IX. The Age-Myth in Plato: In the Politicus (268E-274E) Plato, in trying to define the true statesman, whose unlimited initiative should be superior to the laws and the human rulers who imperfectly execute them, tells the myth of the golden age when God himself was at the helm and the world had ideal rulers. The peculiar features of the Platonic myth are based on an attempt to explain the tradition of the earth-born and the story that God reversed the motion of the heavenly bodies to bear witness to Atreus in his quarrel with Thyestes. This story he explains by declaring that the universe has two motions in opposite directions: the one belongs to its primal chaotic nature, and the other God gives it when he has charge. And as God alternately takes hold of the helm and lets go, alternating world-ages of an opposite character are produced. Between two ages there is a period of earthquake and confusion, in which practically all animal life perishes. Plato seems to have had in mind four ages: one before the reign of Cronos, that of Cronos when God was at the helm, the present age of Zeus in which the world moves of its own impulse, and an age yet to come, when God to keep the universe from lapsing into Chaos will again take the helm and set all things aright. But the two ages described as illustrating the ideal ruler and the period of imperfect rule are the former age of Cronos and the present age of Zeus. During the reign of Cronos God was at the helm and the universe had the opposite of its present motion. First the age of every creature stood still and all ceased to become older. Then they began to go in the opposite direction. They became younger and more tender; the hoary locks of the old became black, and the cheeks of the bearded became smooth, and men were restored to the by-gone springtime of life. The bodies of the young became smaller every day, returning to the condition of the new-born babe; and then ever dwindling away, they at last utterly vanished. After the old men had gone back to childhood and disappeared, then there followed those who were dead and lying in their graves; each in turn rose from earth to life again, and hence were called earthborn, as our first forefathers tell, who lived immediately after the end of the former period and had remembrance of those things. Inferior divinities or daemons were set over all flesh, including animals, so that there was no savagery nor devouring of one another nor war. There was no government or marriage, nor were creatures begotten after their kind, but all came up to life again from the earth. When this cycle was completed, the Governor of the universe let go the helm and retired to his watchtower; his subordinates left their positions without oversight, and innate impulse caused the universe to revolve backwards again. Man's age stood still; the child that was about to vanish grew larger, and the old man who had just been born gray-headed from the earth died and went down to earth again. Just as the universe was master of its own course, so it was or25 expands it thus: Simul imis saxa renarint Vadis levata, ne redire sit nefas Neu conversa domum pigeat dare lintea, quando Padus Matina laverit cacumina, In mare seu celsus procurrerit Apenninus Novaque monstra iunxerit libidine Mirus amor, iuvet ut tigris subsidere cervis, Adulteretur et columba miluo, credula nec ravos timeant armenta leones. Vergil in reply declares that herds no longer will fear lions in the golden age which is at hand. Thus arose a conception which has often been compared with Isaiah XI 6-8. See Hardie, Lectures on Classical Subjects, pp. 120-131, the Age of Gold. dained that its parts should in their own ways beget, bring forth and provide nourishment. At first all things were more perfectly produced as being not far removed from the divine rule, but later as the natural character of matter began to prevail, good things were few and the opposite many. Man, being deprived of God's care and exposed to the wild beasts which had become fierce by nature, while he himself was defenseless, and lacking the food which had formerly grown spontaneously, was in sore straits. Then the gifts of the gods, of which old stories tell, were bestowed upon him: fire from Prometheus, the arts from Hephaestus and Athena, seeds and plants from others, and thus men were provided with living.' 1 According to this peculiar myth, which seems not to have influenced later literature on the Age-Myth, the present race of men were helpless, degenerating creatures after the golden age, until cared for by the gods, as in the Protagoras Myth and the Prometheus of Aeschylus. 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