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Saturn (mythology)
Saturn is a god in ancient Roman religion, and a character in myth as a god of generation,
dissolution, plenty, wealth, agriculture, periodic renewal and liberation. In later developments,
he also came to be a god of time. His reign was depicted as a Golden Age of plenty and peace.
The Temple of Saturn in the Roman Forum housed the state treasury. In December, he was celebrated
at what is perhaps the most famous of the Roman festivals, the Saturnalia, a time of feasting,
role reversals, free speech, gift-giving and revelry. Saturn the planet
and Saturday are both named after the god.
Mythology 
The Roman soil preserved the remembrance of a very remote time during which Saturn
and Janus reigned on the site of the city before its foundation: the Capitol was named mons
Saturnius. The Romans identified Saturn with the Greek Cronus, whose myths were adapted
for Latin literature and Roman art. In particular,
Cronus's role in the genealogy of the Greek gods was transferred to Saturn.
As early as Livius Andronicus, Jupiter was called the son of Saturn.
Saturn had two consorts who represented different aspects of the god. The name of his wife Ops,
the Roman equivalent of Greek Rhea, means "wealth, abundance, resources." The association
with Ops is considered a later development, however, as this goddess was originally paired
with Consus. Earlier was Saturn's association with Lua,
a goddess who received the bloodied weapons of enemies destroyed in war. Under Saturn's rule,
humans enjoyed the spontaneous bounty of the earth without labour in the "Golden Age" described
by Hesiod and Ovid.
Etymology and epithets
According to Varro, Saturn's name was derived from satu, meaning "sowing".
Even though this etymology looks implausible on linguistic grounds nevertheless it does reflect an
original feature of the god. A more probable etymology connects the name with Etruscan god Satre
and placenames such as Satria, an ancient town of Latium, and Saturae palus, a marsh also in Latium.
This root may be related to Latin phytonym satureia. Another epithet, variably Sterculius,
Stercutus, and Sterces, referred to his agricultural functions; this derives from stercus, "dung" or
"manure", referring to re-emergence from death to life. Agriculture was important to Roman identity,
and Saturn was a part of archaic Roman religion and ethnic identity.
His name appears in the ancient hymn of the Salian priests, and his temple was the oldest known
to have been recorded by the pontiffs.
Quintus Lucilius Balbus gives a separate etymology in Cicero's  De Natura Deorum .
In this interpretation, the agricultural aspect of Saturn would be secondary
to his primary relation with time and seasons. Since Time consumes all things,
Balbus asserts that the name Saturn comes from the Latin word satis;
Saturn being an anthropomorphic representation of Time, which is filled, or satiated, by all things
or all generations. Since agriculture is so closely linked to seasons and therefore
and understanding of the cyclical passage of time,
it follows that agriculture would then be associated with the deity Saturn.
Temple
The temple of Saturn was located at the base of the Capitoline Hill, according
to a tradition recorded by Varro formerly known as Saturnius Mons, and a row of columns
from the last rebuilding of the temple still stands. The temple was consecrated in 497 BC,
but the area Saturni was built by king Tullus Hostilius as confirmed
by archaeological studies conducted by E. Gjerstad.
It housed the state treasury throughout Roman history.
Festival's time
The position of Saturn's festival in the Roman calendar led to his association
with concepts of time, especially the temporal transition of the New Year. In the Greek tradition,
Cronus was sometimes conflated with Chronus, "Time,"
and his devouring of his children taken as an allegory for the passing of generations. The sickle
or scythe of Father Time is a remnant of the agricultural implement of Cronus-Saturn,
and his aged appearance represents the waning of the old year with the birth of the new,
in antiquity sometimes embodied by Aion. In late antiquity, Saturn is syncretized
with a number of deities, and begins to be depicted as winged, as is Kairos, "Timing, Right Time".
Theology and worship
 [^]  The figure of Saturn is one of the most complex in Roman religion. G. Dumézil refrained
from discussing Saturn in his work on Roman religion on the grounds of our insufficient knowledge.
On the contrary,
his follower Dominique Briquel has attempted a thorough interpretation of Saturn utilising Dumézil's
three-functional theory of Indoeuropean religion, taking the ancient testimonies
and the works of A. Brelich and G. Piccaluga as his basis.
The main difficulty scholars find in studying Saturn is in assessing what is original of his
figure and what is due to later hellenising influences. Moreover,
some features of the god may be common to Cronus, but are nonetheless very ancient
and can be considered proper to the Roman god, whereas others are certainly later
and arrived after 217 BC,
the year in which the Greek customs of the Kronia were introduced into the Saturnalia.
