Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/664

648 The association of Cronus with the sea is not much emphasized: one version of his story makes him sail away to the Isles of the Blessed, but another represents him wandering for a long time on sea, and at last arriving on the west coast of Italy, whence he sailed up the Tiber as far as the Janiculum, where he is said to have been kindly received by Janus who lived there. For the Romans identified Cronus, and doubtless on the whole correctly, with their own Saturn. He was then believed to have taught Janus and his subjects various useful arts, such as that of ship-building and coining money, whence the Roman pieces with the head of Janus on one side and the ship of Saturn on the other; to which may be added the fact that the cellar beneath the latter's temple came to be the treasury of the city. Above all, Saturn was associated in many ways with agriculture: thus his name in its oldest form of Saeturnus appears to have referred to sowing; and the practice of manuring the ground was traced to him, whence he derived such epithets as Sterculus, Stercutus and the like. Moreover, the Saturnalia recalled his name, and the Saturnia Regna or the golden age of peace and plenty, when he was supposed to have reigned. It is not easy to determine exactly the extent of the influence of Greek mythology on the Saturn legend and cult, but I see no reason to suppose that the habit of associating him either with farming or shipping was an imported one.

My object in dwelling so long on this is not to draw another parallel between Cronus or Saturn and Fergus