[devindotcom]

It's an understandable mistake, since we tend to view history with a sort of flattening perspective; the recent past is spread out before us in sparkling detail, then fields marching away we spy the industrial revolution, the enlightenment, the renaissance — but beyond that, as records are fewer and the major changes coming at longer intervals, history essentially disappears beyond the curvature of the landscape, and the horizon marks the moment when our understanding lapses, and time compresses, robbing centuries of their weight and duration. Beyond that are the rolling hills of the late roman empire and the stern peaks of the classical era, clearly visible but isolated.

This also reflects a very Western-centric point of view, for a great deal of reasons; the massive changes and wars wrought in the east, as Creasy writes, "appear before us through the twilight of primaeval history, dim and indistinct, but massive and majestic, like mountains in the early dawn." It doesn't quite tally with my other metaphor, but feels true nonetheless.