El tiempo, la ciudad y la historia en la Grecia clásica

Abstract

It is simplistic to oppose a circular idea of time among the ancient Greeks to the linear time of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, linear time appears in combination with a history understood as oriented toward a predetermined, revealed end. Moreover, there also appears in this tradition a concept of repetitive time. In contrast, in classical Greece the concept of circular time coexisted with that of a secular, linear historical time, of which Herodotus and Thucydides are the leading representatives. It is true, though, that this concept of time was not the prevailing one in classical Antiquity; it only dominated the literature in the periods of rapid and deep political transformations, such as those that affected Athens in the 5^th century B. C. Nonetheless, the teleological concept of time is absent in the Greek tradition. The historical narrative, as we understand it today, would only emerge in the 19^th century, in connection with the mature development of capitalism. Classicism can no longer be viewed as a monolithic phenomenon that produced models for the rest of humankind in its long historical unfolding.