Conceptions of Time in ancient Greco-Roman cultures may be represented in metaphorical terms as (a) linear or (b) cyclical. The evolution of mortal life was seen as linear and limited, while divine existence was considered to be both linear and unlimited. The immortal gods, however, were not subject to bodily deterioration, such as occurs in the old age of humans. The recent recovery of a lyric fragment by the Greek poet, Sappho of Lesbos, in which the myth of Tithonos and Eos was invoked, was the probable source for the allusion by the Augustan poet, Horace (Odes 4.4) to the unfortunate, paradoxical fate of the male hunter, who was granted immortality, but remained subject to bodily decrepitude. Both Sappho and Horace represent the experience of old age, the threshold of death for mortals, as an incentive to the enjoyment of the here and now (the theme of Carpe Diem).

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Gregson Davis, Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Humanities, is Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at Duke University. His primary appointment is in the Department of Classical Studies where his research and teaching are focused on Latin literature of the Late Republic; he also holds a secondary appointment in the Program in Literature, where his special research interests are in francophone and anglophone Caribbean poetry. He is a native of the island of Antigua in the anglophone Caribbean and received his higher education in the USA (AB in Classics at Harvard College [1960]; PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of California at Berkeley (Latin, Greek, French) [1968]).

📷: Telephos Painter (attr. Beazley), "Red-figure kylix Eos and Tithonos" (5th century B.C.)| via Wikimedia Commons