According to Ovid, The Golden Age was a time of perfect innocence and harmony. Humanity lived without laws, toil, or fear. The earth provided for all, and there was no need for labor, war, or travel. People were just by nature, not by compulsion.

“The golden age was first, which, without a ruler,
cherished of its own will faith and right.” (Metamorphoses I.89–90)

No ships (no navigation or seafaring), no agriculture/animal domestication or tools, no metal use, no cities, no states, no private property, no laws, no warfare, no need for houses (they lived in caves), no architecture, no clothing, or toil. People lived directly from what nature provides (as hunter-gatherers) in small, egalitarian groups. And yes, this describes the Paleolithic perfectly….

Ovid describes it as a natural paradise, where man lived in simplicity and peace.

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The Silver Age began when Jupiter (Zeus) overthrew Saturn (Cronus) and introduced the first decline. Seasons appeared, ending eternal spring. Men had to build shelters and till the soil for food. This was the age when hardship and labor entered the world.

“Then Jupiter shortened the period of ancient spring,
and through winter, summer, and unequal autumn
and short spring, made the year revolve.” (I.112–114)

The sun’s course divided the year into seasons. Men had to use agriculture and build homes. Though still pious, men began to lose innocence and grew more dependent on toil. This, naturally, describes the Neolithic perfectly…

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From this came the Bronze Age and it was rougher and more warlike. Men became fiercer and quicker to arms, though not yet wholly wicked.

“Next came the brazen type of man, more fierce in temper,
and readier for war, yet not impious.” (I.125–126)

Courage and conflict replaced the innocence of earlier ages. Still, some sense of honor and restraint remained.

***

Then finally, we arrive in the Iron Age (the age of Ovid’s own time, Classical Antiquity), the nadir of human morality. All virtues vanished; greed, fraud, and violence prevailed. Men sailed the seas, claimed private property, mined the earth for wealth, built cities, states, and even empires, and waged war on one another. Faith, truth, and modesty fled from the earth.

“Straightway all evils burst into this age of baser vein:
Modesty, truth, and faith took flight,
and in their place came fraud and trickery,
violence and the wicked love of gain.” (I.129–131)

Humanity desecrated nature and the gods. Ovid’s tone is mournful, lamenting mankind’s moral decay.

***

But what is ‘the desecration of nature and the gods’? According to Ovid, this is the exploitation of resources, rather than living in harmony with nature. This is a disrespect of the divine law and order, through violence, impiety, and greed.

He is lamenting the decline as tragic: humanity is capable of great virtue, but it has turned away from the harmony of the Golden Age. In other words: Ovid mourns what humans have lost, not what they have gained materially. Technology, war, and law may advance, but they represent a moral decline, which is the real tragedy.

As you can tell, this is in direct contrast to modern archaeology, where every technological achievement is seen as an ascent.

The ancient way of thinking was that the more men work, build, and exploit nature, the more they lose virtue. Technological advancement and moral decline go hand in hand. Each invention or discovery that makes life materially easier also takes mankind further from natural virtue and divine harmony. The modern way of thinking, on the other hand, is that the more men work, build, and exploit, the more they gain mastery and power, and the more advanced they are.

This anti-modern view was not just something we find in Ovid’s writing, though. It was deeply rooted in Greek thought before Ovid: Hesiod (8th century BC) had said exactly the same in Works and Days: that life worsened as men invented crafts, weapons, and cities. Lucretius (1st century BC), though an Epicurean materialist, also describes early man as closer to nature and therefore more innocent. Virgil, in his Georgics, longs for the rustic simplicity of the early world.

In other words, for the ancients, “progress” was moral regression. Technology, wealth, and mastery over nature were not triumphs, but symptoms of alienation; the loss of the divine harmony that once guided human life.

Conclusion:

Long before Rousseau, the ancients already idealized the uncorrupted natural man; the one untouched by luxury, money, or empire. When Rousseau (18th century) wrote of the “noble savage” (the natural man unspoiled by civilization) he wasn’t inventing a new idea. He was reviving the classical Pagan idea of the Golden Age, reinterpreted through modern philosophy. Rousseau’s “state of nature” is simply Ovid’s “Golden Age” restated. Rousseau gave it a social-contract framework; the ancients gave it a mythic and moral one. But the underlying idea is the same.

Man is born good in nature and becomes evil through civilization.

This skepticism toward technological and social ‘progress’ is characteristic of the Pagan worldview. The noble savage represents the ideal Pagan man: morally virtuous, living in harmony with nature, and uncorrupted by wealth, luxury, or social artifice.

For us today, I would claim that we should hope for individuals (likely) and entire socieites (less likely) to recover virtue and live according to nature (and thus the divine), by using knowledge and tools wisely rather than letting them enslave the soul. The virtuous man has a moral armor, and are less susceptible to the chaos, greed, and other corruption that sweep through our societies today. When others fall, the true Pagan will maintain integrity, be self-sufficient, live in harmony with nature, and have association with like-minded people (only?).

Varg Vikernes

Sources:
Hesiod (Erga kai Hēmerai), Lucretius (De Rerum Natura), Virgil (Eclogues, Georgics), Seneca (De Vita Beata, Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, and De Beneficiis), Tacitus (Germania), Ovid (Metamorphoses).