Among the features which are definitely authentic of the Roman god,
Briquel identifies: These three elements in Briquel's view indicate that Saturn is a sovereign god.
The god's strict relationship with the cults of the Capitoline Hill and in particular
with Jupiter are highlighted by the legends concerning the refusal of gods Iuventas and Terminus
to leave their abode in the shrines on the Capitol when the temple of Jupiter was to be built.
These two deities correspond to the helper gods of the sovereign in Vedic religion and
to the Cyclopes and Hecatonchires in Hesiod. Whereas the helper gods belong
to the second divine generation they become active only
at the level of the third in each of the three instances of India, Greece and Rome,
where they become a sort of continuation of Jupiter.
Dumézil postulated a split of the figure of the sovereign god in Indoeuropean religion,
which is embodied by Vedic gods Varuna and Mitra. Of the two,
the first one shows the aspect of the magic, uncanny, awe inspiring power of creation
and destruction,
while the second shows the reassuring aspect of guarantor of the legal order in organised social
life. Whereas in Jupiter these double features have coalesced,
Briquel sees Saturn as showing the characters of a sovereign god of the Varunian type.
His nature becomes evident in his mastership
over the annual time of crisis around the winter solstice,
epitomised in the power of subverting normal codified social order and its rules,
which is apparent in the festival of the Saturnalia, in the mastership of annual fertility
and renewal, in the power of annihilation present in his paredra Lua,
in the fact that he is the god of a timeless era of plenty and bounty before time,
which he reinstates at the time of the yearly crisis of the winter solstice. Also, in Roman
and Etruscan reckoning Saturn is a wielder of lightning; no other agricultural god is one.
Hence the mastership he has on agriculture
and wealth cannot be that of a god of the third function, i.e. of production, wealth, and pleasure,
but it stems from his magical lordship over creation and destruction. Although these features are
to be found in Greek god Cronus as well, it appears that those features were proper
to Roman Saturn’s most ancient aspects, such as his presence on the Capitol and his association
with Jupiter, who in the stories of the arrival of the Pelasgians in the land of the Sicels
and that of the Argei orders human sacrifices to him. Sacrifices
to Saturn were performed according to "Greek rite", with the head uncovered, in contrast
to those of other major Roman deities, which were performed capite velato, "with the head covered."
Saturn himself, however, was represented as veiled, as for example in a wall painting
from Pompeii that shows him holding a sickle and covered with a white veil.
This feature is in complete accord with the character of a sovereign god of the Varunian type
and is common with German god Odin.
Briquel remarks Servius had already seen that the choice of the Greek rite was due
to the fact that the god himself is imagined and represented as veiled,
thence his sacrifice cannot be carried out
by a veiled man: this is an instance of the reversal of the current order of things typical of the
nature of the deity as appears in its festival. Plutarch writes his figure is veiled,
because he is the father of truth. Pliny notes that the cult statue of Saturn was filled
with oil; the exact meaning of this is unclear. Its feet were bound with wool,
which was removed only during the Saturnalia. The fact that the statue was filled with oil
and the feet were bound with wool may relate back to the myth of "The Castration of Uranus".
In this myth Rhea gives Cronus a rock to eat in Zeus' stead, thus tricking Cronus.
Although mastership of knots is a feature of Greek origin it is also typical of the Varunian
sovereign figure, as apparent and more in Odin. Once Zeus was victorious over Cronus,
he sets this stone up at Delphi and constantly it is anointed with oil
and strands of unwoven wool are placed on it. It wore a red cloak,
and was brought out of the temple to take part in ritual processions and lectisternia, banquets
at which images of the gods were arranged as guests on couches.
All these ceremonial details identify a sovereign figure.
Briquel concludes that Saturn was a sovereign god of a time that the Romans perceived as no longer
actual, that of the legendary origins of the world, before civilization.
Little evidence exists in Italy for the cult of Saturn outside Rome,
but his name resembles that of the Etruscan god Satres.
The potential cruelty of Saturn was enhanced by his identification with Cronus, known
for devouring his own children. He was thus used in translation when referring to gods
from other cultures the Romans perceived as severe; he was equated
with the Carthaginian god Ba'al Hammon, to whom children were sacrificed, and to Yahweh,
whose Sabbath was first referred to as Saturni dies, "Saturn's day," in a poem by Tibullus, who wrote
during the reign of Augustus; eventually this gave rise to the word "Saturday" in English.
The identification with Ba'al Hammon later gave rise to the African Saturn,
a cult that enjoyed great popularity until the 4th century. It had a popular,
but also a mysteric character and required child sacrifices. It is also considered as inclining
to monotheism. In the ceremony of initiation the myste intrat sub iugum,
ritual that Leglay compares to the Roman tigillum sororium. Even though their origin
and theology are completely different the Italic and the African god are both sovereign and master
over time and death, fact that has permitted their encounter. Moreover,
here Saturn is not the real Italic god, but his Greek counterpart Cronus.
