Egbert J.

Bakker

Khr6nos, Kleos, and Ideology from Herodotus to Homer

Time is a universal element of human experience. It is impossible not to be in
time, to see and feel its effects. But for all its universality, time is hardly an
objective phenomenon. We make continuous progress in our scientific
understanding of time, but this does not bring us any closer to an objective
temporal experience; perhaps we merely add another layer of cultural mediation.
Different cultures conceive of time in different ways, and develop different ways
of measuring or understanding it. Even the universal ravaging of time, the aging
and decay of organisms and artifacts, can have a distinct cultural load, as we shall
see shortly. 1 .
Time is often conceived of as a movement through a series of abstract 'nows',
each present moment being 'past' the next moment, just as it was 'future' a
moment ago. But perhaps this idea is too abstract to be of much experiential
value. Perhaps we experience time as 'pure time' only when we have too much of
it, when nothing happens, when we have to wait or are prevented from doing what
we want to do. In other cases it is difficult to distinguish time from what happens
in time: events or the experience of them. Or time becomes subject to metaphorical conceptions, as when, for example, Western society calls time 'money':
time is the substance we spend, or invest, or can afford, and of which we have
often too little.
We can also create time, regulating and mastering its flow: when we tell
stories. Temporality and narrativity (whether fictional or not) are in the last resort
inseparable, 2 and the way in which a culture experiences its past through narrative
can tell us something about its conception of time. Narrative may be a culture's
principal access to its past, in evoking events that might get lost, forgotten, if the
story were not told; events may also be thought of as existing independently of the
story's being told. The conception of time is likely to be sensitive to this distinction. The way in which a narrative presents itself, especially a narrative that
discloses a culture's past, will in some way or another involve time. The conception of time it espouses, in fact, can be an important part of its ideology.

Khr6nos in Epic
The importance of a narrative's ideology becomes clear when we turn to the
conception of time in the early Greek context. In what is perhaps the most influential study of time in early Greek literature, Herrnann Friinkel observes that time

For an introduction into the scientific approach to time, see Davies 1995; an overview of
time in an anthropological perspective in Munn 1992.
See Ricoeur 1984-1988; a preview of the theory is presented in Ricoeur 1979/1991.

Egbert J. Bakker

Khr6nos, Kleos, and Ideology

in its prime lexical manifestation, khr6nos, is in Homer the great unknown. 3 The
word khr6nos is never used to refer to time as a concept and is never the subject
or the object of a clause. Epic, according to Friinkel, does not tell us anything
about time or its experience in the culture. The only use epic knows is khr6nos
accompanied by adjectives such as polus or oligos as adverbial modifier
expressing duration, empty time: the word is used when nothing happens, and the
time mentioned is the experience of a character who has to wait or is kept from
some activity he or she wants to carry out. This is for example the temporal
experience of Telemachus when he visits Menelaos in Sparta and is eager to
leave:

Such a question involves a perspective that Friinkel does not consider: the
study of epic qua narrative. For Friinkel, the Homeric conception of time, or rather
the lack of it, comes to us unmediated, as if epic is simply the vehicle for ideas on
time, and other things, that are 'not yet' what they will be later. But epic is, as the
culture's access to a prestigious past and the perpetuation of the klea andron,
more than the expression of a pre-classical state of mind, and I will ask whether
the genre's ideology is not a factor in its remarkable silence on khr6nos. So, on
the hypothesis that it is possible to 'think time' in epic, we have to investigate
whether the inconspicuousness of khr6nos in Homer is not due to the conception
of time itself in Greek culture rather than epic's lack of conceptualization.

12

13

'Argetl'rfl, llTJ bi) Jle JtoA.i>v xo6vov evl}ab' eQUKe (Od. 4.594)

Destruction and Creation

Son of Atreus, do not keep me here for a long time.

Similarly, khr6nos is used for remaining idle without resources or information;

being husbandless (Penelope), or unable to reach one's home (Odysseus). 4
Homeric man, in Friinkel's conclusion, has discovered time in waiting.s One could
say that empty time, waiting, is the ultimate in the experience of time, but that is
not what Friinkel does. For him time's emptiness in epic is a sign of an undeveloped sense of time and temporality. Homer is indifferent toward time, and the
progression of events in the epic story does not need the temporal medium. For
Friinkel, the time of the story's telling is more important than the time on which it
reports. 6
Friinkel's discussion of khr6nos in Homer is a case of the so-called 'lexical
method', according to which the absence of a given lexeme in a text signifies the
absence of the concept it denotes, an absence that against the backdrop of an
evolutionist perspective on Greek culture and thought becomes the impossibility
to think it. That Homer, and 'Homeric man', was in fact quite capable of temporal
experience has been pointed out too well, by Wolfgang Kullmann and others, to
need further discussion here;7 instead, I want to ask whether there are specific
reasons for Homer, or for epic, not to mention khr6nos more than happens in our
Iliad and Odyssey, or to use the word only for 'empty time'. In other words, can
the silence on khr6nos convey meaning rather than absence?

The briefness of the human lifespan, especially of the part of it we call 'youth', is
naturally a common theme in any poetic tradition. Achilles' famously short life is
never referred to in terms of khr6nos in the Iliad, but in elegy the word readily
appears in connection with human ephemeral nature. 'Fools', exclaims the
speaker of Simonides fr. 20W when complaining about the thoughtless way in
which young people view their own existence, 'that their mind is disposed in this
way, they do not know how short the time (khr6nos) of youth and life is for
mortals':
vTJ:n:lOl, olc; 'tatrrn Kel'!UL VOOt;, oub '(aamv
roe; XQQyQ eair tj ~T]c; Kat ~lO'tOl' oA.(yoc
'(}vl]-rotc;. (Simonid.fr. 20.9-11 W)

Similar is Mimnermus' reflection, with vegetal imagery, on human nature: 8

TJJ.leTc; b', ota -re qn'>AA.a qrueL JtOA.uavl}~::Jloc; WQll
eagoc;, o-r' aT'ljl' auyftc; ail~e-rm i)~::A.(ou
-rote; YKeAOl xi)xuwv ext XPOVOV avl}ealV ii~llc;
'teQltOJ.le'(}a. (Mimn.fr. 2.1-4W)
And we, just as it makes leaves grow, the much-flowered season
of spring, when they grow instantaneous in the rays of the sun,
similar to those do we enjoy for a brief time the flowers of youth.

