Hesiod's Five Ages

Author(s): H. C. Baldry
Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Oct., 1956), pp. 553-554
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2707788 .
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 DISCUSSION

HESIOD'S FIVE AGES

BY H. C. BALDRY

In his interesting article on "Archaeology and Hesiod's Five Ages," 1 Dr.

J. Gwyn Griffiths raises two questions concerning the five races described by
Hesiod in the Works and Days: first, is the significance of the metals by
which they are designated " metaphorical or, in some sense, literal "; second,
is there evidence that such a pattern of ages named after metals was " a tra-
dition known before Hesiod." He puts forward replies which in his view are
contrary to my conclusions in my article on "Who Invented the Golden
Age? "2 I should like to comment briefly on each issue.
1. In opposition to the opinion adopted by most classical scholars, Dr.
Griffiths asserts that "it seems highly probable that . . . Hesiod's scheme
purports to show the ages of man in relation to the metals discovered by
him." The scheme, he suggests, " takes its first meaning from the use of the
metals and arises from traditions concerning the origins of these uses."
There appear to me to be two objections to this view.
First, Hesiod's description of the gold and silver races does not mention
or imply any use of these metals, whereas the later use of bronze is stated,
and the use of iron implied (150-1). Dr. Griffiths infers that use must be
" the underlying idea " in the account of the gold and silver races also. But
it is at least equally easy to draw the opposite conclusion: if this had been
Hesiod's intention, he would have said so, instead of waiting till the bronze
period to mention the point.
The second, and more important, difficulty is that Dr. Griffiths not only
needs to demonstrate that gold-silver-bronze-iron was the actual order of
development in the use of metals, but also that Hesiod was aware of this,
or is likely to have been aware of it. I know of no reason for supposing that
this was so.
The real position seems to be that we do not know what Hesiod meant
by the epithets " golden " and "silver," nor indeed whether he had any pre-
cise meaning for the words in mind. Our only evidence on the matter is
that later classical writers, taking over from Hesiod-as I tried to show in
my article-the notion of a series of such " races," did not employ the terms
literally, but even definitely dissociated them from the use of the metals,
placing the discovery of gold, for example, in the time of the " iron race."
Hesiod's ancient imitators, at any rate, did not read their Works and Days
as Dr. Griffiths would have us do.
2. Dr. Griffiths sees a probable source of Hesiod's myth in Eastern paral-
lels. "A scheme of world-ages in which metals were ranged in order of
discovery and linked with mythological material," he suggests, "may well
1 This Journal,XVII (January,1956), 109-119.
2 Classical Quarterly N.S. II (1952), 83-92.
553

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554 H. C. BALDRY

have arisen among them (the Sumerians) and been transmitted later to
Babylon and Iran to form the basis of more elaborateand specializedinter-
pretations such as appear in the Zoroastrianlore and the Book of Daniel."
Here Dr. Griffithsfinds the backgroundto the story in the Worksand Days.
He criticizes my "cavalier treatment of the oriental myths," and seems
shocked by my suggestionthat " Hesiod creates myth in orderto solve his
problems."
The treatment of this aspect of the matter in my article was brief for
reasonsof space (though not, I hope, " cavalier"). My principalpoint was
that the conception of successive races connected with metals came into
Greekthought throughHesiod, while the main Greek tradition about man's
early felicity describedit as " the reign of Kronos." I left open the question
whetherHesiod inventedthe idea of the "golden " race or borrowedit from
outside Greece; and it still seems to me that this is the furthest we can go.
The Easternparallelsto Hesiod'sstory most emphasizedby Dr. Griffiths
and others are those in the Book of Daniel, now usually dated to 164 B.C.,
and the Bahman Yasht, the extant version of which belongs to the sixth
century A.D. The attempt to trace either of these back to a date anything
like as early as the Works and Days is purely speculative, and under the
circumstancesit appears at least as likely that Hesiod was their source as
that they were his.
Among the other parallels mentionedby Dr. Griffithsthe most striking
are those from Egypt, showingthat " to the Egyptians ... gold was a divine
metal, the very stuff of the gods." Hesiod's line 108,3immediately before
the descriptionof the golden race, promisesus an account of how gods and
mortal men came " from the same source." But such an origin for Hesiod's
tale would of course conflictwith the view that he had in mind the use of
gold.
There remains the possibility, in which I still believe, that Hesiod in-
vented the association with gold and silver himself. Myth is, after all, a
story created-in its initial form-by some individualhumanmind. Many
such stories were created, and many others reshapedor augmented,by the
Greek poets. I see no reason why we should think it impossible that
Hesiod, in an age when the Greeks still turned to myth for the explanation
of experience,invented the tale of the five races as a means of connecting
the traditional" reign of Kronos" with his own degeneratedays.
University of Southampton.

8 I assumethat Rzach,Sinclairandothereditorsare rightin retainingthis line

as genuine.

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