Abstract

The conceptions of time are manifold (cyclic, linear, subjective/objective etc.). This is also true of Ancient Greece (Lloyd 1976). However, in Classical Greece certain human sciences arise and evolve at the same time, including History (Herodotus, Thucydides) and Philosophy (Plato, Aristotle), which may share a common notion of time. We explore the idea that these developments are related to what we observe in the language in the same period, namely that the marking of aspect and mood steps back and gives way to a more precise marking of time in the verbal system. This may be due to mutual influences of the categories of language and thought, as already observed in Benveniste (1958).