5
6
7

Friinke1 1931/1960 (references will be to the 1960 edition). Friinkel's ideas on time have
been followed, with modifications, by Treu 1953: 123-35; Onians 1954: 411 ff.; Accame
1961; Degani 1961: 117-24; Corish 1986; and Theunissen 2000: 19 ff. Cf. de Romilly 1968:
3-4.
Waiting: ll. 2.299; Od. 6.295; 9.138; 15.545; without resources or information: Il. 2.343; Od.
4.675; Penelope: Od. 2.115; 21.70; Odysseus: Od. 11.161; 19.169. Comparable to the extract
are Od. 4.599; 15.68.
Frlinkel 1960: 2.
Friinkel 1960: 2-3.
Kullmann 1968; cf. Rengakos 1995: 10-12; critique of the lexical method in Bruno Snell's
Die Entdeckung des Geistes in Wirshbo 1993.

The idea of a short period in time or a small amount of time is close to the idea of
time itself as the cause of the short duration. In fact, the proverbial idea of the
'tooth of time' is widely attested in Greek texts. 'Khr6nos has sharp teeth and
consumes even the strongest things' says Simonides (jr. 88W), and from
Sophocles' Colonean Oedipus we hear (OC 608-9) that 'Only the gods are
without aging and death; everything else is thrown into disarray by all-powerful
8

For the image of the leaves, see also ll. 6.145-49; 21.464-66. See further below.

Egbert J. Bakker

Khr6nos, K/eos, and Ideology

khr6nos'. Even Aristotle, in the otherwise entirely abstract discussion of time in

the Physics, cannot help observing that khr6nos is a 'cause of decay' (aY-no<;
qrfrogd<;, Phys. 22lbl): nothing becomes young or beautiful in time.
But man is not entirely without defense against this destructive force.
Khr6nos can be resisted, as Herodotus proposes to do in the Proem of his
Histories. After the inscription of the author's name and the characterization of
his work as an ap6dexis 9 follows a negative purpose clause in which it is stated
that the objective ofHerodotus' histories ap6dexis is 'to prevent what has come to
be through men from becoming extinct with time' (roe; ,..n'rrc: Tu yc:v6~-tc:va e~
uv{)gro:rr:cov T0 xgovcp e~(T11Aa yev11Tm).
Herodotus presents us khr6nos as the cause for things to become exitelos.
This adjective is sometimes translated as 'fading', as of the colors of a painting or
the letters of an inscription. But the contexts in which this sense obtains are late
and may even derive from Herodotus' famous Proem. 10 The passages in which the
adjective denotes biological decay, on the other hand, are older, independent of
Herodotus, and more numerous. What is exitelos is 'on the way out' (ex-it): the
adjective can denote the wilting of herbs or plants, the decay of blood or food, the
weakening of seed, or the extinction of a family line,II This is also the sense of
the only other occurrence of the adjective in the Histories: yevo<; TO
Eugva17eveo<; yeveaiJm e~(T11AOV 'that Eurysthenes' line of descent becomes
extinct' (5.39.2).
A biological reading of the Proem's T<'j) XQOVQ) ~(Tll /ea is confirmed by the
remarkable phrase that functions as subject of the purpose clause: TU yeVOJleVa
e~ uv{)gro:rr:cov. We commonly translate with 'things made to happen by men' or
similar renderings, but the verbal idea ek-gen denotes the biological opposite of
aging and decay: birth. 12 Things and beings are born in time, just as they die in
time. The idea of dying because of time can be complemented by that of being
born because of time, and so the conception of khr6nos as destroyer is balanced in
the idea of khr6nos as creator. Time is not only the end of things, but also their
beginning: time as potentiality and generative force. A multitude of passages
testify to the importance of this idea in the culture. 'Not even Khr6nos, the father
of all things', says Pindar (0/. 2.17) 'could undo the accomplishment of things
done'. In time everything is born and 'in the long time (v T<'j) JlaKQ<'[l xg6vcp)
everything can happen', according to Herodotus (5.9.3). Khr6nos is the force that

ultimately will reveal the true nature of what is at present hidden: time will tell,l3
Time is the fascination of the unknown; it approaches you, and materializes, as it
were, from the undefined mass of the future,l4 The double nature of khr6nos as
creator and destroyer is perhaps best expressed by Sophocles' Ajax:

14

9
10

11

12

On this term, see Bakker 2002a, arguing against the usual renderings of 'presentation', or
'report'.
E.g., Cassius Dio Hist. Rom. 57.16.2; Paus. 10.38.9 (yga<pal [...] e~[TTJAOL [... ] u:n:o -rou
xgovou). The clearest reminiscence of Herodotus is Dion. Ha!. Ant. Rom. 8.62.3 (ou
yeyovrov e~["CT]AO<; Tj -rou avl\goc; flVJlfJ.T]).
E.g., Aesch. fr. 162 (blood); Hippocr. De alim. 4 (food); Hdt. 5.39.2 (line of descent, see
below); Plat. Resp. 497B4 (seed); Plat. Critias 121A9 (part of soul); Plut. Quest. Conv.
652D6 (sperm); Strabo 16.4.19 (herb); Diod. Sic. 3.46.3 (herb); Dion. Ha!. Ant. Rom. 3.10.3
(line of descent). See also Nagy 1990: 225.
Cf. Hdt. 1.30.4; 2.146.1; 4.111.2; 6.61.2. On the notion of genealogy, cf. Moles 1999, sect.
8, who sees in the phrase a feature of a funerary inscription.

15

a:n:av()' 6 fJ.UKQOS Kavag[{)flT]TOS XQOVOS

<pUEl -r' cU>T]AU Kal <pavev-ra KQU:n:n:-rm. (Soph. Aj. 646-47)
<Of> all things the long and uncountable time
brings to pass what is beyond sight and hides it once revealed.

Time discloses things in being the cause of their birth and hides them as the agent
of their demise. Sometimes what had already vanished can come to live again as
the true nature of something, brought to light by the inexorable working of time.
This conception has a striking temporal consequence that is admirably
brought to light by Frankel (who is excellent on the texts that do mention
khr6nos): 15 as creator-destroyer, khr6nos is typically future time, an idea that goes
at the expense of the past. What has gone by is gone, dead, vanished, or forgotten.
What is yet to come, on the other hand, is alive as hope, possibility, or thing
feared. Khr6nos is the cycle of birth - life - decay - death, the dynamic process of
coming to be and passing away, and when the circle is completed, when khr6nos
has done his work, the thing in question is not 'in time' anymore. As creator and
destroyer, in other words, khr6nos is passage, not past.

