PREHISTORIC
PART
6 –
Ch.XXXVI
The
Great Pelasgian empire
The
reign of Saturn (Kronos)
XXXVI.
1. The reign of Saturn in
According to what Diodorus Siculus says, the traditions
of the inhabitants from near Atlas mountain told the following about the reign
of Saturn over the ancient world:
After the death of
Uranos, the sovereign power over the empire passed on to his daughter Basilea (Lat. Regina), who had married
her elder brother Hyperion. But, Hyperion dieing, the other sons of Uranos
divided among themselves the empire of their father. Among these sons Atlas and Saturn especially distinguished themselves. Atlas received the
regions near the river Oceanos (Istru), and Saturn, who had married Rhea, his
second sister, ruled over Sicily, Libya,
Italy, and especially over the regions from sundown, en tois pros esperan topois (III. c.
57-61, 66; V. 66. 5), understand the western parts of Atlas mountain, called by
the ancients Hesperia (Ovid, Metam. IV. 618).
During the reign of
Saturn, like in the times of Uranos, the political and military center of the
empire was in the northern parts of the Istru, in the regions of Atlas
mountain, or of ancient
Zalmoxe, the great philosopher and legislator of
the Getae, had been, by Greek traditions, the same as Saturn (Mnaseas, in
Fragm. Hist. gr. III. 153. 23).
Pliny also mentions a civilizing person of the
ancient world called Dokius, filius Caeli (Dacianul, the son of Uranos),
who according to this genealogy cannot be other than Saturn.
From a political
point of view, the entire Hem
peninsula belonged to the Pelasgian empire, although it was probably divided in
a number of smaller states. Saturn, as Philo
writes (fragm 2 in Fragm. Hist. gr. III. 569), had given his daughter Athena the
Saturn’s
sovereignty extended also over the Germans.
According to Tacitus, the Germans celebrated in their historical songs, as
founders of their nation, Tuisto,
“deus Terra editus” (Uranos) and his son Mannus
(Saturn).
The Francs, people of German origin,
venerated Saturn, as Gregorius of Tours
writes (II. 29-33).
The ancient Saxons
also. Hengist, one of the dukes of the Saxon tribes which had landed in
Britannia (cca 445ad), says the following to king Vortigern: “we venerate the
deities of our parents, Saturn and
the other gods who govern the world” (Galfredus
Monemut, lib. VI. ed. 1587, p. 43; Grimm,
D. M. 116).
The Galii and other western nations, writes
Dionysius of Halikarnassus (I.38),
sacrificed to Saturn human victims. The North Sea was called by the ancient
geographers the Sea of Saturn, Kronios
‘Ocheanos, Kronios pontos, Mare
cronium (Ptolemy, Geogr. I. 1; Pliny, lib. IV, 27, 4; 30. 3; Apollonius Rhodius, IV. 323 – according
to the latter though, the