Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Ages of Man is the ancient Greco-Roman account of human history as a series of declining stages. Hesiod, writing between 750 and 650 BC, described five ages: Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic, and Iron. Ovid told a four-age version in his poem, omitting the Heroic Age.
In Hesiod's account, the Golden Age fell under the rule of Cronus and was created by the immortals of Olympus. Those who lived in it reached very old age with a youthful appearance and died peacefully.
Ovid's account, in lines 89 through 150 of his poem, describes four ages rather than five, omitting the Heroic Age entirely. He added that in the Golden Age, men had no knowledge of navigation. Unlike Hesiod, Ovid treated the Iron Age as a past catastrophe rather than his own era.
The Heroic Age is the one stage in Hesiod's account with no metal name, and the only stage that improves upon the age before it. Its heroes fought at Thebes in the time of Cadmus and Oedipus and during the Trojan War. After death, they were taken to a land beyond the seas, ruled by Cronus, where sweet fruits flourished three times a year.
Hesiod wrote that Zeus will end the Iron Age when babies are born with gray hair. In his words, 'there will be no help against evil.' Hesiod placed himself in the Iron Age, considering it his own era.
Saint Jerome, writing in the fourth century AD, assigned dates to each age. He placed the Golden Age from approximately 1710 to 1674 BC and the Silver Age from 1674 to 1628 BC. The Bronze Age covered 1628 to 1472 BC and the Heroic Age 1460 to 1103 BC. Jerome held the Iron Age to be ongoing in his own time.