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This chapter focuses on chronography, that is, the scholarly field which concerns the organization and articulation of time. It examines the extant fragments of the ancient chronographic tradition, which was initially dominated by competitive culture of Hellenistic scholarship, and by figures such as Eratosthenes of Cyrene and Apollodorus of Athens. Methodological problems, such as that of generic classification, are addressed throughout. The chapter deals first with works concerning Greek city-calendars, especially the festival calendars, before moving on to those which focus on the articulation and expression of linear, historical time. Here are treated issues of synchronism; the establishment of important dates, such as that of the fall of Troy and the acme of Homer; the correlation of fixed chronological markers with continuous systems, such as lists of eponymous magistrates, kings, or Olympic victors; the development of universal chronologies; and the notion of literary time-frames.

The Book of the Thousands (Kitāb al-Ulūf), written in Arabic in the middle of the 9th century by the astrologer Abū Maʿšar of Balkh, contained an important account of not one but three ancient sages named Hermes. This was to become the most widespread and influential account of Hermes’ life and history in all subsequent Arabic literature, but the original, and rather technical, work in which it first appeared does not survive. We know Abū Maʿšar's Hermes-legend only through the citations of later authors, the earliest of which is that of Ibn Ǧulǧul in the late 10th century. After providing the text and an annotated translation of Abū Maʿšar's account, this chapter pieces together its original literary context—a chronological discussion contributing to a work of historical astrology—and discovers Abū Maʿšar's sources for the stories. These sources include at least one late antique Christian world chronicle, which Abū Maʿšar knew in a translation from Syriac. This was based partly and through undetermined intermediaries on the lost chronography of the antediluvian period by the Egyptian monk Annianus (ca 400). Another source of Abū Maʿšar is found to be his contemporary, the philosopher al-Kindī. In short, Abū Maʿšar's influential account of the three Hermeses is not a fanciful invention in Arabic but a synthesis of late antique and early Arabic elements. The Arabic account of Hermes is closely connected to the history of the world chronicle and its genre.

Chapter 25 addresses everyday timekeeping, including the calendar, the divisions of the year, the lengths of day and night, and the periods of the day. The chapter refers to three different calendars and two different divisions of the seasons. One divides the year in half between summer and winter, following the Avestan tradition, while the second divides the year into four seasons of three months each. Days, in turn, are divided into five ritual watches (gāh) in summer and four in winter, when days are shorter. Prayers were to be said five times a day, during each of the five watches. The chapter’s digression on the climatic conditions of India in summer and winter may be a late addition reflecting the Zoroastrian community’s resettlement in the subcontinent in the centuries following the Muslim conquest.

The chronicle of Eusebius, published in 325AD, was the subject of a wide range of responses by scholars of the fourth century. If a few simply adopted his framework, others sought to reintroduce the ideas of Julius Africanus and Hippolytus, whose chronicles Eusebius had brushed aside. The chapter shows that, notwithstanding a strong concern with getting Biblical chronology right, fourth-century chronography was not a merely intellectual activity in support of Biblical exegesis. Chronographic arguments were also marshalled in the exchanges with other faiths and Christian groups. In addition, by seeking to link the astronomical cycle to historical events, chronography also contributed to making Christianity the natural religion, in that its history and its cycle of feasts came to be aligned with the rhythm of nature.

The paper considers the significance and unique character in the Aeneid of the number 333. The paper traces in some detail the chronological outline of sources on the date for the foundation of Rome in the Greek historians and Alban king-lists. It shows the relationships between Virgil’s chronology and this tradition, and the startling divergences that the poet has deliberately introduced. A solution to ‘the darkness around Virgil’s 333 years’ is suggested.