Kleos and Commemoration

We may wonder whether epic is incapable of thinking time in this way, in
connection with mortality and life's passing. But this question can be approached
only through a confrontation of khr6nos the creator and destroyer with the idea of
the past. This takes us back to Herodotus' Proem. The intention to resist khr6nos
leads inevitably to a concept that is, in contrast with khr6nos, not at all
inconspicuous in epic. When we read on to the second, parallel, purpose clause in
the Proem, we learn that Herodotus' ap6dexis histories is not only meant to
prevent khr6nos from having its course, but also 'to prevent the great and
wondrous deeds, accomplished in part by Greeks and in part by barbarians, from
losing k/eos' (JlTJTe egya Jlf:YUAa Te Kal iJCOJlaOTU, TU JlEV "E/c/c110L, TU b
~ag~6.gowt u:rr:obexiJeVTa, UKAed yev11Tat). The often mentioned problem as to
the relation between the two gorgianically arranged purpose clauses- aren't they
saying the same thing twice? - can be resolved through the semantic and notional
relation between khr6nos and kteos, the destruction of life and human
13
14
15

E.g., Pind. Ol. 10.55; Theogn. 967; Solon 4.16; 36.3W; Soph. OT 614; Soph.fr. 301, 918.
E.g., Pind. 01. 6.97 (xg6voc; ... ecpeg:n:rov); 01. 10.7 (e:n:roA.{)ffiv 6 fJ.EA.A.rov xg6voc;); 10.55
(lwv :n:6garo); Py. 1.57 (rov :n:goaeg:n:ov-ra XQ6vov); Nem. 4.43 (xg6voc; g:n:rov).
Fr1inkell960: 10-12.

Egbert J. Bakker

Khr6nos, Kleos, and Ideology

achievement against glory, words traveling through time: for commemoration to

be successful, these two concepts must be reconciled with one another in some
way or another.
It might seem obvious to assume that Herodotus' mentioning of kleos is
meant to evoke epic. It is true that Ideas is a core element in the ideology of epic,
as we will see later, and as such important to Herodotus; but the concept is
certainly not confined to it. There is in fact a text to which Herodotus' Proem with
its juxtaposition of khr6nos and Ideas has a closer direct relation than to any epic
passage,I6 In the context of his praise for the Spartan warriors and their king
Leonidas, who fell keeping at bay the Persian invasion army that vastly outnumbered them, Diodorus Siculus cites a passage from the encomion that Simonides
composed, some decades before Herodotus, to commemorate the Spartans' last
stand: 17

two concepts are complementary: where kleos has been won the working of
khr6nos has been undone.l9
The effects of khr6nos in Simonides' encomion are captured, through the verb
amaur6o, with the adjective amaur6s 'faint', 'obscure'. Either word is frequently
used for the effects of time, 20 but this semantic connection gains significance in
the use of amaur6s as epithet for the dead, the 'idols' that live without substance
in Hades. 21 Time is death, and through the coordination with eurds its effects can
be visualized in the decay produced in stagnant water. With this image is
contrasted the idea of the ever replenished stream (aevaov) of the kleos that is
Leonidas' sort. Leonidas' leaving behind kteos is exactly what is reported of the
Spartan king in the actual narrative of the battle of Thermopylae in Herodotus:
Leonidas wanted to die heroically so as to 'leave behind a great kleos' (KA.eo<;
~-teya eA.Ebtc-ro, 7.220.2). The wording is sufficiently similar to suppose that
Herodotus had Simonides' encamian in mind when composing the Thermopylae
episode. 22

16

-rrov ev 0Q!!OltVAau; fiav6v-rcov

UKAi)c; ~-tEV 6. -ruxa, KaMc; o' 6 :rc6-r~-toc;,
~CO~-toc; o' 6 -ru<poc;, ltQO y6cov M ~-tVi:ionc;, 6 o' olnoc; EJtaLvoc;
ev-ra<pLOV M 'tOLOU'tOV oil-r' VQW
oil{)' 6 JtaVOUb!U'tCOQ Ub!UVQcOOEL X QOVO
UVOQWV ayafirov 00 OT]KOc; oLKthav UOo~[av
'EA.A.aboc; e'CA.e-ro ~-tag-rug eT M Kat Aecov[oac;,
LltUQ't<lc; ~amA.euc;, ape-ri:ic utyav AEAOlltOO
KOOUOV aeva6v 't KAEO, (Simonid. fr. 531 PMG)
Of those who died in Thermopylae,
Famous their fate, splendid their lot,
Their tomb an altar, remembrance before lament, compassion <for them>
their praise:
A shroud of such kind neither dank decay
Nor time that subdues all will ever render faint.
This sacred precinct has taken from noble men a reputation in service of
Hellas; and bears witness also Leonidas,
King of Sparta, who left behind a great ornament
of virtue and ever-flowing fame.

The links between Herodotus and Simonides, certainly not neglected these days, 18
are confirmed when we compare the Proem with this passage. Just as in
Herodotus' Proem khr6nas the destroyer is mentioned in a phrase that states the
intention to defy its working, to be followed by an evocation of kteas. Again the

16 Though gya ~-tYUAa ... aKA.ei:i may be drawing on Il. 22.304-5 (aKA.aroc; ... ~-teya ge~ac;);
see Bakker 2002a: 27.
17 Diodorus Siculus 11.11.6. On Herodotus' Proem and this encomion, see also Bakker 2002b.
18 See Boedeker and Sider, eds. 2001 on Simonides' commemorative elegy on the Battle of
Plataea. See also further below.

17

Striving for Immortality

The insistence on time's destructive force in the culture is thus mirrored in an
equally strong preoccupation with glory and fame. Since glory is typically thought
of as extending in time, its achievement naturally will have to be seen in terms of
khr6nas as destroyer and creator.
Leonidas' wanting to 'leave behind a great Ideas' may seem Homeric, and
Herodotus' narrative may intend to present the Spartan king as a new Achilles;23
but whereas for Achilles his hometown, Phthia, would represent the very opposite
of kleas in case he returned there(//. 9.414-15), for Leonidas Ideas and fatherland
are most intimately connected. The desire to leave behind kleas goes hand in hand
with the desire to prevent Sparta's 'prosperity' from being '~iped out' (Kat iJ
I:rc6:QTT]<; EUDat~-tOVLT] ouK t~T]AELcpE-ro, Hdt. 7.220.2). Kleas outside epic is often
much less solipsistic and individualistic than Achilles', and linked, factually and
19 Similar is the juxtaposition of the two concepts in an inscribed epigram (SEG 31: 702) found
in Olbia (Black Sea), although the text is far from certain. (I owe this reference to Paola
Ceccarelli.)
20 E.g., Aesch. Ag. 463-66 (XQ6vcp ... 'tLfieTo' <l~-taug6v); Soph. fr. 954 (XQ6voc; o' <l~-taugoT
:rcuv-ra Kdc; A~fiT]V ayeL); Aristoph. fr. 650d; Hippocr. De alim. 5; Aristot. Ep. 2; Callim.
Iambi fr. 202.67; Heliod. Aeth. 5.5.2.
21 Od. 4.824, 835 (e'locoA.ov <l~-taug6v); Sappho 55.4V (a~-taugcov veKvcov).
22 See Flower 1998, who does not, however, mention the parallels with the Proem. Notice that
kleos in Herodotus is used, apart from the Proem, exclusively in the accounts of the Battles of
Thermopylae (7.220.2; 7.220.4) and Plataea (9.48.3; 9.78.2). Leonidas' intention falls under
the general heading of ~-tVT]~-t6ouva ALJteo{)m in Herodotus, which has close connections with
the idea of &:rcoot~aafim ~-ty6.A.a gya and hence with a:rc60~Lc; itself. See further Bakker
2002a: 23-28.
23 At 7.225 the fight over Leonidas' body, with the Greeks pushing back the enemy four times,
is distinctly Homeric.

