The article is devoted to the problem of conformity of possibilities to use the myth of the blessed past in political propaganda during different periods of antiquity. As patterns two most outstanding subjects was chosen - comparison Peisistratos' tyranny with the "life under Kronos" and the golden age proclaimed by Commodus.

Analyzing both sources, which say about comparison Peisistratos' time with the "life under Kronos" , the author makes a conclusion of latest origin of this tradition. It excludes the possibility to say that Peisistratos himself used the myth of the "life under Kronos" in his propaganda. "Golden age" of Commodus, on the contrary, was a result of using the popular myth by the emperor. More than that, Commodus tried to identify his reign with the folk variant of the myth.

The author links the differences between both epochs with peculiarities of the interpretations of the myth in these epochs and with the different historical conditions. One of them is the absence of the notion of the supreme ruler as a "goods-giver", when in Roman Empire the coming of the new "golden age" was associated with the emperor.