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Abstract

In this work, we argue that Josephus Flavius’ exposition on legendary longevity in the “Jewish Antiquities” is likely evidence that Hesiod’s myth of fi ve generations of mortals was at least partially borrowed by many other Greek authors, and in particular, most probably by the historians Hecataeus, Hellanicus, Acusilaus, Ephorus, and Nicolaus of Damascus. The ubiquity of Hesiod’s myths throughout ancient Greek literature is perfectly natural, but for this particular myth it could only be conjectured up to this point. In the extant sources, apart from Hesiod, the generations myth appears only rarely, and in a substantially different form: in the works of Plato, Aratus and Ovid. We conclude that the aforementioned fi ve historians must have had this myth from Hesiod based on the testimony of Josephus Flavius and the extreme paucity of any instances of extraordinary lifespans in Greek lore. The latter virtually excludes the possibility of an alternative interpretation of Flavius’ words. According to Herodotus, Hesiod and Homer were the original sources of mythological information for the Greeks. However, the relative frequency of quoting Hesiod, as observed in the extant texts, is lower than it could be expected based on the comparison of the sizes of the two poets’ corpora and their density of information. Our proposed identifi cation of widespread borrowing of the fi ve generations myth serves as a reminder that extant texts may still contain unrecognized indications of references to Hesiod.

Keywords

Hesiod, Josephus Flavius, the fi ve generations myth, the golden age, the silver age, longevity myths, Hecataeus, Hellanicus, Acusilaus, unrecognized references.