A golden age

Origin

This concept traces directly back to classical Greek and Roman mythology, particularly in the works of Hesiod and Ovid. Hesiod, in his "Works and Days," describes the "Golden Race of Mortals" as the very first era, a time when humans lived like gods, free from toil, sorrow, and old age, feasting on nature's bounty and dying peacefully in their sleep. Ovid, too, vividly portrays this idyllic period in his "Metamorphoses," where spring was eternal, rivers flowed with milk and nectar, and people lived in perfect harmony. It was a mythical utopia, a perfect past that all subsequent ages—Silver, Bronze, Heroic, and Iron—could only lament as a lost paradise.