The return of the golden age:Sycophancy and subversion

The return of the Golden Age is one of the most pervasive and perennial motifs in western culture. It has been used to articulate an enormous range of different convictions, and to support a bewildering variety of political, religious, and artistic causes. The classic formulation of the theme in Virgil’s fourth Eclogue, and the reappearance of this concept in praise of the emperor Augustus in the Roman poet’s Aeneid, meant that the returning Golden Age was very frequently harnessed to assert claims to imperial power, or to bolster other dominant regimes. But an awareness of this heritage also made evocation of Virgil’s lines an effective tool for expressing opposition on the part of those who subscribed to other ideologies or served competing political interests. This chapter sets examples of the appropriation of the fourth Eclogue for the purposes of panegyric alongside receptions of the poem which seek to resist or undermine individuals or institutions which were widely known for their adoption of the theme of the returning Golden Age as a vehicle for political propaganda or other forms of self-assertion. The long tradition of Virgilianising encomium featuring acclamations of temporal renewal stretches from Virgil’s own day to (at least) well into the twentieth century; but beside it runs another current, the deployment of the same language and imagery to deflate or disparage claims to progress, regeneration, and dominion. Here we will see a few snapshots, from a range of historical periods and in a variety of media, illustrating the exploitation of this endlessly recycled motif to serve each of these conflicting ends.