The Golden Age Astraea, the celestial virgin who presided over justice, modesty and good faith, was traditionally said to be the last of the immortals to live together with humans during the
Golden Age, the first of the
old Greek religion's five
Ages of Man until the coming of the harsh Iron Age, when the world fell into disarray and people only coveted gold, while family and friends would no longer trust each other. The myth of Astraea has been variously attributed to eighth-century BC Greek poet
Hesiod, who in his surviving works prophesied that since mankind had deteriorated so much in morality and virtue during his era (that is the Fifth Age, or Iron Age) the goddesses
Nemesis and
Aidos, who embodied divine retribution and humility respectively, would finally abandon the earth once and for all and return to
Mount Olympus by the end of it, forsaking men and leaving them to deal with the hardships and evils on their own. Later authors, starting first with
Aratus writing over four hundred years after Hesiod, expanded on the tale. According to the later myths, at the beginning of time Justice (Dike in Greek) the daughter of
Astraeus used to live and mingle with men and women on earth, an immortal among mortals. During this Golden Age there was no strife, war and battle or detestation between people as Justice urged them all to be kind to each other and spread feelings of virtue and honour among them. In this pre-seafaring era, humans only ploughed their rich fields while Justice supplied them with all they could ever want or need. As the Golden Age ended and the Silver one arrived, the goddess found herself dissatisfied as people were less virtuous than before and started yearning for the older times. She no longed spoke with gentle words to them and took to the hills and then the mountains. She used threats and shame on them, but failed to motivate them to become better people. Then the Bronze and Iron Ages rolled in which introduced war and hatred, corruption, people consuming the oxen they previously only used to plough the fields and the vanishment of honour and love. They began to sail the seas after cutting down trees to build ships, divided the free land between them and dug up the earth in search for wealth such as iron and gold. Finally the disillusioned Dike-Astraea decided to abandon humanity for good and take her place among the stars as the constellation
Virgo, also known as the Maiden, with the star
Spica as the ear of corn she holds. According to
Nonnus, Astraea as the starry nurse of the universe once took under her care and nurished
Beroe, the daughter of
Aphrodite. She nursed the infant on her breast and fashioned a necklace out of Spica for her.
Virgil The first-century BC Roman poet
Virgil wrote in around 40 BC that Astraea was about to come back to Earth permanently, bringing with her the return of the utopian Golden Age of which she was the ambassador, and the reign of
Saturnus, a Roman fertility god associated with the Greek
Cronus, but who nevertheless had an independent origin and worship in the Italic peninsula, lauded as the fallen god-king who introduced agriculture and helped humans develop civilization. The prophecy of Astraea's hoped-for return is found in the fourth book of his
Eclogues: Virgil used the pre-existing myth of Astraea within a political frame in order to hail the dawning Augustan rule, signaling the return of harmony and lack of war, conflict and suffering that had marked the turbulent period between 44 and 38 BC; he added that Astraea's return would be accompanied by the arrival of a child who would also kick off Augustus' new golden age along with her. The exact identity of the unknown child that escorted Astraea is the subject of much debate; it has been speculated that Virgil meant the son of
Gaius Asinius Pollio, the consul to whom the poem was dedicated; or the hypothetical child that the marriage between
Mark Antony and Augustus' sister
Octavia the Younger would produce; or even
Alexander Helios, the son of
Cleopatra and Mark Antony. == Development from Dike ==