emasculation of Uranos, suggesting that this
“afterwards” is brought about by, or at the time of, the deed.
Second, we saw that the act of violence is rendered in agricultural terms, thus adumbrating
the beginning of time in the sense of the seasons of the year.
Third, it was argued that Hesiod speaks of the seed as the beginning of fertility, change,
justice and the future.

17
 Fourth, we found that more specific expressions designating changing time are only
employed in the context of, or after, the emasculation of Uranos–this is true of the conception
of quickness, of wordings that indicate a precise moment in time, and of words employed in
order to state the duration of time. Finally, we saw that there are historically pertinent cases of
analogous reasoning in a Babylonian and a Roman source, the Enūma elîš and the
Metamorphoses. While all these indications may not individually be sufficient to make the case
that Kronos brings about the seasons and years, seen as a whole they appear to be systematic
and significant. Hesiod tells the tale of Kronos’ rise in cosmos as the origin of a certain kind of
time.
It has been argued that while “neither Hesiod nor his contemporaries could have
articulated a theory of time”, they were still “operating with one”–in this case, that time began
at the creation of the first entity in the universe. 97 We have seen that previous scholarship has
had very different ideas about the origin of time in Hesiod’s cosmogony. Perhaps it would be
too much to expect a full-blown philosophical “theory” of time in Hesiod. But if our
interpretation is correct, then Hesiod’s account of the beginning of time is in fact an intriguing
act of intellectual abstraction from the “here and now”, for then the poet really asks when time
itself, in a certain sense, was created. This is surely less of an intellectual feat than, say,
Augustine’s answer to the question about what God did before the creation: that time was
created through the creation, and that there was not really a “before” in the normal sense of the
word.98 And in the Timaios, Plato tells us that the periods of time did not exist before heaven,
no years or months or days, but the god created them.99
The tale of the emasculation of Uranos has been labelled one of “the crudest myths of
Hesiodic cosmogony.”100 But if the thesis presented above is correct, then this episode in the
Greek imaginary asks an astonishing question: when did time come into existence? The poet
systematically expounds on an answer which is, in its own way, spectacular. Change, the
seasons, the year, justice, and the future all derive from an original act of violence. Kronos
liberates the universe from its primordial state, he throws the primitive life-giving force into
the future so that it may bear fruit again and again, and the year may then follow its course, and
time can be measured and ordered. This is the beginning of time, in the sense of seasons and
years, and Hesiod’s account of it is a part of the shadowy historical underbelly of philosophy.

Johan Tralau, Department of Government, Uppsala University

Johan.Tralau@statsvet.uu.se

18
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1
Pl. R. 377e-378a.
2
Snell 2000, 45-55.
3
Schwabl 1966, passim; Heubeck 1966, 233-236.
4
Vernant 1979, 39.
5
Diller 1966, 688, 691, 694; cf. Lloyd-Jones 1971, 79.
6
Clay 2003, 2, 8.
7
Goslin 2010.
8
West 1978, 41.
9
Solmsen 1949, 62; Barbara Graziosi (2009, 130-131) speaks of two radically divergent paths of reception.
10
Loney 2014, 506; Snell 2000, 50-52; Clay 2003, 99.
11
The present paper does not deal with narrative time in Hesiod, as explored by, e.g., Nünlist 2007, cf. Tsagalis
2009, 160.
12
Bussanich 1978, 213; Jaeger 1953, 22; Sorel 2006, 24, cf. 16-23.
13
Clay 2003, 17.
14
Purves 2004, 160, cf. 148, 155, 161-2; cf. Bilić 2013, 270.
15
Stoddard 2004, 128, cf. 129, 132, 138-139, 160.
16
Naddaf 1986, 341, 361.
17
Mondi 1989, 40.
18
Philippson 1966, 666, 675.
19
Cic. Nat. D. 2.64.
20
Panofsky 1939, 73.
21
Frisk 1960-1970, s.v. Κρόνος, 24-25, Χρόνος, 1122; Chantraine 1968-1980, s.v. Κρόνος, 586, Χρόνος, 1277-
1278; Versnel 1993, 100.
22
Schibli 1970, 136-139.
23
Hdt. II.53.1-2.
24
Chlup 2008, 357-359; van der Valk 1985.
25
S. F 126 Radt; cf. Bremmer 2007.
26
Versnel 1993, 129; Athens is decidedly not Hesiod’s place, but the poet operates with elements of calendars
from different parts of Greece, thus emphasising the Panhellenic character of the work; cf. Nagy 1990, 36-82.

