[13] 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.

According to the later myths, at the beginning of time Justice (Dike) or Astraea the daughter of Astraeus used to live and mingle with men and women on earth, an immortal among mortals.

[19] 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.

[6][20] They began to sail the seas after cutting down trees to build ships,[11] divided the free land between them and dug up the earth in search for wealth such as iron and gold.

[26] The first-century BC Roman poet Virgil wrote that Astraea was destined one day to come back to Earth, bringing with her the return of the utopian Golden Age of which she was the ambassador,[27][28] 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.

[29] The prophecy of Astraea's hoped-for return is found in the fourth book of his Eclogues: Iam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia Regna.

[31] Astraea was conflated and often treated as interchangable with Dike,[32] one of the Horae (daughters of Zeus and Themis) and goddess of justice, who was also given the same story of living with mortals during the early years of humanity before abandoning them to become the Virgo after their wickedness and lawlessness became too unbearable for her.

[15] Judging from the preserved Greek and Roman corpus and art, there is no indication that this goddess was ever properly called Astraea before Ovid in the early first century AD, with writers preceding him preferring Dike ("justice") or simply the Maiden to refer to her.

A spectacle play by the Count of Villamediana and thirteen dramas by Pedro Calderón de la Barca introduce a character named Astraea to highlight the political and astrological concerns.

The English epic poet Edmund Spenser further embellished this myth at the opening of Book V of The Faerie Queene (1596), where he claims that Astraea left behind "her groome | An yron man" called Talus.

[38] Astraea was represented on a allegorical engraving by John Norman published in 1784, just a few years after the American declaration of independence, in which she appears to decide on where on earth she will make her residence while Nature is about to play the lyre, Fame blows her trumpet and Liberty presents a medal to George Washington.