Saturn ( la, Sāturnus ) was a god in ancient Roman religion, and a character in

Roman mythology Roman mythology is the body of myths of ancient Rome as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans. One of a wide variety of genres of Roman folklore, ''Roman mythology'' may also refer to the modern study of these representa ...

. He was described as a god of time, generation, dissolution, abundance, wealth, agriculture, periodic renewal and liberation. Saturn's mythological reign was depicted as a

Golden Age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the '' Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages, Gold being the first and the one during which the G ...

of abundance and peace. After the

Roman conquest of Greece Greece in the Roman era describes the Roman conquest of Greece, as well as the period of Greek history when Greece was dominated first by the Roman Republic and then by the Roman Empire. The Roman era of Greek history began with the Corinthian ...

, he was conflated with the Greek Titan

Cronus In Ancient Greek religion and mythology, Cronus, Cronos, or Kronos ( or , from el, Κρόνος, ''Krónos'') was the leader and youngest of the first generation of Titans, the divine descendants of the primordial Gaia (Mother Earth) an ...

. Saturn's consort was his sister

Ops In ancient Roman religion, Ops or ''Opis'' (Latin: "Plenty") was a fertility deity and earth goddess of Sabine origin. Her equivalent in Greek mythology was Rhea. Iconography In Ops' statues and coins, she is figured sitting down, as Chthon ...

, with whom he fathered

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousand ...

, Neptune,

Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the S ...

, Juno, Ceres and Vesta. Saturn was especially celebrated during the festival of Saturnalia each December, perhaps the most famous of the Roman festivals, a time of feasting, role reversals, free speech, gift-giving and revelry. The Temple of Saturn in the Roman Forum housed the state treasury and archives ('' aerarium'') of the

Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Ki ...

and the early

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...

. The planet Saturn and the day of the week

Saturday Saturday is the day of the week between Friday and Sunday. No later than the 2nd century, the Romans named Saturday ("Saturn's Day") for the planet Saturn, which controlled the first hour of that day, according to Vettius Valens. The da ...

are both named after and were associated with him.

Mythology

The Roman land preserved the remembrance of a very remote time during which Saturn and Janus reigned on the site of the city before its foundation: the Capitol was called . The Romans identified Saturn with the Greek

, whose myths were adapted for

Latin literature Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. The beginning of formal Latin literature dates to 240 BC, when the first stage play in Latin was performed in Rome. Latin literature ...

and Roman art. In particular, Cronus's role in the genealogy of the Greek gods was transferred to Saturn. As early as Andronicus

was called the son of Saturn. Saturn had two mistresses who represented different aspects of the god. The name of his wife,

, the Roman equivalent of Greek ''Rhea'', means "wealth, abundance, resources."
The association with Ops is considered a later development, however, as this goddess was originally paired with Consus. Earlier was Saturn's association with Lua ("destruction, dissolution, loosening"), a goddess who received the bloodied weapons of enemies destroyed in war. Under Saturn's rule, humans enjoyed the spontaneous bounty of the earth without labour in the "Golden Age" described by

Hesiod Hesiod (; grc-gre, Ἡσίοδος ''Hēsíodos'') was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded by western authors as 'the first written poet i ...

and

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom ...

. He became known as the god of time.

Etymology and epithets

According to Varro, Saturn's name was derived from ''satus'', meaning "sowing". Even though this etymology is problematic from the viewpoint of modern linguistics (for, while historically-motivated vowel length alternations do occur in Latin roots, the long ''ā'' in ''Sāturnus'' in particular remains unexplained with this etymology, and also because of the epigraphically attested form ''Saeturnus''), nevertheless it does reflect an original feature of the god. Perhaps a more probable etymology connects the name with the Etruscan god '' Satre'' and placenames such as ''Satria'', an ancient town of Latium, and ''Saturae palus'', a marsh also in Latium. This root may be related to Latin

phytonym {{Short pages monitor