SATURN was the son of Coelus and TitÆa or Terra, and married his sister Vesta. She, with her other sisters, persuaded their mother to join them in a plot, to exclude Titan, their elder brother, from his birthright, and raise Saturn to his father's throne. Their design so far succeeded, that Titan was obliged to resign his claim, though on condition, that Saturn brought up no male children, and thus the succession might revert to the Titans again. Saturn, it is said, observed this covenant so faithfully, that he devoured, as soon as they were born, his legitimate sons. His punctuality, however, in this respect, was at last frustrated by the artifice of Vesta, who, being delivered of twins, Jupiter and Juno, presented the latter to her husband, and concealing the former, sent him to be nursed on Mount Ida in Crete, committing the care of him to the Curētes and Corybantes.

The reign of Saturn was so mild and happy, that the poets have given it the name of the golden age. The people, who before wandered about like beasts, were then reduced to civil society; laws were enacted, and the art of tilling and sowing the ground introduced; whence Varro tells us, that Saturn had his name a satu, from sowing.

He was usually represented as an old man, bare-headed and bald, with all the marks of infirmity in his eyes, countenance, and figure. In his right hand they sometimes placed a sickle or scythe; at others, a key, and a circumflexed serpent biting its tail, in his left. He sometimes was pictured with six wings, and feet of wool, to show how insensibly and swiftly time passes. The scythe denoted his cutting down and subverting all things, and the serpent the revolution of the year, quod in sese volvitur annus.

JANUS was a pagan deity, particularly of the ancient Romans. He was esteemed the wisest sovereign of his time, and because he was supposed to know what was past, and what was to come, they feigned that he had two faces, whence the Latins gave him the epithets of Biceps, Bifrons, and Biformis.

He is introduced by Ovid as describing his origin, office and form: he was the ancient Chaos, or confused mass of matter before the formation of the world, the reduction of which into order and regularity, gave him his divinity. Thus deified, he had the power of opening and shutting every thing in the universe: he was arbiter of peace and war, and keeper of the door of heaven. He was the god who presided over the beginning of all undertakings; the first libations of wine and wheat were offered to him, and the preface of all prayers directed to him. The first month of the year took its denomination from Janus.

It is certain that Janus early obtained divine honors among the Romans. Numa ordained that his temple should be shut in time of peace, and opened in time of war, from which ceremony Janus was called Clusius and Patulcius.

The peculiar offerings to Janus were cakes of new meal and salt, with new wine and frankincense. In the feasts instituted by Numa, the sacrifice was a ram, and the solemnities were performed by men, in the manner of exercises and combats. Then all artificers and tradesmen began their works, and the Roman consuls for the new year solemnly entered on their office: all quarrels were laid aside, mutual presents were made, and the day concluded with joy and festivity. Janus was seated in the centre of twelve altars, in allusion to the twelve months of the year, and had on his hands fingers to the amount of the days in the year. Sometimes his image had four faces, either in regard to the four seasons of the year, or to the four quarters of the world: he held in one hand a key, and in the other a sceptre; the former may denote his opening, as it were, and shutting the world, by the admission and exclusion of light; and the latter his dominion over it.

VULCAN was the offspring of Jupiter and Juno. He was so remarkably deformed that Jupiter threw him down from heaven to the isle of Lemnos. In this fall he broke his leg, as he also would have broken his neck, had he not been caught by the Lemnians. It is added that he was a day in falling from heaven to earth. Some report that Juno herself, disgusted at his deformity, hurled down Vulcan into the sea, where he was nursed by Thetis and her nymphs, whilst others contend that he fell upon land, and was brought up by apes. It is probable that Juno had some hand in his disgrace, since Vulcan, afterwards, in resentment of the injury, presented his mother with a golden chair, which was so contrived by springs unseen, that being seated in it she was unable to rise, till the inventor was prevailed upon to grant her deliverance.

The first abode of Vulcan on earth was in the isle of Lemnos. There he set up his forges, and taught men the malleability and polishing of metals. Thence he removed to the Liparean islands, near Sicily, where, with the assistance of the Cyclops, he made Jupiter fresh thunder-bolts as the old ones decayed. He also wrought an helmet for Pluto, which rendered him invisible; a trident for Neptune, which shook both land and sea; and a dog of brass for Jupiter, which he animated so as to perform the functions of nature. At the request of Thetis he fabricated the divine armor of Achilles, whose shield is so beautifully described by Homer; as also the invincible armor of Æneas, at the entreaty of Venus. However disagreeable the person of Vulcan might be, he was susceptible notwithstanding of love. His first passion was for Minerva, having Jupiter's consent to address her; but his courtship, in this instance, failed of success, not only on account of his person, but also because the goddess had vowed perpetual virginity. He afterwards became the husband of Venus.

