Editing Three-age system (section)

=== The Metallic Ages of Hesiod ===
[[File:Hesiod and the Muse.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|left|Hesiod inspired by the Muse, [[Gustave Moreau]], 1891]]
In his poem ''[[Works and Days]]'', the [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greek]] poet [[Hesiod]], possibly between 750 and 650 BC, defined five successive [[Ages of Man]]: Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic and Iron.<ref>Lines 109–201.</ref> Only the Bronze Age and the Iron Age are based on the use of metal:<ref>Lines 140–155, translator [[Richmond Lattimore]].</ref>

<blockquote>... then Zeus the father created the third generation of mortals, the age of bronze ... They were terrible and strong, and the ghastly action of Ares was theirs, and violence. ... The weapons of these men were bronze, of bronze their houses, and they worked as bronzesmiths. There was not yet any black iron.</blockquote>

Hesiod knew from the traditional poetry, such as the ''[[Iliad]]'', and the heirloom bronze artifacts that abounded in [[Ancient Greece|Greek society]], that before the use of iron to make tools and weapons, bronze had been the preferred material and iron was not smelted at all. He did not continue the manufacturing metaphor, but mixed his metaphors, switching over to the market value of each metal. Iron was cheaper than bronze, so there must have been a golden and a silver age. He portrays a sequence of metallic ages, but it is a degradation rather than a progression. Each age has less of a moral value than the preceding.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ages of Man According to Hesiod |first=Thomas |last=Armstrong |url=https://www.institute4learning.com/2019/07/23/the-stages-of-life-according-to-hesiod/ |access-date=2020-05-29 |website=www.institute4learning.com |archive-date=6 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806075512/https://www.institute4learning.com/2019/07/23/the-stages-of-life-according-to-hesiod/ |url-status=live}}</ref> Of his own age he says:<ref>Lines 161–169.</ref> "And I wish that I were not any part of the fifth generation of men, but had died before it came, or had been born afterward."