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This article is about mythological Golden age(s). For other uses of "Golden Age" see Golden Age (disambiguation).
The term Golden age stems from Greek mythology and Roman poets. It refers to a time in the beginnings of Humanity which was perceived as an ideal state, or utopia, when mankind was pure and immortal. In literary works, the Golden Age usually ends with a devastating event, which brings about the Fall of Man (see Ages of Man). An analogous idea can be found in the religious and philosophical traditions of the Far East. Similar beliefs, which are in most aspects comparable to that in the Golden Age existed also in the Middle East.
Some Utopianist beliefs, both political and religious, hold that the Golden Age will return after a period of blessedness and gradual decadence is completed.
Some pastoral works of fiction depict life in an imaginary Arcadia as being a continuation of life in the Golden Age; the shepherds of such a land have not allowed themselves to be corrupted into civilization.
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History
Both in Europe as well as in the Middle East, the idea of a Golden Age is part of a mythical interpretation of history, which divides history into several consequent ages, or (predominantly in the Middle East) into empires or historical epochs. The Golden Age (in India the Satya Yuga) is perceived to have been the first and best age, followed by the Silver Age and so on. The last and worst age is the present one in which the decay of civilisation reaches its nadir. This perception of history is therefore the direct opposite of the progress ideal. The theory of historical ages is the mythical expression of a philosophy of history marked by cultural pessimism, which perceives historical development primarily as the necessary and natural decay of culture and civilisation.
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Greek and Roman antiquity
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A myth of ages first appears in Europe in the writings of Hesiod in the late 8th and early 7th century BC.
The Greek poet Hesiod, around the 8th century BC, in his compilation of the mythological tradition (the poem Works and Days), explained that, prior to the present era, there were other four progressively most perfect ones, the oldest of which was called the Golden age. In this stage:
... they lived like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief: miserable age rested not on them; but with legs and arms never failing they made merry with feasting beyond the reach of all evils. When they died, it was as though they were overcome with sleep, and they had all good things; for the fruitful earth unforced bare them fruit abundantly and without stint. They dwelt in ease and peace upon their lands with many good things, rich in flocks and loved by the blessed gods.
In this age, Hesiod writes, mankind lived in absolute peace, carefree like the gods because they never aged and death was a falling asleep. The main characteristic of this age according to Hesiod was that the earth produced food in abundance, so that agriculture was rendered superfluous. This characteristic also defines almost all later versions of the myth.
The Orphic school, a religious movement from Thrace which spread to Greece in the 6th century BC, held similar beliefs, including the denomination of the ages with metals. Some Orphics identified the Golden Age with the era of the god Phanes, who was regent over the Olympus before Cronus. In the 5th century BC, the philosopher Empedocles emphasised the idea of original peacefulness, innocence and harmony in all of nature, including human society.
Several centuries later (29 BC) the Golden Age was depicted in Virgil's The Georgics. Here, the poet looked back again to sing the good old times before Jupiter, when:
Fields knew no taming hand of husbandmen;
To mark the plain or mete with boundary-line-
Even this was impious; for the common stock
They gathered, and the earth of her own will
All things more freely, no man bidding, bore.
The topic is taken up again by Ovid's in his Metamorphoses (AD 8):
The golden age was first; when Man yet new,
No rule but uncorrupted reason knew:
And, with a native bent, did good pursue.
Unforc'd by punishment, un-aw'd by fear, ...
In classical mythology, the Golden Age took place during the reign of Cronus. Peace and harmony prevailed during this age. Humans did not grow old, but died peacefully. Spring was eternal and people were fed on acorns from a great oak as well as wild fruits and honey that dripped from the trees. The spirits of those men who died were known as Aimones and were guides for the later ancient Greeks (who considered themselves to live in the later Iron Age.)
This race eventually died out when Prometheus (a Titan) gave the secret of fire to men. Zeus punished men, allowing Pandora to open her box which unleashed all evil in the mortal world.
Within sequences or cycles of eras, the golden age stands alongside the silver age and the iron age, and conditions can improve or decline according to one's conception of mythic progression.
Also Plutarch, the Greek historian and biographer of the 1st century, dealt with the blissful and mythic past of the humanity.
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East
The Indian teachings differentiate the four world ages (Yugas) not according to metals, but according to colors, whereby the white color belongs to the first, ideal age. These colors were originally assigned to the planet Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury and Mars just like the metals. The Indian teachings are not of Vedic origin; After the world fall at the end of the fourth, worst age (to that the present at that time belonged) the cycle should be continued with a new golden age.
The Krita Yuga, the First and Perfect Age, as described in the Mahabharata, a Hindu epic:
... Men neither bought nor sold; there were no poor and no rich; there was no need to labour, because all that men required was obtained by the power of will; the chief virtue was the abandonment of all worldly desires. The Krita Yuga was without disease; there was no lessening with the years; there was no hatred or vanity, or evil thought whatsoever; no sorrow, no fear. All mankind could attain to supreme blessedness. ...
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Christianity
According to Tom Whyte and John Ashton's The Quest for Paradise, the Golden Age idea contributed to the modern Christian views of Heaven
The Golden Age is identified with Eden. It is considered to return during the reign of Christ which will never end. See also millennialism.
Book of Isaiah ch. 65 is believed to describe that state.
The church father Lactantius availed himself with his description "golden age" of the future thousand-year old of Christ's Kingdom including the usual characteristics (blessedness of entire nature, sumptuous fertility, animal peace, disappearing agriculture and navigation).
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Fantasy
In fantasy worlds and fictional universes, concepts similar or compatible to the Golden Age exist in the setting's background.
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Fantasy
In modern fantasy worlds whose backgorund and setting sometime draw heavily on real-world myths, similar or compatible concepts of Golden Age exist in the said world's prehistory; when Deities or Elf-like creatures existed, before the coming of humans.
For example in the background of the Lands of Lore computer game, the history of the Lands is divided in Ages. One of them is also called Golden Age, where no wars existed yet, until that age was over.
Another example exists in Middle-earth legendarium. Arda (the period of our world where Lord of the Rings is set), was designed to be symmetrical and perfect. After the wars of the Gods, Arda lost its perfect shape (known as Arda Unmarred) and was called Arda Marred. Eventually, after the end of the world, Arda will be destroyed and remade again as Arda Healed
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See also
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