The Ages of Man are the stages of human existence on the Earth according to Greek mythology. Two classical authors (Hesiod and Ovid) in particular offer accounts of the successive ages of mankind, which tend to progress from an original, long-gone age in which humans enjoyed a nearly divine existence to the current age of the writer, in which humans are beset by innumerable pains and evils. In the two accounts that survive from ancient Greece and Rome, this degradation of the human condition over time is indicated symbolically with metals of successively decreasing value.
Read more about Ages Of Man: Hesiod's Five Ages, Ovid's Four Ages, Historicity of The Ages
Famous quotes containing the words ages of, ages and/or man:
“All the great ages have been ages of belief.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In all her products, Nature only develops her simplest germs. One would say that it was no great stretch of invention to create birds. The hawk which now takes his flight over the top of the wood was at first, perchance, only a leaf which fluttered in its aisles. From rustling leaves she came in the course of ages to the loftier flight and clear carol of the bird.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The sea’s vast depths lie open to the fish;
Wherever the breezes blow the bird may fly;
So to the brave man every land’s a home.”
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)