SATURN, an ancient Italian divinity, who presided over agriculture. His name, from the same mot as sa tem. (mero, to sow), indicates what was probably one of. the earliest pi:ramifications in the Italian religion. Saturn being the god who blessed the labors of the sower. Ilia identification with t he Greek KnoNos by the latter Gra.cising myth-mongers is A peculiarly infelicitous blunder, and has led to more ,than ordinary confusion,. The Iwo hare absolutely nothing, in common except their antiquity. The Greek Demeter (Ceres), it has been observed, approaches far more closely to the Italian conception of the character of Saturn. The process of amalgamation in the cases of Kronos and Saturn is; visible enough. First, there is the Greek myth. Kronos, sou of limos (heaven) and Gaea (earth). is there the youngest of the Titans. He married Rhea. by whom he had several children, all of whom he devoured at birth except the last, Zeus (Jupiter), whom his mother saved by a stratagem. The motive of Kronos for this horrible conduct was his hope of frustrating a prophecy which declared that his children wo its one day deprive him of his sovereignty, as he had done in the case of his father Uranos; but fate is stronger even than the gods, and when Zeus had grown up, he began a great war against Kronos and the Titans, which lasted for ten years, and ended hi the complete discom fiture of the latter, who were hurled down to Tartarus, and there imprisoned. So rant
the common myth. But other myths added, that after his banishment from heaven, Kholios tied to Italy, where he was received hospitably by shared his sove reignty with him. At this point the Greek myth coalesced with the Italian. Saturn, the old homely deity of the Latin husband:nen, was transformed into a divine king, who ruled the happy aborigines of the Italian peninsula with paternal mildness and benen Cell ce, taught them agriculture and the usages of a and innocent civilization, and softened the primitive roughness of their manners. Hence the whole land received from him the name of Satarma, or"`land.of•Plenty." His reign was that "golden age," of which later poets sang as the ideal of earthly happiness, and in memory of which the famous Saturnalia (q v.) were thought to have been instituted. At the foot of the Capi toline, where the fugitive god had formed his first settlement. there stood in historical times a temple dedicated to his worship. Ancient artists represented him as an old man, with long, straight hair, the back of his head covered, his feet swathed in rib bons, a prunini-knife or sickle-shaped harp in his hand. Other attributes, as the scythe, serpent, wings, etc., are of later invention. .