Saturnalia
Saturn is associated with a major religious festival in the Roman calendar, Saturnalia.
Saturnalia celebrated the harvest and sowing, and ran from December 17–23. During Saturnalia,
the social restrictions of Rome were relaxed. The figure of Saturn, kept during the year
with its legs bound in wool, was released from its bindings for the period of the festival.
The revelries of Saturnalia were supposed to reflect the conditions of the lost "Golden Age"
before the rule of Saturn was overthrown, not all of them desirable except as a temporary release
from civilized constraint. The Greek equivalent was the Kronia.
Macrobius presents an interpretation of the Saturnalia as a festival of light leading
to the winter solstice. The renewal of light
and the coming of the new year was celebrated in the later Roman Empire
at the Dies Natalis of Sol Invictus, the "Birthday of the Unconquerable Sun," on December 25.
Roman legend
 [^]  It was customary for the Romans to represent divine figures as kings of Latium
at the time of their legendary origins.
Macrobius states explicitly that the Roman legend of Janus and Saturn is an affabulation,
as the true meaning of religious beliefs cannot be openly expressed.
In the myth Saturn was the original and autochthonous ruler of the Capitolium,
which had thus been called the Mons Saturnius in older times
and on which once stood the town of Saturnia.
He was sometimes regarded as the first king of Latium or even the whole of Italy. At the same time,
there was a tradition that Saturn had been an immigrant god, received by Janus after he was usurped
by his son Jupiter and expelled from Greece. In Versnel's view his contradictions—a foreigner
with one of Rome's oldest sanctuaries,
and a god of liberation who is kept in fetters most of the year—indicate Saturn's capacity
for obliterating social distinctions. [^]  The Golden Age of Saturn's reign in Roman mythology differed
from the Greek tradition. He arrived in Italy "dethroned and fugitive,", but brought agriculture
and civilization for which he was rewarded by Janus with a share of the kingdom,
becoming himself king. As the Augustan poet Virgil described it,
"He gathered together the unruly race" of fauns and nymphs "scattered over mountain heights,
and gave them laws..
Under his reign were the golden ages men tell of: in such perfect peace he ruled the nations."
He was considered the ancestor of the Latin nation as he fathered Picus, the first king of Latium,
who married Janus' daughter Canens and in his turn fathered Faunus. Saturn was also said
to have founded the five Saturnian towns of Latium: Aletrium, Anagnia, Arpinum, Atina
and Ferentinum all located in the Latin Valley, province of Frosinone.
All these towns are surrounded by cyclopical walls; their foundation is traditionally ascribed
to the Pelasgians. But Saturn also had a less benevolent aspect, as indicated
by the blood shed in his honor during gladiatorial munera.
His consort in archaic Roman tradition was Lua, sometimes called Lua Saturni and identified
with Lua Mater, "Mother Destruction,"
a goddess in whose honor the weapons of enemies killed in war were burned, perhaps as expiation.
H.S. Versnel, however, proposed that Lua Saturni should not be identified with Lua Mater,
but rather refers to "loosening"; she thus represents the liberating function of Saturn.
Gladiatorial munera
Saturn's chthonic nature connected him to the underworld and its ruler Dis Pater,
the Roman equivalent of Greek Plouton who was also a god of hidden wealth.
In 3rd-century AD sources and later, Saturn is recorded as receiving gladiatorial offerings during
or near the Saturnalia. These gladiator combats, ten days in all throughout December, were presented
by the quaestors and sponsored with funds from the treasury of Saturn.
The practice of gladiatorial munera was criticized
by Christian apologists as a form of human sacrifice.
Although there is no evidence of this practice during the Republican era,
the offering of gladiators led
to later theorizing that the primeval Saturn had demanded human victims.
Macrobius says that Dis Pater was placated with human heads and Saturn
with sacrificial victims consisting of men. The figurines that were exchanged as gifts
during the Saturnalia may have represented token substitutes.
On coins
 [^]  In 104 BC,
the plebeian tribune Lucius Appuleius Saturninus issued a denarius depicting Saturn driving a
four-horse chariot, a vehicle associated with rulers, triumphing generals, and sun gods.
Saturninus was a popularist politician who had proposed reduced-price grain distribution
to the poor of Rome. The head of the goddess Roma appears on the obverse.
The Saturnian imagery played on the tribune's name and his intent to alter the social hierarchy
to his advantage by basing his political support on the common people rather
than the senatorial elite.
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