The Shape of Time -----------Cycle (or Spiral) of Worlds in Antiquity

Greek Races of Man (ca.700BC)

Man made from primordial clay by Prometheus in the age of the older gods, the Titans, when Cronos (not Chronos) was king.

This Golden-Age creature feasted with the gods until they quarreled over the feast (Prometheus invents sacrifice to cheat the gods):

Golden-Age folk perish,become good spirits.

Silver-Age Man, vicious and arrogant to gods; destroyed by Zeus

Bronze Age, made by Zeus; destroyed by their own wars

(Hesiod interposes redemptive Age of Heroes)

Iron Age man, made by Zeus, doomed to similar Fate

 

Apparently unconnected to this Spiral is the Flood Story, in which Mankind is drowned by Zeus for man's arrogance toward the gods. Only the son of Prometheus and his cousin-bride survive on the mountain top to repopulate the Earth.

Sumerian/Babylonian: (3rd millenium BC)

Man made from clay of the abyss, slave to gods

Man overburdens the Earth.

Enlil (sky god) determines to destroy Mankind,

first by Plague,

then by Drought,

then Famine,

Finally by Flood

In each age the trickster-god Enki/Ea warns the wise and righteous Ziusudra/Atrahasis.

For Plague (and so on) he invents religion to placate the god.

For the flood he builds a great boat.

 

Hebrew Flood Story derived from this in classic rationalistic fashion: a more simple tale to seal the covenant with mankind--and incidentally to remove the whole notion of spiraling change.

 

Later Greek traditions embraced notion of Cycle of Worlds (such an idea is even attributed to Anaximander, but doubtuful).

Notable were the Orphics who told of creation out of Chronos (=Time) ending in destruction of the world by Zeus, who then refashioned the world and begot Dionysus.

Dionysus is butchered by Titans who escape from their prison in Tartaros. Zeus blasts the Titans with his thunderbolt; and Man is made from the ashes of those rebel gods.

 

Norse Myth drew upon a similar notion of older races of gods and giants destroyed but for a few survivors, who produce the current world. These gods are themselves doomed to a similar destruction by elemental conflagration.

The Stoics (Greek and Roman) also believed in a cycle of worlds ending in Fire.

But in many ways the most intriguing model of a cycle of worlds is that of Empedocles, a Pythagorean of S. Italy in the mid 5th century BC.

Empedocles taught that there are two fundamental forces at work in the world, which he called simply Love (or Kinship) and Strife (or Enmity). These two are locked in a perpetual struggle for control of the Sphere (the ball of the Universe).

At times Love gains almost complete dominance and drives Strife to the outermost edge. But then, inevitably, Strife begins to reach back, dividing the Sphere into hostile limbs. There is some dispute about just how this worked, but it looks as though Love acts by drawing 'like to like' (earth to earth, water to water, and so on) while Strife does just the opposite. The period of dominant Strife leads to bizarre combination of monstrosities (perhaps inspired by fossil remains and mythic monsters).