This dissertation studies world-end scenarios in ancient Greek literature. It responds, first, to an expansion and imposition of the term “eschatology” beyond biblical studies into other scholarly domains (such as Buddhist and Hindu studies), and, second, to a lack of scholarly attention to the topic within the field of Classics. After an initial survey of past and present conceptualizations of “eschatology,” Chapter 1 contends that the term is not heuristically useful for Greek material of the Archaic and Classical periods. The question is, then: how might a Classicist address specific building blocks of eschatology that do have relevance to early Greek culture—e.g., the “end” of civilizations, views of the future, concepts of hope, the fate of humanity? The rest of the dissertation pursues the first of these building blocks—the theme of “the end”—in Greek literature from Homer (ca. 750BC) to Aristotle (ca. 300BC).
Methodologically, the chapters are organized by theme, each addressing a particular world-ending cause or scenario: the world’s end by water (Chapter 2), by war (Chapter 3), in periods of time (Chapter 4), and by fire (Chapter 5). Within each chapter I analyze the material according to sub-topics, and then chronologically by author or literary work. The dominant mode of analysis is close readings of texts, and my guiding question throughout is twofold: who says what about the end, and why? The approach is thus more literary than historical. I ask, for example, about themes, and about how the particular part of the text that I am interpreting fits into the text as a whole. Aside from the basic inquiries about a text’s themes and purposes, I am interested in two further aspects of the nature of any given discourse: First, is it religious or non? Second, does the text pursue its aims via personal characters or impersonal forces? In terms of closure, Chapter 1 concludes with suggestions for topics of future studies. Chapter 5 likewise ends in a way that points to a potential next “chapter” in the study of the world’s end in ancient Greece.
Broadly speaking, the study results in a negative conclusion and several positive ones. Negatively, it finds “eschatology” unhelpful as a category of analysis for Archaic and Classical Greek literature and philosophy. Positively, the study finds that ancient Greek authors do talk about the end of the world as they knew it. Four areas of concern predominate: identity, ethics, political philosophy, and science. First, Greek authors throughout the period negotiate ethnic identity using the world-ending tale of the flood (e.g., Hesiod, Pindar, early Greek mythographers). Second, writers of Greek epic use world-end scenarios to provoke thought about ethics (e.g., Hesiod). Third, the end and rebeginning of civilizations as a literary theme and historical topic commonly shows up in early Greek political philosophizing (e.g., Hesiod, Plato). Fourth, Greek scientific thinkers, sometimes called natural philosophers, discuss the world’s end as a material fact (e.g., the Presocratics, Aristotle). These meditations on the world’s end do not constitute “eschatology.” But they do challenge the Classicist to imagine a time before the eschaton.