Note 44 — Chapter II · ISLANDS OF THE BLEST TRANSLATION

The silver race was created by the gods of Olympos, like the golden before them (l. 110; 128); only the third race (l. 143) and then the fourth (158) by Zeus alone. It might be supposed from this that the silver age as well as the golden age occurred in the period before Zeus’ rule, ἐπὶ Κρόνου ὅτ’ οὐρανῷ ἐμβασίλευεν (l. 111); and in this sense “Orpheus” understood the words of Hesiod when he τοῦ ἀργυροῦ γένους βασιλεύειν φησὶ τὸν Κρόνον (Proclus on l. 126). But it would be very difficult to reconcile l. 138 Ζεὺς Κρονίδης κτλ. with this view. Hesiod may then have placed the silver age in the time when sub Iove mundus erat (as Ovid explicitly states, M. i, 113 f.); but all the same it lay for him in the far distant past before all history.