Egbert J. Bakker

Khr6nos, Kleos, and Ideology

conceptually, with survival. Solon's Athenian Tellos, singled out as the 'happiest'
of all people, is perhaps the best example. Not only did he die most gloriously for
his fatherland; he also contributed to the biological prosperity of his p6lis: there
were children and children's children, all in good health (Hdt. 1.30.4-5). The
connection between kleos and posterity is in fact a widespread and traditional idea
in Greek culture.24 Consider from archaic Sparta the praise of Tyrtaeus for the
generic fallen Spartan warrior:

The idea of collective immortality by which a population's dead or disappearing

members are replaced by new ones is common. The principle explains, as
Herodotus informs us (7.83.1), why Xerxes' elite troops are called 'The
Immortals' and in the same way herds can be 'immortal' by law through the
responsible shepherd's pledge to replace any dead or missing animal with a new
one. 26
The crucial element in the temporality of this type of immortality is expressed
in the adverb aei which we also find in the extract from the Laws ('ra'lrrov Kat v
ov a(). The adverb typically denotes what happens over and over again, what is
renewed across single cases, whose individually transient occurrence is essential
for the perpetuation of the process that they constitute: the concrete incidence
becomes, in the certainty of its re-occurrence, a token that typifies the process as a
whole. Thus in political terminology aei is the normal temporal modifier in
formulas for magistrates in office or for the council in function (e.g., -roue;
a-rga-rTJYouc; -roue; aiet a-rga'Tll'YOUVTac; or -ri]v ~ouA.T]v -ri]v aiei ~ouA.euouaav),
meaning not that these people have unlimited terms in office or that the bouli is
convening eternally without interruption, but that these institutions are eternal in
the succession of the magistrates holding it. 27

18

-rov o' 6A.ocpugovrm f.!EV Of.tii'>c; VEOl ita ytgovr~:c;

agyaA.(\) 0 :rr:M(Jl :rr:daa KEKT)O :rr:6A.Lc;,
Kai 't'Ufl~Oc; Kai :rr:aio~:c; ev avftQO)JtOl(; ag(OT)f.!Ol
Kai :rr:a(orov :rr:aio~:c; KUL yvoc eE.o:rr:(aro
ovot JtO'( KA.oc taf}A.Ov ci:rr:6A.A.u-rm ouo' OVOf.t' au-rou,
aA.A.' u:rr:o yfjc; :rr:~:g erov y(v~:-rm athiva-roc;. (Tyrt.fr. 12.27-32W)
and him they are lamenting, young and old alike,
and in painful longing the whole p6lis is concerned,
and his tomb as well as his children are conspicuous among the people,
his children's children too, and his whole race behind.
Nor does his valiant kleos ever perish, nor his name,
No, even being under the earth he becomes deathless.

The hero's progeny gains prominence in the community through its ancestor's
kleos as it is visible in his tomb, but in its turn it is responsible for the propagation
and endurance of the ancestor's kleos. 25 This warrior's genos has not become
exitelon, so that he himself can become immortal. The vital combination between
kleos, procreation, and immortality is expressed with particular clarity in a
number of passages in Plato. In the Laws the Athenian Stranger remarks in the
context of marriage legislation that both the desire to distinguish oneself for
posterity and the urge to create offspring is what makes the human race partake of
immortality. He then goes on:
yvoc; oliv avftgro:rr:rov ea-r(v -rL avf.tcpvc; -rou :rr:avroc; :xo6vou, 5 oLa
-rA.ouc; aiJTCf> 01JVEJtlUL KUL auv'lj!~:-raL, 't'OU't'(Jl -rCf> TQOJt(Jl a1)6.va-rov OV,
<'!> :rr:aioac; :rr:a(orov KaTaA.wtOf.lVOV, -rau-rov Kai ev ov a~:(, YVEOl Tfjc;
uf}avaa(ac; f.tE't'nA. T)q>EVUL. (Plat. Leg. 721 C3-7)
The race of humans is thus in a way organically connected with the
totality of khr6nos, by which it is accompanied and will be accompanied
through its accomplishment, being in this way immortal, in that it leaves
behind children of its children, being one and the same each time anew,
and it is in procreation that the human race takes part of immortality.

24 Cf. Golfin 2000: 116.

25 We may compare the practice to call a son after his father's crucial characteristic, e.g., Telemachos, Astyanax (ll. 6.403; 22.506-7), or that of a son bearing his father's name; cf.
Svenbro 1988: 74 ff.; Strauss 1993: 25-27.

19

Aei is etymologically connected with the noun ai8n. This term is commonly
glossed as 'lifetime', and becomes the norn1al word for 'age', 'epoch', or
'eternity' in Christian writers. 28 But Emile Benveniste has demonstrated that the
word's Indo-European connections (which include Latin iuvenis 'adolescent')
point to an original sense 'youthful vitality', 'vital life force', which is in fact
borne out in the Homeric attested contexts (on which see below). 29 Youth, as we
saw in the elegists, is ephemeral and transitory, but only on the level of individuals at any given moment; for the community as a whole, iuventus is a matter
of aei: 30 Men fall as leaves, but there will be a next spring and new leaves. Mortal
nature, as Diotima explains to Socrates (Plat. Symp. 207D1~3), strives to be
immortal, but can attain this ideal only by way of procreation, in leaving each
time something newborn in exchange for what is old (o-rl ael. Ka-raA.ebtet E'TeQOV
vov av-rl. -rou n:aA.awu). So each individual case or life (aiBn) that is subject to
decay, becomes part of a sequence that is immortal in being alive each time anew,
over and over again.

