was as if they fell asleep. They had every good thing, and the fruitful earth of its own
accord produced crops, full and in abundance’’ (Works111–18). Hesiod went on to
describe four more generations of mortals during the reign of Zeus – silver, bronze,
heroic, and iron, our own race, which will itself be destroyed when time presses so
hard upon us that even newborn babies will have gray hair. For successiveness,
timefulness, is itself a feature of the age of Zeus: Cronus’ single age without age or
succession(s), as unchanging as gold, is followed by an age of ages, of endless
successions. It is aging, susceptibility to the ravages of time, that separates mortals
from gods, rather than merely the ultimate finality of death. Nectar and ambrosia
keep the gods not merely immune from extinction, but incorruptible and full of
youthful vitality,he ̄be ̄.
It was at Olympia that the epochal myths were most resonant. The central enclos-
ure or Altis was dominated by a hill which belonged to Cronus, who received
sacrifices performed by the Basilae at the spring equinox. Pausanias (5.7.6–10) was
told by the most learned Eleans that Cronus had actually had a temple in the
sanctuary built for him by the golden race of men, and that the very first Olympic
contest was a wrestling match between Zeus and his father for the throne of heaven,
making Olympia the site at which the age of Zeus began. The topography could make
it seem as if Zeus had kicked his father up the hill, so to speak, and the spring equinox
is very early for a festival of Cronus, whose moons/festivals are normally closer to the
summer solstice, making it look as if Olympian Zeus had supplanted his father in the
calendar as well and pushed him back in time. The festival began, moreover, in Elis
with mourning for Achilles, Zeus’ deferred successor, the hero whose death guaran-
teed the continuation of the reign of Zeus. At the foot of Cronus’ hill was the famous
altar of Zeus, a giant mound of burnt offerings, cow-bones, and poplar ash. Every
year it grew a little higher as more blood and thigh-bones were added to the pile.
Moreover, once a year on a date carefully observed by the seers around the time of the
festival of Cronus, the ashes from the eternal flame in the hearth of the Prytaneion
were gathered and mixed with water from the Alpheius to form a muddy paste which
was then applied to the great altar (Pausanias 5.13.11), this annual application
‘‘making no small contribution to the size’’ (5.15.9). With its remorseless cyclical
accumulations, the altar was a kind of epochal clock, therefore, a vivid monument to
the passing of time, the duration of the age of Zeus.
Pausanias noted also an altar to Themis (5.14.10), ‘‘That which is established,’’
who helped to preserve the established order by forewarning Zeus of the threat of
supersession presented by Thetis’ son (Pindar,Isthmians8.31). In fact Hesiod says
she was Zeus’ second wife after Metis, and produced with him the Fates and Ho ̄rai,
the three Seasons or Times, named Justness (Dike ̄), Good Order (Eunomia), and
Peace (Eire ̄ne ̄)(Theogony901–2), who received cult in many cities. They seem to
represent not so much three individualized seasons presiding over three different
times of year, but the principle of seasonableness itself, cyclical (con)sequence, going
around and coming around: Timely Goddesses. The Times act as Keepers of
Heaven’s Gates (Iliad5.749, 8.393), a nice illustration of the way that time itself
separated mortals from immortals. This reflects a ‘‘cyclonic’’ model of time-space,
with divine Olympus at its still center and mortals at its wasting rim, a construction
allegorized in the different destinies of two Trojan princes, the eternally youthful
Ganymede serving immortality to the immortals on Olympus behind the gates
Ogden / Companion to Greek Religion 1405120541_4_013 Final Proof page 214 17.11.2006 10:11am214 James Davidson