Exterior to the Linear B mention from Mycenaean Greece, the earliest clear mention of the phoenix in ancient Greek literature occurs in a fragment of the Precepts of Chiron, attributed to 6th century BC Greek poet Hesiod. In the fragment, the wise centaur Chiron tells a young hero Achilles the following,[clarification needed][8] describing the phoenix's lifetime as 972 times the length of a long-lived human's:
A chattering crow lives now nine generations of aged men, but a stag's life is four time a crow's, and a raven's life makes three stags old, while the phoenix outlives nine ravens, but we, the rich-haired Nymphs daughters of Zeus the aegis-holder, outlive ten phoenixes.