26 See Vidal-Naquet 1981: 263 with further literature and ancient parallels.
27 Cf. Aristot. Ath. Pol. 30.2; see also Hdt. 1.105.4 ('roim '(OUTCOV aid eKy6votm); 2.98.1 (-rou
aid ~amA.~:uovroc;); 2.168.2 (-roiaL ai~:i oogucpogoum).
28 See Degani 1961; Keizer 1999.
29 Benveniste 1937; cf. Degani 1961: 17-18. Benveniste's argument is based on the demonstration that Skr. ayu (yielding such forms as aevus, aeternus, a~:(, airov) and yuvan (Lat.
iuvenis) go back to a common source.
30 Cf. already Benveniste 1937: 111.

20

(Im)mortality and Temporality

What is now worth exploring is the role of khr6nos in this form of immortality.
The Laws' Athenian stranger, as we saw, speaks of a human race that in its continuous renewal is in 'synchrony with the totality of khr6nos' (auj.t<putc; -rou
nav-roc; xg6vou).3' On the basis of the earlier discussion of khr6nos as destroyer
and creator we can say that the process of renewal as a temporal flow combines
the two complementary characteristics: what khr6nos takes from individual life it
gives back to the life of the collectivity.
The role ascribed to khr6nos in philosophical contexts is revealing in this
respect. 32 The general conception in the Presocratics of a cosmos that undergoes
continuous decay and regeneration through birth out of and decay back into prime
matter, be it water, air, fire, or the apeiron ('the unbounded') seems to be consistently related to the concept of a khr6nos that regulates it all. Thus Anaximander presents the process of decay by which beings perish back into what they
came from as taking place 'according to the ordinance of time' (Ka-ru -ri]v -rou
xg6vou -ra~tv, fr. Bl D-K);33 Anaximenes, Heraclitus, and others, according to
Simplicius, held that the cosmos 'is not always the same, but is different at
different moments according to certain cycles of time' (Ka-ra 'ttvac; XQOVCOV
JtQt66ouc;);34 perhaps strongest, finally, is the saying attributed to Pythagoras,
according to which khr6nos is the soul of the universe, an active and constitutive
principle that is responsible for the universe's movement as an animate being. 35
These conceptions are in agreement with the mythical understanding of
khr6nos as a god who existed from the very beginning,36 a 'sovereign ruler
superseding all the blessed ones' (Pind.fr. 33 S-M), and a primordial principle in
Orphic cosmogonies.37 The Olympian gods, even though they are athcinatoi, and
more specifically aphthitoi, unaffected by khr6nos in their unchanging perennial
nature, are not beyond time as is divinity in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Unlike
God or Jahwe, the Olympians have not created time; 38 it was there before them,
and according to the common allegorizing equation of Kronos with khr6nos presumably deriving from the mythical notion of the separation of heaven and

31
32
33
34
35
36
37

Khr6nos, Kleos, and Ideology

Egbert J. Bakker

On the notion of(<;) :n:6:v-ra xg6vov in Herodotus, see Golfin 2000: 129-32.
See in general Sorabji 1983.
See also Kahn 1985: 170-72.
Anaximenesfr. All D-K (Simpl. Phys. 1121.12); cf. Sorabji 1983: 182.
Plut. Plat. Quest. 1007B6-10.
Pherecydes,fr. B1 D-K; see West 1971: 28 ff. for the oriental background and antecedents.
See Brisson 1985; of special interest for the present discussion are the epithets uy~gao<; and
u<p'OlTof.!l]Tl<; (OF 66).
38 Cf. Aug. Conf 11.13, where the question as to what God did during the innumerable ages
'before' he created the world, leads to glaring paradox. For how could all those ages pass by
when they had not even been made by the Creator of all times and ages?

21

earth, with time residing in the motion of the celestial bodies- they are even born
out of khr6nos, just as everything else. 39

Kleos in Khr6nos
Still, the immortals are deathless in a way that is fundamentally different from the
'immortality' of Xerxes' elite troops or that of the human race in general. Procreation or substitution are not necessary to ensure the survival of the Olympian
community, and this may lead us back to Herodotus' Proem and Simonides'
encomion.
Great deeds and offspring, Ideas and genesis, are intimately connected. Either
one can be seen in terms of the other. A son is one's Ideas and accomplishments
are one's children. Epaminondas mentioned the Battles of Leuctra and Mantinea
as his daughters, meaning that his line of descent was secure in spite of the
absence of biological offspring.4o Solon gave birth to the laws of Athens, Homer
to the Iliad, 41 and there is np reason not to see the -ru yeVOjleVa ~ uvfrgdmcov of
Herodotus' Proem in this same light.
But if this is so, then it is worth exploring whether the defiance of khr6nos
that is expressed in the Proem is not modeled on khr6nos' movement itself as it
ensures survival in continuous renewal. This would suit the idea of human
achievement as due, as we saw in Plato, to the desire to participate in the divine.
Indeed, the desire to record achievement, itself an achievement, is due to that
same desire. The offspring of the father of history preserves the offspring of
Greeks and barbarians for posterity.42 Both exist in and through time. In this light
we can see that Simonides' encomion presents a conception of Ideas that is
'temporal' in the Greek conception of khr6nos as a flow of continuous renewal.
The epithet aenaos typically applies to sources and rivers, whose nature lies
precisely in such a flow, and it can be meaningfully applied to fchr6nos himself:43
a.KUf.!U<; -re xg6vo<; :n:egl -r' ueVUCJl
QeUf.!ULt :zt/I.~Ql]<; <pon(i -r[Knov
aim'><; au-r6v. (Critiasfr. Bl8, 1-3 DK)

39

40
41
42
43

E.g., Aristot. De Mundo 401a15; Plut. De Is. et Os. 363D, Aet. Rom. et Gr. 266E; Schol. Hes.
Th. 459; Long. D & Chi. 2.5.2; see also Critias fr. 19.33-34 for the idea of heaven as the
creation of time (Xg6vou KaMv :n:olKlAf.!U -reK-rovo<; oo<pou).
Diod. Sic. 15.87.6. I was directed to this anecdote by Paola Ceccarelli.
Cf. Plat. Symp. 209B-E; at Symp. 177D5 we find the notion of 'father' of a logos. On
symbolic aspects of 'father' in Greek (Athenian) culture, see Strauss 1993: 24-28.
On this 'recursive' nature of Herodotus' work as presented in the Proem (on the basis of
U:n:6be~l<; and f.!ey6:/l.a gya ... U:n:obex'Oev-ra), see Bakker 2002a.
Note that the only other combination of uevaov with Kf...eo<; occurs in the master of flux and
change, Heraclitus (jr. B29 D-K); but see Pind. Nem. 7.61-63 for more connection between
Kf...eo<; and streams of water.

22

Egbert J. Bakker
untiring time in its ever-flowing
stream goes laden, self-engendering
itself.

This kteos is a man-made form of eternity, modeled on the renewal of nature.

