lish a chronology per se, and Grafton (1995) reacts strongly against traditional schol-
arship’s reverence for the supposedly modern and scientific nature of the work. But
Möller (2003) rightly qualifies Geus’s extreme skepticism, and Grafton’s justified reac-
tion against anachronistic interpretations still leaves plenty of room for Eratosthenes
to be demarcating and dividing for his own reasons, as we shall see in chapter 3.
Wilcox 1987, 87. One cannot put much weight on the language used by
Clement of Alexandria to report how Eratosthenes divided time from the fall of Troy
to the death of Alexander, since Clement need not be using Eratosthenes’ actual dic-
tion (Strom.1.138.1 – 3 = Eratosthenes FGrH241 F 1a). But, for what it is worth, when
Clement says that Eratosthenes “draws up the epochs in the following way” (tou;"
crovnou" w|de ajnagravfei), the verb he uses is a metaphor from mathematics or geog-
raphy, where it describes using lines as bases, or establishing visual demarcations (LSJ
II.3).
For Apollodorus’s choice of iambic verse, designed to aid memorization and to
make his learning more accessible to a larger audience, see Pfeiffer 1968, 255.
Jacoby 1902, 25, 29; cf. Jacoby, FGrH239, Komm., 667, on the same phenom-
enon in the Marmor Parium.
This is an idea that will cheer up half the readers of this book and depress the
other half.
Jacoby 1902, 57 – 58.
See Jacoby 1904 for the Marmor Parium, an anonymous work inscribed in
Paros sometime after 264/3 b.c.e., the year that provides the anchor for the interval
counting throughout (e.g., “so many years from the fall of Troy to the archon of
‘264/3’ ”). See Higbie 2003 for the (misleadingly named) “Lindian Chronicle,” an
inscription from 99 b.c.e.that catalogues offerings to the goddess Athena in Lindos,
from heroic times to the present; the “Chronicle” owes much to the chronographic tra-
dition.
On the importance of this initiative, see below, pp. 63 – 64.
Pais 1905, 176 – 78, on Cremera; 178 – 84, 221, in general; important discussions
since include Ogilvie 1965, 315, 359 – 60; Wiseman 1979, 23 – 24; esp. Griffiths 1998. For
interesting conjectures about the role of synchronism in constructing Roman tradition
about the expulsion of the Tarquins and the tyranny of Aristodemus in Cumae, see
Gallia forthcoming.
So Griffiths (1998), arguing that the Thermopylae parallels behind the Cocles
and Scaevola stories show the original author presenting “his compatriots as being in
some sense western counterparts of and successors to the Spartans.”
Wiseman 2000; contrast Wiseman 1979, 23 – 24.
Pliny HN34.17.
As would Purcell (2003, 24 – 26). I vote rather with the skeptical Griffiths
(1998). This is not to deny the deep impact of Greek culture at every level in early
notes to pages 19 – 21