23
27
Versnel 1993, 132, cf. 99, 115-117, 130.
28
Translation in Most 2006, which I use for quotations exceeding one or two words.
29
Pl. R. 377e-378a; cf. however Most 2009, 62-63.
30
CTH 344; Rutherford 2009, 11, who argues that the transmission of the myths must have passed through
bilingual Greek singers and religious experts (33); West 1997, 278-280.
31
DK 12 A 10.
32
Schwabl 1966, 41.
33
Park 2014, 263.
34
Pucci 2009, 50.
35
Burkert 2011a, 61; Burkert 1997, 84.
36
Aly 1913, ad loc., 16.
37
Harrison 1890, xxxiii.
38
Burkert 2011b, 140-141.
39
Op. 391-394; on these verses, see Wilamowitz 1928, ad loc., 87-89, who does not find them surprising, and
West 1978, ad loc., 257-258, who does; yet no one relates them to the mowing and sowing of Kronos in Th. 176-
203.
40
Pucci 1977, 49.
41
West 1966, ad loc, 219; cf. A. Ch. 98-99.
42
Maul 2008, 15-16, 19.
43
Cf. Stanford 1947 ad 1.222, and Dunkel 1982-83, 66-87; Palm 1969, 5-13, respectively.
44
Meier 1983, 230.
45
One example could be Hdt. I.45.1.
46
Paus. X.24.6.
47
West 1966, 303.
48
Paparizos 1998, 24.
49
Clay 2003, 17n14.
50
Nilsson 1951, 122-124.
51
West 1966., 218.
52
Though sickles are certainly often employed for that purpose, even when other weapons had been used in the
’standard version’ of myths; cf., e.g., a red-figure 4th century Campanian hydria in Berlin, Antikensammlung
V.I. 3238, with Perseus liberating Andromeda with the sickle in his hand; see likewise E. Ion 192.
53
For the Greek concept of monster, cf. Tralau 2015, 20-23.
54
Nilsson 1951, 249; cf. Aly 1913, ad 162, 16.
55
Op. 604, 796; Sc. 304; Il. 10.360, 13.198.
56
P. Derv. Col. XIII.4, 7-11; (but cf. Col. XII.3, 11-12, XIV.2-3, XVI.1); Santamaria Álvarez 2016; Kumarbi:
CTH 344.
57
West is, however, more sympathetic to the interpretation of Kronos as a corn god in 1997, 291.
58
Pucci 1977, 49.
59
See, e.g., Soldaten i fält, 47 (Anonymus 2001).
60
A. Ag. 1044, 1655.
61
Hes. Op. 480, 775, 778, Th. 599, F 286.1 Merkelbach West.
62
The moral importance of agriculture, and the agrarian crisis in Hesiod’s time, are noted by Pucci 1977, 52,
127.
63
Clay 2003, 18.
64
Völuspá, 17.7.
65
Related is the notion that the third race of men emerged ἐκ μελιᾶν (Op. 146, cf. Wilamowitz 1928, ad loc., 57-
58; West 1978, ad loc., 187). In conjunction with the conception of humans or men emerging from Uranos’
blood drops, this would, of course, be inconsistent with Hesiod’s claim about the golden race living under the
reign of Kronos (Op. 111).
66
Schwabl 1966, 42.
67
Naddaf 1986, 363.
68
Clay 2003, 96-99.
69
Stoddard 2004, 147.
70
West 1966, ad 185, 220.
71
Hes. Op. 111-112; cf. Sorel 1982.
72
Hes. Op. 51.
73
Hes. Op. 109-118.
74
Frisk 1960-70, 1:81.
75
Loney 2014, 506; Snell 2000, 50-52.
76
Stoddard 2004, e.g. 129. Cf. also Rudhardt 1996, 34.

24
 77
West 1966, ad loc., 242-243; Aly 1913, ad loc., 22.
78
Op. 362, 765, 769, 822-825; cf. Lardinois 1998. West 1997, 329.
79
Op. 32, 75, 307, 392, 394, 422, 450, 460, 617, 642, 664-665, 695; Th. 754.
80
Th. 184; Most’s translation and text have the plural.
81
Od. 11:248.
82
Th. 636; West 1966, 341, points out that it seems to be ’a conventional length for great wars’. Moreover,
considerations about proper years and ages abound in the later poem (Op. 544, 61, 562, cf. 682).
83
A similar progression is found in Works & Days; cf. Lardinois 1998, 323.
84
Th. 596, 647.
85
Clay 2003, 17.
86
Cf., e.g., Hannah 2005, 13; Samuel 1972, 10-11.
87
Ar. Pax 406-408, 414-415.
88
Hannah 2005, 31.
89
Stoddard 2004, 129.
90
Stoddard 2004, 132.
91
Philippson 1996, 669, 674, cf. 675.
92
With West 1966, ad loc. 360, we read ἄκμων as anvil. It could, contra West, be added that it is remarkable
that the length of time is, in the case such primordial entities as Heaven, Earth, and Tartaros, measured by an
artifact such as the anvil–recalling another artifact with temporal implications, the sickle.
93
Th. 740; cf. West 1966, p 364.
94
West 1997, 280-283.
95
Enūma elîš, tablet 5.2-6.
96
Ov. Met. I.113-124; cf. likewise I.381-394, where the poet speaks of Deukalion and Pyrrha (mentioned in the
Catalogue of Women, F 2.1,2, 4.1, 6.1 Merkelbach West; cf. Pi. O. IX.43-46) after the deluge, throwing stones
behind their back, stones that bear fruit, namely, human beings.
97
Mondi 1989, 40.
98
De civ. D. XI.6.
99
Pl. Ti. 37e2-3.
100
Lloyd-Jones 1956, 62, cf. Denniston & Page 1957, 84.

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