According to the ordinance of time, Leonidas' achievement is always a future
achievement (remember the ou1f ... U!1U1JQcOGl in Simonides' encomion), JUS~ as
a population without means to propagate itself is already dead, defenseless agm?st
time's destructive side and unable to profit from its regenerative power. The VItal
mechanism of survival is the poem's commemorative force (perhaps its perfonnance as part of a periodical rite or festival),4 4 which assumes a role parallel to that
of khr6nos itself on the cosmic scale and so assures kteos' life.
In the case of Herodotus' Histories there is a further consideration that
explains the consistent preoccupation with khr6nos. The Proem opens up the
possibility that great deeds may miss or lose their kleos. Herodotus' historie is
necessary for preventing human achievements from becoming akleii. Fame and
glory are not assured in Herodotus and this is part of a general conception of the
frailty of humans and their works. In what reads like an application to his~ory of
Presocratic cosmic flux Herodotus reflects on the instability of human affairs as a
principle that will inform his Histories throughout:
-ra yag -ro :rr:aA.m J.!eraA.a ~v. -ra :rr:oA.M auT&v OJ.!LKQa yyove, Tu M
e:rr:' eJ.!Eii ~V J.!!OYUAa, JCQOT!>QOV ~V OJ.!LKQU. -r~v avf}gro:rr:Tjtl]V i&v
e:rr:LO"tUJ.!IOVOc; IOUOULJ.!Ovll]V OUOaJ.!U ev TcOUT<'\> J.!EVOUOaV e:rr:LJ.!vl'jOO~lUl
UJ.!q>OTEQWV OJ.!o(roc;. (Hdt. Hist. 1.5.4)
For what was big in former days, most of that has now become small; and
what has greatness at the moment I wrote, all that was formerly small. So
in the full knowledge that human prosperity will never remain in the same
state, I shall make mention of both equally.

This is a statement on the nature of khr6nos as it gives and takes, maintaining a

dynamic continuity in continuous decline and continuous renewal. Human ci:ies,
kingdoms, and empires have taken the place of human individuals in the ce~amty
of their eventual downfall. Many characters in the tale present the same wisdom
to their interlocutors. Here is what Solon says to Croesus:

Khr6nos, Kleos, and Ideology

23

et o' eyvcOJ<ac; on /ivf}gro:rr:oc; Kat ou de; Kal i::TEQWV TOLOOVOIO UQXElt;,

eKelVO :rr:gohov ,.ui{} roe; KUKAoc; TOOV avf}gro:rr:Tjl(J)V eOTL JCQT]YJ.Uhrov,
JCEQl<p!OQOJ.!IOVOc; Of OUK eQ. Tour; auTouc; IOUTUXEELV. (Hdt. 1.207.2)
If you realize that you too are a man, and that you rule over others like
yourself, learn first of all this, that there is a cycle of human affairs; as it
goes round, it does not allow the same people to be lucky each time.

The great and marvelous deeds of the Greeks and the barbarians, then, are subject
to the flow of time in a double sense. They will be kept from becoming exitela
and from losing kteos, but they will be presented precisely as subject to time in
the very flow of their enactment. Herodotus places the players in his historical
process 'in time', subject to the uncertainties and vicissitudes ofhuman existence.
He presents us history as a continuous process of 'becoming big' or 'losing
greatness'. What happens in the Histories may have been saved from khr6nos, but
it is an elaborate and determined representation of khr6nos in action, the cause of
fluidity and change. Human arrogance and ignorance, the mistaken belief of
Croesus, Darius, Xerxes, and so many others, that present greatness is guaranteed
for the future, or that the future will bring greatness: all that has been recorded
with merciless precision by Herodotus, who shows what time had in store for
these characters.
The instability of human affairs as due to time is thus an important element in
Herodotus' philosophy of history,45 and the conception of eternity underlying his
work's commemorative intent is one that crucially involves khr6nos as the
principle of procreation and renewal. But the work as such, the ap6dexis histories,
aspires to the durability of a monument that resists time. In fact, the Proem has
features of the inscription on a real monument. 46 The deictic pronoun hide 'this
here' with which he modifies the noun that designates his work (ap6dexis hide) is
very similar to the t6de mn~ma 'this memorial here' or t6de s~ma 't~js tomb here'
of inscriptions on real monuments. The 'this ... here' is a deictic reference from
the point of view of the passerby, who is standing before the monument and reads
its inscription. Still, for all its pretensions of durability, in which it is a true
precursor of Thucydides' KL'fl!la ~ ad, Herodotus' work is not, and does not
pretend to be, unchanging and unaffected by khr6nos the way in which things
divine are aphthitos; for this idea, we have to turn to Homeric epic.

ev yap -r& !.!aKpOO :rr:oA.A.u J.!EV eon toetv TU J.!Tt Tlc; e{}A.n, :rr:oA.A.u Of Kat
:rr:a{}etv. (Hdt. Hist. 1.32.2)
In the long time there is much to see that one does not want to see, and
much also to suffer.

Croesus had his suffering, of course, and so is able to propagate the same wisdom
once despised when he has become Cyrus' adviser:

44 Note the encomion's deictic ooe OT]KOc; (1. 6), anchoring the song in a space.

45 The insistence on instability puts into relief the conception of Egypt in Herodotus as a
country free of change, with time-honored, ancestral customs; see Golfin 2000: 122-28.
46 See Bakker 2002a: 30-31, Moles 1999 (with extensive discussion also ofThucydides 1.2122 in this connection), and Svenbro 1988: 166-67, focussing on the author's referring to
himself in the third person as a 'monumental' way of saying. For possible inscriptional
evidence of an inscriptional reception of Herodotus' Proem, see IG IIIIII2 1 1062 4-6 '(va oe
-r6]-l oe TO tj>ftq>LOJ.!a J.!il e~([TTJAOV OLU XQOVOU :rr:A.fj{}oc; YEVTJ"t"Ul] (2"d cent., Attica).

