Denis Feeney
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520251199
- eISBN:
- 9780520933767
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520251199.003.0005
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Archaeology: Classical
The question of how “alike” are the present and the distant past is one that preoccupies this chapter, and the fall of Troy will once again be an important focus. The chapter investigates the ...
More
The question of how “alike” are the present and the distant past is one that preoccupies this chapter, and the fall of Troy will once again be an important focus. The chapter investigates the transition from myth into history from a rather different angle, with a data bank made up mainly of poetic, rather than historiographical, texts. It investigate the most important transition in myth, at once the most important beginning and ending moment in myth—the transition from the Gold Age to the Iron Age. This is when humans enter upon patterns of life that are still current, and begin living a knowable and familiar life. According to this way of thinking the movement of historical time has taken humans out of a state of harmony with nature and locked them into a place in nature unlike that of any other animal.Less
The question of how “alike” are the present and the distant past is one that preoccupies this chapter, and the fall of Troy will once again be an important focus. The chapter investigates the transition from myth into history from a rather different angle, with a data bank made up mainly of poetic, rather than historiographical, texts. It investigate the most important transition in myth, at once the most important beginning and ending moment in myth—the transition from the Gold Age to the Iron Age. This is when humans enter upon patterns of life that are still current, and begin living a knowable and familiar life. According to this way of thinking the movement of historical time has taken humans out of a state of harmony with nature and locked them into a place in nature unlike that of any other animal.
Denis Feeney
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520251199
- eISBN:
- 9780520933767
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520251199.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Archaeology: Classical
The synchronism charts play a vital part in constructing a sensation of historical depth. This chapter considers the transition from myth to history in the Greek and Roman historiographical ...
More
The synchronism charts play a vital part in constructing a sensation of historical depth. This chapter considers the transition from myth to history in the Greek and Roman historiographical tradition, and the main test case is the foundation of the city of Rome. This is an event, or perhaps one should say a concept, that acts as a magnet for ancient and modern investigators alike. The foundation of the city generated for the ancients an important cluster of questions about what counts as history, questions that still exercise historians of the early period of Rome. The chapter concentrates more on the poetic tradition, and especially on the very moment of demarcation between the Gold Ages and Iron Ages, to see how the passage from myth to history warps the net of time that covers the transition.Less
The synchronism charts play a vital part in constructing a sensation of historical depth. This chapter considers the transition from myth to history in the Greek and Roman historiographical tradition, and the main test case is the foundation of the city of Rome. This is an event, or perhaps one should say a concept, that acts as a magnet for ancient and modern investigators alike. The foundation of the city generated for the ancients an important cluster of questions about what counts as history, questions that still exercise historians of the early period of Rome. The chapter concentrates more on the poetic tradition, and especially on the very moment of demarcation between the Gold Ages and Iron Ages, to see how the passage from myth to history warps the net of time that covers the transition.
