JOBS | DRUGS | ANATOMY | DIAMONDS | HEALTH TOPICS | DISEASES | ENERGY | GEOLOGY | AIRPORTS | COUNTRIES | FLAGS Encyclopedia Britannica 1911 Translate Español 简体中国 Français Deutsch Русские हिन् العربية Português Saturn (God) - Encyclopedia GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES [[Saturn (disambiguation)|SATURN [[[Saturnus]]]]], a god of ancient Italy, whom the Romans, and till recently the moderns, identified with the Greek god Cronus.1. Cronus was the youngest of the Titans, the children of Sky (Uranus) and Earth (Gaea). Besides the Titans, Sky and Earth had other children, the Cyclopes and the Hundred-handers. When the Cyclopes and the Hundred-handers proved troublesome, Sky thrust them back into the bosom of Earth. This vexed Earth, and she called on her sons to avenge her on their father Sky. They all shrank from the deed save Cronus, who waylaid and mutilated his father with a sickle or curved sword. From the drops of blood which fell to the earth sprang the Furies and the Giants. Cronus now reigned in room of Sky. His wife was Rhea, who was also his sister, being a daughter of Sky and Earth. Sky and Earth had foretold to Cronus that he would be deposed by one of his own children, so he swallowed them one after another as soon as they were born. Thus he devoured Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades and Poseidon. But when Rhea had brought forth Zeus, the youngest,' she wrapped up a stone in swaddling clothes and gave it to Cronus, who swallowed it instead of the babe. When Zeus, who had been hidden in Crete, grew up, he gave his father a dose which compelled him to disgorge first the stone and then the children whom he had swallowed. The stone was preserved at Delphi; every day it was anointed and on festivals it was crowned with wool. Zeus and his brothers now rebelled against Cronus, and after a ten years' struggle they were victorious. Cronus and the Titans were thrust down to Tartarus, where they were guarded by the Hundred-handers. According to others, Cronus was removed to the Islands of the Blest, where he ruled over the departed heroes, judging them in conjunction with Rhadamanthus. Plutarch (De Def. Orac. 18) mentions a story that the dethroned monarch of the gods slept on an island of the northern seas guarded by Briareus and surrounded by a train of attendant divinities. The reign of Cronus was supposed to have been the golden age, when men lived like gods, free from toil and grief and the weakness of old age (for death was like sleep); and the earth brought forth abundantly without cultivation. There are few traces of the worship of Cronus in Greece. Pausanias, in his description of Greece, mentions only one temple of Cronus; it stood at the foot of the Acropolis at Athens and was sacred to Cronus and Rhea jointly. The Athenians celebrated an annual festival in his honour on the 12th of Hecatombaeon. A mountain at Olympia was called after him, and on its top annual sacrifices were offered to him at the spring equinox.The idea that Cronus was the god of time seems to have arisen from a simple confusion between the words Cronus and Chronus (" time "). Curtius derives Cronus from the root kra, meaning " to accomplish." Cronus may have been a god of some aboriginal halfsavage tribe which the Greeks conquered. Hence the savage traits in his legend, his conquest by Zeus and the scanty traces of his worship in Greece. The myth of the mutilation of Sky by Cronus may be a particular form of the widespread story of the violent separation of Sky and Earth by one of their children. Other forms of this myth are found in New Zealand, India and China. Parallels to the swallowing and disgorging incident are to be found in the folklore of Bushmen, Kaffres, Basutos, Indians of Guiana and Eskimo.2. Saturn and his wife Ops were amongst the oldest deities of ancient Italy. He is said to have had an altar at the foot of the Capitol before Rome was founded. Saturn was a god of agriculture, his name being derived from serere, " to sow."2 The identification of Saturn with Cronus' gave rise to the legend that after his deposition by Zeus (Jupiter) Saturn wandered to 1 So Hesiod. But, according to Homer, Zeus was the eldest of the children of Cronus and Rhea.2 He was also known by the epithet of Stercutus or Sterculius, the god of fertilizing manure.Cronus himself was a harvest god under one of his aspects.Italy, where he ruled as king in the golden age and gave the name Saturnia to the country. 4 Janus, another of the most ancient gods of Italy, is said to have welcomed him to Rome, and here he settled at the foot of the Capitol, which was called after him the Saturnian Hill. His temple stood at the ascent from the Forum to the Capitol and was one of the oldest buildings in Rome, but the eight remaining columns of the temple probably formed a portion of a new temple built in the imperial times. The image of Saturn in this temple had woollen bands fastened round its feet all the year through, except at the festival of the Saturnalia; the object o...