Khr6nos, Kleos, and Ideology

Egbert J. Bakker

24

<mortals>, who, resembling leaves, at one moment

in brilliance grow to fullness eating the fruit of the land,
and then they start wilting deprived of their heart's life. 5 1

Epic without Time

There is no problem in saying that epic is unaware of Ionian speculation on the
role of khr6nos in shaping the cosmos; nor are Orphic cosmogonies of much
interest to epic and its poets. But does this mean that epic, 'Homeric man', is
incapable of thinking about khr6nos as destroyer or creator? Is Frankel right after
all in assuming a genetic, developmental difference between Homer and the subsequent poetic tradition? Would Homeric epic be too 'primitive' to conceive of
time as the later poetic tradition does? In short, why does Homeric epic not speak
about time more than it does?
Let us first note that epic is just as capable as elegy to view human life as a
brief time span. But the terms are different: instead of bios or biotos we find aiifn
(in the primordial sense of 'life force' introduced above), and instead of
Herodotus' exitelos we find the symbolically charged verbal rootphthi-. Odysseus
and Penelope, for example, 'waste' (verbal rootphthi-) their aiifn longing for each
other,47 and the concept of aiifn has a vital connection withpsukhi 'life breath':
the two are frequently mentioned together at moments when a warrior meets the
end of his life.4B An even more concrete and physical sense is conveyed by
Achilles' words about Patroclos' body: 'the force in him has been killed' (K b'
al.rov ncpaTaL, Il. 19.27), so that flies may engender worms in the corpse's
wounds that make all his flesh rot away. With such a graphic understanding of a
life's end it is not difficult to see how aiifn can come to denote anatomically a
body's most vital substance: bone marrow. 49 But whether aiifn is used in such a
strict anatomical sense, or is meant to denote youth and good looks or a person's
vital force, it comes to an end through a process for which the verbal root phthi- is
the appropriate term, denoting the decline or end of biological life, whether by
natural causes or on the battlefield. so
The original vegetal sense ofphthi- is clear in the following extract, where we
see the image of the leaves which we have already met:
o't <put..A.motv eotK6-rec; iiA.A.o-re J.!EV -re
-re/..f}ouotv, UQOUQT]c; KUQJtOV ebov-rer;,
iJ./../..OT De <pf>tvUf>OUOlV UKTjQlOl. (11. 21.464-66)

~a<pA.eyec;

Od. 5.160-161 J.!TJDE Tot airov I <pf>tv-rro; 18.204 airova <pf>twf>ro, Jt6owr; Jtot>ouoa
<p(/..ow.
48 E.g., Il. 16.453; Od. 9.523. Benveniste 1937: 108, following an earlier suggestion of Kurt
Witte, notes that at 1/. 22.58 (J.!T]DE ... <pt/..T]r; airovor; UJ.lEQf>tir;) the gender is due to the
association with 'ljluxi].
49 H. Hymn to Hennes 42, 119 (Hermes taking the life out of the tortoise), Pind. fr. 111.5 S-M
(airov be bt' OOTECilV egga(of>T]); Hippocr. Epid. 7.122 (6 TOV airova <pf>tvi]oar; eBbOJ.lUTor;
ant>avev). All these cases in LSJ (s.v., B.); Benveniste 1937: 109; and Degani 1961: 22.
50 E.g., 11. 6.327, 407; 8.359; 9.246, etc. Cf. the adjective <pf>toi]vroga as epithet of Jt6A.EJ.!OV
(e.g., 11. 2.833; 9.604).

47

25

Vegetal imagery is what is central in the short life of young Simoeisios, cut down
by Ajax's lance:
ev(}' Bat..' 'Av(}eu(rovoc; ulov Te/..aJ.lrovwc; A'Cac;,
t>aA.eoov LtJ.!odowv, i:Sv Jto-re J.liJTTJQ
"lbT]f>Ev KUTlOUOU Jtag' oxt>nmv LlJ.lOEVTOc;
ydva-r', eJtd (!a TOKE'Dotv ii!l' eoJteTo J.lfi/..a lbEof}m
TOUVEKU J.llV Ka/..eov LlJ.lOElOlOV' oube TOKEUOl
f>gJt-rga <p(A.otc; aJtbroKe, f.!twv(}abwc; b ol airov
eJt/..ef}' UJt' A'lav-roc; J.!EYUMJ.!OU bougl DUJ.lEVTl. (11. 4.473-79)
~tt>eov

There he hit Anthemion's son, Telamonian Ajax,

the flowering lad Simoeisios, to whom his mother once,
coming down from Ida, on Simoeis' banks
gave birth, when she came with her parents to see the sheep:
that is why they called him Simoeisios; but never to his dear parents
did he give his nourishing back: diminutive his aiifn was, as he was
subdued by the spear of great-hearted Ajax.

Simoeisios, the 'blossoming' (thaler6n, 1. 474) son of 'Flowerman' (Anthemion, 1.

473) falls like a tall poplar tree in the marshes (482). His death disrupts
intergenerational continuation, since his parents will now be without threptra, the
exchange for trophi 'nourishment' given to a child.52 We might want to translate
the phrase !lLVUV'frabtoc; M ol al.rov with 'short was his life-time', but aiifn
properly means 'life force', as we have already seen. And the adjective
minunthadios is derived from the adverb minuntha, in its turn connected with the
verb minuthi5 'to decrease, cause something to diminish'. The idea minu(n)th- in
epic is often used for what is due to the will of Zeus, and in medical contexts can
denote physical decay, such as the weakening of bone structure.53 Both apply to
the Iliadic battle: Simoeisios' life-force succumbs, leaving his parents unprotected. Life's continuity has stopped, and Anthemion's line of descent, we may
assume, has become exitelon.
So has Peleus'. The death of his son Achilles, however, has symbolic implications that are of far more ideological importance for the Iliad and for epic than
the genealogical or biological discontinuation of life. Achilles is the quintessential
minunthadios,54 yet no mention is made of threptra to his parents. 55 The fragility

See also Nagy 1979: 178-79; for the leaves, see also /1. 6.145-4.9 (with the genealogical term
ye veT]).
52 See Felson 2002.
53 Will of Zeus: 11. 11.317-18; 15.492; 15.612; Hes. W & D 6; bone structure: Hippocr. De Art.
51

53, 60.
54

11. 1.352, 416.

Egbert J. Bakker

Khr6nos, Kleos, and Ideology

of Achilles' physical existence has an entirely different orientation. No one

expresses this better than Achilles himself as he reflects on the heroic constraints
that have been imposed on his mortal life:

which can thus present itself as a permanent, unchanging cultural institution. In

singing of kleos, epic becomes the very future envisaged by heroes when they talk
about their kleos.60 In other words, epos becomes itself kteos, 61 assuring with its
own cultural permanence the unchanging kleos of its heroes, and gaining itself
kleos in the process.
So when a Homeric hero proclaims that his kleos or that of the story he is in
will be aphthiton or that it 'will never perish' (e.g., 11. 2.325; 7.91; 9.413), he is
not merely talking about the future. The very fact that he can utter these words is
due to the epic performance of the present. Epic events happen not only 'now' but
also in the future. Epic in its very functioning thus collapses the distinction
between present and future, the very space in which khr6nos is active in destroying and (re)generating. That space is precisely the place where Simonides and
Herodotus, in commemorating the heroic exploits of the recent past, have to locate
kteos. They can only talk about Ideas in the future, just like Homeric heroes, but
without the protective, khr6nos-proof shield provided by epic. Beside Simonides'
ou'!J' ... UJ.lUUQcOOel XQOVO<; and Herodotus' cO<; J.lTJTe ... E~LTT)AU 'YEVT)TUL there is
now the mentioning of kleos in Simonides' Plataea elegy:

