previous next
Eratosthenes in Erigone tells a story of Icarius, that entertained Bacchus under his roof; and it runs thus. Saturn, having taken up his lodging with an husbandman who had a very beautiful daughter named Entoria, took her to his bed, and had several sons by her, Janus, Hymnus, Faustus, and Felix. He taught his host Icarius the use of wine and the way of dressing his vines, with a charge that he should likewise instruct his neighbors in the mystery. His acquaintance, hereupon finding that this strange drink had cast them into a deeper sleep than ordinary, [p. 457] took a fancy that they were poisoned, and stoned Icarius in revenge; whereupon his grandchildren hanged themselves for grief.

Upon a time, when the plague was very hot in Rome, the Pythian oracle being consulted gave this answer, that upon the appeasing the wrath of Saturn, and the Manes of those that were unjustly killed, the pestilence would cease. Lutatius Catulus, a man of the first quality, caused a temple upon this occasion to be erected near the Tarpeian Mount, which he dedicated to Saturn, placing an altar in it with four faces; possibly with a respect to Saturn's four children, or to the four seasons of the year. He also instituted the month of January. But Saturn translated them all to heaven among the stars, some of which are called Protrygeteres, as forerunners of the vintage; only Janus rises first, and has his place at the feet of the Virgin.—Critolaus, in his Fourth Book of Celestial Appearances.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Greek (Gregorius N. Bernardakis, 1889)
load focus English (Frank Cole Babbitt, 1936)
load focus Greek (Frank Cole Babbitt, 1936)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: