The Golden Age and the KYKΛOΣ ΓENEΣEΩN (Cyclical Theory) in Greek and Latin Literature

Extract

The belief in a golden age is not confined to any one age or civilization. In every civilized community there tends to grow up a nostalgia for the simpler life of bygone days; and other races besides the Greeks (particularly the Chinese) have shown the same desire to exalt their origins and ancestry; But there are peculiar factors which for the Greeks make this belief more real. Their civilization was, they believed, a new one without a forerunner; immediately previous to it lay the period of barbarity in which the idealized naturalism of the age of Cronos was supposed to have flourished. At the same time the subconscious memory of the glories of the Aegean civilization and, perhaps, of the peaceful civilizations such as that of the Indus valley, furnished material to embellish the legend of the Golden Age.

The scope of this article is somewhat diffuse, and a brief mention of the points which are discussed in it will help to make the oudine more clear. First I shall recapitulate the main characteristics of the Golden Age as it is portrayed in classical literature; next I shall discuss the significant fact that it is only used by some writers, while others adhere to the competing theory of ascendant evolution. Then I shall attempt to settle the position, first of the writings of Lucretius, secondly of the Prometheus legend with reference to these competing theories of degeneracy and evolution. Finally, after a brief outline of the causes which lead to a belief in a cyclical theory, a comparison will be made between the views of Hesiod (in Works and Days, 109 ff.) and Plato (Politicus, 269 ff.).