i 



S9 



divided the world between them, though they disfigured it; 

 for to Jupiter they assigned the dominion of heaven and 

 earth, to Neptune that of the sea and to Pluto, the subter- 

 raneous regions. 



Cicero* remarks, that there were three persons called 

 Jupiter ; one, Avhose name was Mther, another, whose father 

 was Ccelum, and a third, whose father was Saturn. Now this 

 last being the most celebrated of the three, the most noted 

 actions of the other two, however disgraceful, were by the 

 poets attributed to him. Hence arose the various tales of 

 his scandalous intrigues. Moreover, Fhilo Byblius relates, 

 that the Phenicians were wont to bestow the names of their 

 kings on the elements, even on such of them as were already 

 supposed tobeGods;-f- consequently on Jupiter a.r\d Juno, 

 the divinities of the air, on Neptune, the God of the sea, on 

 Vulcan, the God of fire, and Vesta, the Goddess of the earth. 

 Thus the good and evil actions of those kings were, in pro- 

 cess of time, attributed to those divinities. This afforded to 

 the Greeks, who borrowed their religion from the Phenicians, 

 a sufficient excuse for ascribing many ridiculous, nay, even 

 wicked actions, to those divinities. Thus a copious source 

 of fables was opened to them. 



Besides the multiplicity of Jupiters, Cicero also reckons 

 (our A polios, two Dianas, four that bore the name of Fe?<Ms, 

 five Mi7iervas, three of the name of Hercules.^ All these, 



he 



* De Natura Deoruni, Lib. 3. cap. 21. f Euseb, 33. 



X De Natura Csorum, Lib. 3. cap. 22. 23. See also Musgrave, p. 95. 