26

et f.lEV K' aul'}l f.lEVCOV Tgrocov JtOAlV Uf.l(jllf.lUXCOf.lUl,

WACTO f.lEV f.lOl v6o-roc;, a-rag KAEOC /i<pi}l't'OV eo-rm
et M KEV o'LKao' 'CKCOf.ll <ptAl]V tc; xa-rg(oa yai:av,
WAE't'O f.lOl KAEOC ol}A6v, EJtl onpov M !Wl airov
eooe-rm, ouM KE f.l' ihKa -celcoc; i}ava-cow KlXcll]. (Horn. 11. 9.412-16)
If staying here I deliver battle around the city of the Trojans,
my homecoming is lost, but there will be undying fame;
ifl reach home, coming to the dear country of my fathers,
my valiant fame is lost, but for a long time an aiifn
there will be for me, nor will the end of death reach me swiftly.

Participating in the biological prosperity of his community, which in the elegiac

context is a source of kleos and immortality as we saw, is for Achilles .similar to
death. On the other hand, dying a premature death that is of no use to the defense
or the prosperity of his fatherland is a matter, not of mere kteos, but of k1eos
aphthiton.
The verbal idea phthi- may be compatible with the adjective exite1os in
denoting the negative side of the biological cycle, but under negation these two
ideas are fundamentally different. While 'not- exite1os' would mean the continuation of the cycle through regeneration and renewal after death, a-phti- is the
cycle's discontinuation, its being stalled in uninterrupted permanence. As also
demonstrated by Gregory Nagy, aphthi- denotes the negation of the 'natural cycle
of flourishing and wilting'.56 The scepter of Agamemnon, Nagy's first example, is
now aphthiton (!!. 2.46, 186), due to the craft of Hephaestos, as it symbolizes the
permanent institution of kingship, but once it was part of the biological cycle;
Achilles, in swearing his oath, says that 'it will never grow leaves nor shoots
' anymore' (11. 1.234-35).57 This piece of live wood has died to become physically
immortal, part of the divine Olympian order as it is represented in the royal line of
the house of the Atrides. It was once subject to khr6nos the creator and destroyer,
but in its state of being aphthiton it has become as timeless as the Olympian
gods. 58
In the same way, Achilles' kteos aphthiton is the instatement of cultural permanence out of nature's fragility.59 The hero's aiifn came to an end, but that end
was the beginning of his immortality, a 'transsubstantiation' into the body of epic
55

But Achilles does care about his old father: 11. 16.14-16; 24.511; Od. 11.498-503. See
Felson 2002: 43-45.
56 See Nagy 1979: 178-89; citation: 180.
57 The scepter is presumably the same one; cf. Il. 2.185-87; 1.237-39; Nagy 1979: 179.
58 On the scepter as symbol, see also Bakker 1999: 59.
59 For KAeoc; a<pi}L-cov, see beside Il. 9.413: Hes. fr. 70 M-W; Sappho 44.4 L-P; Ibycus SLG
151.47-48; Theogn. 245. The Indo-European connections of the phrase are explored in Nagy
1979; 1990; Watkins 1995: 173-178.

27

ouo' UQE]l;ijc; Ml}[ov-co

]v OUQUVOhl[~K]lJc;
Kat KAeoc; a]yi}gci:>J]:C9\' [eOOE't]<;t\ aMva-co<v> (Simonid.fr. 11.27-28W)
Nor did they forget virtue, [and a reputation held <them that>] reached to
the sky,
and their kleos among humans will be immortal.

So whereas epic is k1eos by its very presence, Simonides' elegy can only present
kteos as a commemorative goal. And whereas Simonides' elegy is concerned with
the future, epic is the future. Its enactment in the present cancels out khr6nos as a
factor in the survival of heroic kteos, whereas in Simonides' and Herodotus'
perspective khr6nos is what kleos has to come to terms with. The very fact that for
Herodotus great and heroic acts may lose their kteos bears this out: in epic it is
only not acting (11. 7.100), or not acting well (/1. 22.304-5), not problems in the
transmission due to khr6nos, that precludes the creation of kteos. The difference
between epic kleos and contemporary kleos is brought out by the fact that it is
Achilles who is addressed in the Plataea elegy's hymnic preamble: the epic hero
occupies the slot of the Olympian deity as the recipient of the hymn that precedes
the narrative proper. He is here, in the future.
We can now return to Frankel's interpretation of the concept of time in
Homer and of the occurrences of the word khr6nos in epic. We do not find any
elaborate representations of khr6nos, but this is less due to any 'undeveloped'
sense in Homer of what is for us 'time' than to the irrelevance for epic kleos of
khr6nos in its typical Greek understanding. To say, as Simonides and other
commemorators of the recent past have to, that khr6nos will be overcome, is

60 See Bakker 1997.

61 For this idea, see also Nagy 1979: 15-18, who cites Il. 2.486 and 11.227.

28

Egbert J. Bakker

inappropriate for epic, but to say that khr6nos has in fact been overcome is
unnecessary and superfluous. The enactment of kleos in the present does not leave
any role for khr6nos in the future.
The antithetical relation between khr6nos and kleos sheds light on the
instances of khr6nos that do occur in Homer. These denote Frankel's 'empty time'
only when we view khr6nos in our perspective of temporality. But in connection
with kleos, the time in which 'nothing happens' becomes precisely khr6nos as
factor that is averse to kleos, the dimension in which people just age and can do
nothing to make up for it. Telemachos is held up in Menelaos' palace, and the
resulting impossibility to act and win kleos becomes khr6nos (Od. 4.594, 599);
Proteus tells Menelaos not to weep politn khr6non for his brother, because that
would not solve anything (Od. 4.543); Odysseus urges the Achaeans to 'wait ep
khr6non' until they know whether Calchas' prophecy is true (Il. 2.299-300), and
in general the 'time' spent by the Achaeans before Troy without concerted efforts
to take the city is khr6nos (Jl. 2.343).
So whereas in Herodotus khr6nos is the essence of anything that 'comes to be
through man' which is saved from khr6nos only through the intervention of the
historian's ap6dexis, epic's khr6nos, ruled out as a factor in a tale's survival, is
allowed to appear only at moments in which heroic action or the progression of
the narrative is stalled, and so the possibility to build kleos temporarily blocked.
Epic has not discovered time in waiting; time has been reduced to waiting, till the
action resumes and with it the building of kleos in the future.

Khr6nos, K/eos, and Ideology

29

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