SATURN

An Italian deity having many points of similarity with the Grecian Kronos (K/joxoj), with whom he is, accordingly, frequently identified. He seems to have been originally the god of earth (of which his wife Tellns, Ops, or Rhea was the godde ), and presided over tillage, of which the sickle he carried was the symbol. The treasury at Rome was in his temple. The Grecian Kronos was the youngest son of Heaven and Earth, and the father of Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, and Pluto. He usurped the sovereignty, and was in his turn deposed and imprisoned by Jupiter. His reign was celebrated by the ancient poets as the golden age. The whole history of this deity is probably allegorical The name itself, with a slight variation, signifies time (Kpovoc); and his nttribute of the sickle, together with the account of his being the son of Heaven, by whose luminaries time is measured, and the husband of Rhea fflowing), and of his devouring his own progeny, are corroborative of this conjecture. Nlebuhr regards Saturn and Ops as the god and godde of the earth, its vivifying and its receptively-productive powers. {Rom. Hist., vol. i., p. 66, Cambr. trans!.) f'reu 7.er makes Saturn the great god of nature, in many re a imilated to Janus. He is the god who suffices for him self— -the god who is satisfied with his own power-. [Sfm hnlik. par Gulgniaut, vol. iii., p. 499.) Hence the derivation of the name from the Ealin satur, full, sntixfud. [s. 1104]