Anachronism, a nak'ro nizm, an error of chronology by which things are represented as co-existing which did not co-exist. Anachronisms are sometimes made purposely for the sake of effect, as in the old epics the heroes are always young, the heroines always beautiful. In art some of the most glaring instances have occurred in the works of the Dutch school, where, for instance, scriptural characters were sometimes represented as armed with guns or as dressed in the costume of the seventeenth century.