43. 



.with tliemseh''es, ia Stating the first golden age, at least, to 

 have taken place in tlie reign of Satimi. How the}' were 

 led into this inconsistency and anachronism, I shall now 

 shew. 



There were two traditions current amongst the Greeks con- 

 cerning Satttm, and though contradictory to each other, yet 

 Hesiod followed both. The first is stated by Diodorus, p. 383, 

 to have been the only one received and credited by the 

 Cretans, who themselves were Greeks. According to this tra- 

 dition Satu7-7i was a wise and just prince, under Avhom his 

 subjects were perfectly happy, and his reign was called the 

 golden age. This tradition Hesiod follows in his poem De 

 Operibus et Diebus. 



According to the second tradition, which was more gene- 

 rally received in Greece, Saturn was a monster of impiety 

 and avarice, Diodor. Lib. 3. p. 229, 30. This Was evidently 

 derived from the Phenicians, for Sanchonialho accuses him 

 of various crimes, warring, dethroning and emasculating his 

 father, and destroying his own children, Euseb. 36, 37, 38. 

 This tradition Hesiod follows in his Theogony, v. 46 1, &c. 

 and adds, that he was dethroned by his son Jupiter, ai>d con- 

 fined. Succeeding poets feigned that Jupiter treated hira as 

 he treated his- father.* The Latin poets say,^ that he escaped 

 into Italy, where he lay concealed from his son, and hence 

 Italy was called Latium, Ovid, Lit*. 1. Fasti. Virgil, iEneid.. 

 ;. i.> Lib. 



* Statins, Theb. Lib. *. Claiid. de Haptu Proserpina;, Lib. I. ; and among the 

 Greeks the ancient historian Timifus. 



