SATURN 



^220 



SATYR 



particle moving in its own orbit round the 

 planet, the whole producing the effect of a 

 gauzelike ring, resembling particles of dust in 

 a ray of sunlight. The outer and larger ring 

 has a diameter of 173,000 miles and a thickness 

 of probably 100 miles. 



Saturn's Satellites. The system of which 

 Saturn is the center is enormous. The largest 

 of the ten satellites, Titan, was discovered by 

 Huyghens in 1665. It is not visible to the 

 naked eye, but can easily be found with the 

 aid of a small telescope. Its distance from 

 Saturn is 770,000 miles, and it has a diameter 

 of 3,000 or 4,000 miles, its mass being about 

 double that of our moon. Another of the 

 satellites, lapetus, is 2,225,000 miles from the 

 planet and revolves round it in seventy-nine 



dom. He taught the people agriculture and 

 useful arts, and his reign in Italy was known as 

 the Golden Age. Saturn is shown in art as an 

 old man bent with infirmities. In his hand he 

 holds a scythe and a serpent which bites its 

 own tail emblems of time and of the year. 

 Saturn himself is the personification of time, 

 and the story of his swallowing his children is 

 but an allegorical way of saying that time 

 creates only to destroy. 



SATURNALIA, saturna'lia, an ancient Ro- 

 man festival in honor of Saturn, the god who 

 presided over the sowing of the seed. The 

 festival began on December 17 and lasted under 

 the Caesars for seven days. The first day was 

 devoted to public religious rites, and sacrifices 

 were offered to Saturn; the usual family sacri- 



THE PLANET SATURN 



At left, as seen through a small telescope. At right, the rings, seen edgewise, appear as a thin, 

 luminous line crossing the globe of the planet. 



days. The tenth and smallest of the satellites 

 was discovered in 1905. F.ST.A. 



Related Subjects. For illustration of com- 

 parative sizes of Saturn and the other planets 

 and their distances from the sun, see PLANET. 

 Other articles to which reference is suggested are 

 the following: 



Astronomy Solar System 



Nebular Hypothesis Star 



SAT 'URN, in classical mythology, the 

 youngest of the Titans and son of Uranus and 

 Gaea. He overthrew his father and became 

 ruler of the universe and was happy until the 

 birth of his first child. Then he remembered 

 that an oracle had declared that he should be 

 dethroned by his child, and to prevent this he 

 swallowed the babe. Four other children met 

 a like fate, but when Jupiter, the sixth and last, 

 was born, the mother concealed the babe and 

 gave Saturn in its stead a stone, wrapped in 

 child's clothing, which he swallowed without 

 noticing the substitution. When Jupiter grew 

 up he dethroned his father and banished him to 

 Italy, where he set up a most prosperous king- 



fice was a young pig. The festival was entirely 

 one of mirth, the schools observed holidays, 

 the courts of law were closed, and banquets and 

 family gatherings were held. The Saturnalian 

 festivals were participated in by the slaves, who 

 were considered free for the time, and waited on 

 by their masters. The last days of the festival 

 were devoted to visiting and giving presents. 

 Little clay images were the principal gifts. 

 They were called sigillaria, and from the cus- 

 tom of giving these, the last days of the festival 

 were called the sigillaria. 



SATYR, safer, or sa'ter, in Greek my- 

 thology, a god of the woods, who had a man's 

 head and hairy body, but the ears, legs and feet 

 of a goat. Satyrs are associated with the wor- 

 ship of Bacchus, and appear in the chorus of 

 the dramas acted at the Bacchic festivals. Pan 

 was the chief of the satyrs. 



Related Subjects. The reader is referred to 

 the following articles in these volumes : 



Fauns Pan 



Mythology Silenus 