He was reckoned among the gods presiding over marriage, from the torches lighted by him to grace that solemnity. It was the custom in several nations, after gaining a victory, to pile the arms of the enemy in a heap on the field of battle, and make a sacrifice of them to Vulcan. As to his worship, Vulcan had an altar in common with Prometheus, who first invented fire, as did Vulcan the use of it, in making arms and utensils. His principal temple was in a consecrated grove at the foot of mount Ætna, in which was a fire continually burning. This temple was guarded by dogs, which had the discernment to distinguish his votaries by tearing the vicious, and fawning upon the virtuous.

He was highly honored at Rome. Romulus built him a temple without the walls of the city, the augurs being of opinion that the god of fire ought not to be admitted within. But the highest mark of respect paid him by the Romans was, that those assemblies were kept in his temple where the most important concerns of the republic were debated, the Romans thinking they could invoke nothing more sacred to confirm their treaties and decisions, than the avenging fire of which that god was the symbol.

This deity, as the god of fire, was represented differently in different nations: the Egyptians depicted him proceeding from an egg, placed in the mouth of Jupiter, to denote the radical or natural heat diffused through all created beings. In ancient gems and medals he is figured as a lame, deformed and squalid man, with a beard, and hair neglected; half naked; his habit reaching down to his knee only, and having a round peaked cap on his head, a hammer in his right hand, and a smith's tongs in his left, working at the anvil, and usually attended by the Cyclops, or by some of the gods or goddesses for whom he is employed.The poets described him as blackened and hardened from the forge, with a face red and fiery whilst at his work, and tired and heated after it. He is almost always the subject either of pity or ridicule. In short, the great celestial deities seem to have admitted Vulcan among them as great men used to keep buffoons at their tables, to make them laugh, and to be the butt of the whole company.

If we wish to come at the probable meaning of this fable, we must have recourse to Egyptian antiquities. The Horus of the Egyptians was the most mutable figure on earth, for he assumed shapes suitable to all seasons, and to all ranks. To direct the husbandman he wore a rural dress; by a change of attributes he became the instructer of smiths and other artificers, whose instruments he appeared adorned with. This Horus of the smiths had a short or lame leg, to signify that agriculture or husbandry will halt without the assistance of the handicraft or mechanic arts. In this apparatus he was called Mulciber, (from Mulci, to direct and manage, and ber or beer, a cave or mine, comes Mulciber, the king of the mines or forges;) he was called also Hephaistos, (from Aph, father, and Esto, fire, comes Ephaisto, or Hephaiston, the father of fire; and from Wall, to work, and Canan, to hasten, comes Wolcon, Vulcan, or work furnished;) all which names the Greeks and Romans adopted with the figure, and, as usual, converted from a symbol to a god.

ÆOLUS, god of the winds, is said to have been the son of Jupiter by Acasta or Sigesia, daughter of Hippotas. His residence was, according to most authors, at Rhegium in Italy; but wherever it was, he is represented as holding the winds, enchained in a vast cave, to prevent their committing any more such devastations as they had before occasioned; for, to their violence was imputed not only the disjunction of Sicily from Italy, but also the separation of Europe from Africa, by which a passage was opened for the ocean to form the Mediterranean sea. According to some, the Æolian, or Lipări islands were uninhabited till Lipărus, son of Auson, settled a colony there, and gave one of them his name. Æŏlus married his daughter Cyăne, peopled the rest and succeeded him on the throne. He was a generous and good prince, who hospitably entertained Ulysses, and as a proof of his kindness, bestowed on him several skins, in which he had enclosed the winds. The companions of Ulysses, unable to restrain their curiosity, having opened the skins, the winds in consequence were set free, and occasioned the wildest uproar; insomuch that Ulysses lost all his vessels, and was himself alone saved by a plank. It may not be improper to remark, that over the rougher winds the poets have placed Æŏlus; over the milder, Juno; and the rain, thunder and lightning they have committed to Jupiter himself.

MOMUS, son of Somnus and Nox, was the god of pleasantry and wit, or rather the jester of the celestial assembly; for, like other monarchs, it was but reasonable that Jupiter too should have his fool. We have an instance of Momus's fantastic humor in the contest between Neptune, Minerva, and Vulcan, for skill. The first had made a bull, the second a house, and the third a man. Momus found fault with them all. He disliked the bull because his horns were not placed before his eyes, that he might give a surer blow: he condemned Minerva's house because it was immovable, and could not therefore be taken away if placed in a bad neighborhood; and in regard to Vulcan's man, he said he ought to have made a window in his breast, by which his heart might be seen, and his secrets discovered.