Since the beginning of time, humans have always wondered about the unknown. They wanted to make sense of life and how everything around them came to be. In Ancient Greek times, people had time to sit around and wonder about life and the role the gods played in their lives (Mason). From the curiosity, writings and myths were created by different poets and writers. The one I am going to focus on today is Hesiod. He lived in the 8th century BC and was a farmer in central Greece until the muses gave him a symbol of poetry from which he became a poet (Scodel). Hesiod wrote a story about the Five Ages of Man in his poem Works and Days which explained very broadly where the gods came from and the eras that came before the age they were living in (Mason).
According to Hesiod, there were five ages that mankind has lived through since the beginning of time. Each of these eras were characterized by certain events and the style and type of living the people witnessed. The first age is the Golden Age. This is the only age that Zeus was not the King of the Gods but rather his father Cronus was the ruler. The humans of this time lived in harmony with the gods (Karas). They walked among them and interacted directly with them. This was considered a utopian time. They lived in happiness and enjoyed an abundance of food and resources that were provided to them by Earth (Mason). The people of this time did not work and no one became ill or old rather when their time came they would fall into a deep sleep like state and die peacefully and painfully (Five). The ending of this war came when Zeus was born and a ten year war, Titanomachy, broke out between Zeus and his siblings and their father, Cronus. This ended the Golden Age in destruction with the Olympians winning the war (Erin).
From the Silver Age on Zeus remained the God of the Gods and all man-kind. In this age men stayed children for one hundred years being reliant on their mothers. The reason men stayed in childhood for so long was because men were immature and needed this time to grow up (Karas). However this did not turn out to be a viable solution to their immaturity. Adult men would fight each other constantly and had no respect for the gods therefore only living a couple years into adulthood. Eventually Zeus decided to kill all of them due to their lack of appreciation of the gods, essentially ending the Silver Age (Erin).The people that were killed in the Silver Age were sent to Hades in the underworld to be his blessed spirits (Five).
During the Bronze Age the earth was stricken with war. The people were a militaristic society with the men being strong and trained in combat. Bronze was used to make everything from weapons to housing as well as horses (Karas). This age essentially destroyed itself. The wars killed off most of the people that lived in it and it also destroyed a lot of the land. The age was brought to a close with the great flood of Deucalion.
The Heroic Age is the only age that is not named after a metal. It is the only age that improved upon the previous age (Erin). This was man-kinds new birth. The age gets its name from housing the greatest heroes and demigods. The people were a honorable race with many heroes like Hercules and Achilles that respected the gods and followed their laws (Karas). Most of the stories that were told about the gods and heroes were from this era. This is also the time of the Trojan War. Souls of this age were so well liked and respected by the gods that they were to the Islands of the Blessed in the underworld which was the happiest and most fulfilling place to go after death (Five).
The final age and the age that Hesiod is writing this poem from is the Iron Age. The humans of this time lived in a time of great suffering. People had to work very hard and were under constant stress. Death and disease plagued the inhabitants and they were always surrounded by desolate places and destruction. Man-kind was selfish, violent, and neglected the gods (Karas). Hesiod believed that by the end of this age man-kind would kill themselves and the gods would not help correct anything and would either abandon them or come back and destroy the entire race (Five). Just like he did in the other ages.
One important aspect to look at is the place that these souls were placed in the underground. Not all ages were descriptive of that but the ones that are directly reflect what happened during the time they were alive. The ages were named after metals, each age receiving a less desirable metal as a symbol. This represents the degradation of each age besides the Heroic Age which was not given a metal as a symbol. These stories may have been told to scare the people of the Iron Age into doing right to return to the utopian time of the Golden Age. They were shown that disrespecting the gods and their rules, directly impacts the society in a harsh way. It teaches man that it was their own fault that disease and destruction plagued their world and their lives. This moved men to worship the gods and keep them in mind with every action they took. They were terrified of the power of the gods and did not want to end up like the souls from the previous ages (Mason). During the Iron Age the only interaction left between the mortals and gods was sacrifice. No longer did man live amongst the gods able to interact (Mason). These stories really helped shape society in the 8th century BC and forward. The writings gave an explanation to the creation of the world around them as well as the gods that they worship. It also gave them a blueprint of how to be on the gods good side and described what has happened and what will happen if they fall out of line.
References
Erin. “Mythology – The Five Ages of Man According to Hesiod.” Mythography RSS. N.p., 21 May 2012. Web. 29 June 2017.
“Five Ages of Man (Hesiod) – Greek Gods, Mythology of Ancient Greece.” Greek Mythology. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 June 2017.
Karas, Michael, and Charilaos Megas. “Ages of Man.” Greek Mythology. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 June 2017
Mason, Moya K. “Hesiod’s Theogony, Myths and Meaning.” Moyak Papers. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 June 2017.
Scodel, Ruth. “Hesiod.” Hesiod – Classics – Oxford Bibliographies. Oxford, 23 June 2017. Web. 29 June 2017.