The Ordinal Numbers in Hesiod’s Myth of the Races
The Ordinal Numbers in Hesiod’s Myth of the Races

Summary/Abstract: To understand the meaning and function of the ordinal numbers in the myth of the races it is essential to have a full grasp of how the myth is composed and its structure is supposed to be perceived by a listener or reader. There is a general silence among Hesiod scholars about the meaning and function of the ordinal numbers in the myth. A tacit agreement may be inferred from such a silence: the ordinal numbers are implicitly taken to merely express the chronological order of the races. In this article, I examine each and every one of the ordinal numbers that appear in Hesiod’s myth. I demonstrate that the ordinal numbers preserve their hierarchical dimension even in the cases in which this appears to be less convincing.

• Details
• Contents