Later Centuries
Tolkien's writing does not provide information on more than the first few centuries of this age, so it is not known when it ended. It is stated that the Fourth Age was when Men became dominant and powerful in Middle-earth, and the Fading of the Elves began. As such, the Fourth Age marks the bridge from the fantastic fictional prehistory of earth to the real history. He notes elsewhere in The Silmarillion, however, that the Elves count their own dwindling from the time of the first rise of the Sun, and some epithets for the Sun by the Elves refer to it in that context.
Read more about this topic: Fourth Age
Famous quotes containing the word centuries:
“Out of all those centuries the Greeks can count seven sages at the most, and if anyone looks at them more closely I swear he’ll not find so much as a half-wise man or even a third of a wise man among them.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, The emptiness of ages in his face, And on his back the burden of the world.”
—Edwin Markham (1852–1940)