Abstract

The Platonist Proclus (c. 412-485 CE) identifies the procession of the angels, daimons, and heroes as operating three universal temporal potencies through which we experience time in the forms of past, present, and future, respectively. This essay explicates the Proclean doctrine of the three forms of time in its context within his system and its wider implications, with particular reference to the form of temporality associated with the heroes. Proclus’ schematic account of heroic temporality offers a systematic metaphysical framework for key themes in the Hellenic literature and cultus of heroes, in particular the dialectic of untimeliness and seasonality in the hero as discussed by Nagy. The heroes are seen to embody a universal relationship of mortal beings to time. In an excursus, the relationship of heroes to time is compared to that of cinema as image of time.