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The term ‘Golden Age’ has been known to have an obscure set of definitions. Cambridge Dictionary Online defines golden age as “…a period of time, sometimes imaginary, of great happiness and success”.Literature Review Golden Age
[1] Oxford Dictionary English further adds on that the origin of the term golden age is from the mid-16th century, and that it is “…Greek and Roman poets’ name for the first period of history, when the human race lived in an ideal state.”
[2] Oxford Dictionary English defines golden age as: “…an idyllic, often imaginary past time of peace, prosperity, and happiness: he hankered after a lost golden age… the period when a specified art or activity is at its peak”[1].
According to the view of Regents Prep, whenever any civilization contributed to cultural and intellectual development of its people, that time can be defined as the Golden Age.
He comments so because “as society enjoys not only cultural and intellectual achievements, but also stable government and a strong economy.”[2] Regent Prep further defines the celebrated ‘Golden Age’ as: “A time in culture of high achievements in arts, literature, and science. Generally occurs in times of peace.”[3]
One of the first indications of the Golden Age in the Greek world can be found in the poetic works of Hesiod (c.750-700 BCE) by Nicholas Campion (1953). In his poem titled ‘Works and Days’, Hesiod divided time into five ages.
Each of the five ages were represented by a metal except the third, in descending value with gold being the first, followed by silver, bronze, heroes and lastly, iron; amongst which was the Golden Age during which men lived “…like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief…merry …beyond the reach of all evils…”
[4]. The reason why the gold/golden has been chosen as a signifier of the Golden Age is because gold is ‘eternal’ and ‘imperishable’.Literature Review Golden Age
[5] Based on Hesiod’s poetic definition of the Golden Age, John Dillon further opines that the very explicit definition by Hesiod can be extended to any and every Golden Age that has ever occurred.
Dillon claims that the significant characteristics of a Golden Age are its ability to bring about a freedom from anxiety; to free people from the need to work; and to free men from the unchanging and unflinching aspects of life.Literature Review Golden Age
Therefore it can be said with no doubt that any time period when men experienced easiness, prosperity, peacefulness and larger good can thus, be categorized according to Hesiod’s familiar myth as the golden age.
Plato (c.427-347 BCE), in his dialogue ‘Cratylus’, agrees with Hesiod and comments that Hesiod was not “saying that the golden race is by nature made of gold, but that it is good and fine”
[6]. Plato is known to believe as Robert Sherrick Brumbaugh pens that “…the universe, it seems, sometimes runs forward – this is the golden age, in which divine shepherds attend to our human needs. But in another cycle, the cosmos reverses its motion; in these reversal phases, the law and order of the golden age erode”
[7].Plato as Nicholas Campion indicates in the History of Western Astrology, lived during a time when his views were lent by his despair and the sadness gnawing at him because of the collapse of the imaginary perfect state i.e. Hesiod’s golden age; and this is the reason why Plato as he propositioned in the Republic (esp. Bks. VI-VIII) and Laws (esp. Bk. VI) was deeply concerned with the active integration of the individual with the historical process.
Plato is also known to firmly believe that following Hesiod, he was living in that phase of history where there was a saddening fall and decrease in the values of the denizens. This as per Plato was very likely to act as a catalyst to bring about the golden age that had then promptly vanished.
For this reason, Plato strongly believed that it was the duty of each and everyone in the populace to work in harmony and in accordance with this very plan. In order to do this, the denizens had to meet certain conditions for a return to the Golden Age, and these had been descriptively discussed by Plato as a methodical and self-controlled lifestyle mutually combined and mixed with a laborious programme of tutelage.
Campion opines that according to Plato, the golden age is not a mere myth and for this very reason, for its very return, there is the need for “a call to action, a call to fight for the return of a lost paradise, to reunite the past and future with the present…”
[8]. According to the views of Kumar, all societies correspond to the myth of a Golden Age, “a time of beginnings in which humanity lived in a state of perfect happiness and fulfilment. Most frequently this myth takes a primitvist form.
The ‘original’ time or condition was one of simplicity and sufficiency. There was an instinctive harmony between man and nature”
[9]. Agreeing to the views of Kumar, Campion states that “often history begins with a golden age, in which humanity lived in a state of eternal bliss and innocence, a collective childhood without disease, death, suffering and war.
This has been called the Garden of Eden (in the Bible) … and the era of the Golden Race (in classical Greece). As the cyclical law of time runs its course, so, it is hoped, humanity will one day return to this blissful condition”
[10].The very existence of the body of Astrology in the periods marked as the Golden Ages can be proved by the commentary of the astrologer Vettius Valens (120 CE – 175 CE) in his encyclopaedic nine volume astrological treatise titled Anthologies.
The 2nd century astrologer and writer showed a vivid yearning for those intense times which saw such a climate of free and ungrudging speech and inquiry. In his exact words, “their devotion to this science was so enthusiastic and so steadfast that they left the earthy sphere and walked the heavens, associating with the heavenly souls and divine holy Minds”
[11]. Valens also depicted the existence of astrology in Book IX of Anthologies, when he mentions the divine king Nechepso saying that, “It is obvious that the King made his explanations with mystic intelligence”
]12]. In support of the existence of astrology in the golden ages, Hiram Butler (1841-1916) on the basis of his extensive research opines that astrology was popular in the golden ages and was in line with both the religion as well as the science, the three being parts of one major whole.
Butler further mentions that traces of astrology were “found in the great pyramid Cheops of Egypt, and also in the sacred temples of India, and wherever temple relics of the great religions of antiquity are found”[13].
Campion in his work, A History of Western Astro, Vol II, discusses about the epiphany William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) had in 1908 regarding an upcoming spiritual transformation fuelled by the stars. Campion claims that…
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