PART
6 –
Ch.XXXVI.5
The
Great Pelasgian empire
(The
reign of Saturn)
XXXVI.
5. Saturn’s war with Jove (Titanomachia).
Saturn grew old
(Saturnus senex) and weary because of his many expeditions to far away
countries (Philo, Phoen. Hist. fr.
2. 24; Tertullianus, adv. Gentes, c.
10), made with the purpose of founding a single monarchy over the entire
ancient world, a single government, the same laws and the same religion, and to
introduce everywhere in the empire the benefits of agriculture, but he still
had to sustain a 10 years long and fierce war with his son Jove, war which
ended with his dethronement and the total annihilation of the ancient Pelasgian
nobility, the Titans.
The causes of this
war were, according to Greek traditions, on the one hand the troubles existing
between Saturn and his wife Rhea, and on the other hand the harshness shown by
Saturn to the powerful class of the Titans, with the help of whom he had
dethroned Uranos, but whom he had again thrown in subterranean prisons, because
these Titans were always conspiring, always wanted to be masters.
Saturn, as the
ancients tell us, being forewarned by the oracle that one of his sons will oust
him (Hesiodus, Theog. v. 463 seqq; Apollodorus, Bibl. I. 1. 5; Diodorus, I. V. 70), had tried many
times to kill the children born by his wife Rhea. But notwithstanding his
precautions, the decisions of his destiny were fulfilled. Rhea, being pregnant
for the sixth time, ran to the
In the first war
Saturn was defeated and forced to withdraw to Ianus, in
Incensed by the
revolution taking place in his empire, Saturn called again the Titans to arms,
asking for their help to decide their fate one way or another (Ovid, Fast. III. 796; Hyginus, Fab. 150). Saturn was again
defeated. He was caught, chained (Cicero,
N. D. II. 24; II. 25; Plato,
Euthyphro, c. 6) and thrown into the cave, or the dark cavern called Tartaros by Greek sources, and Tatu in Egyptian papyri.
As the historian Thallus tells us (fragm. 2 in Fragm.
Hist. gr. III. 517), Belus, the king of Babylonia and Assyria, had helped
Staurn in this war, and had fought together with the Titans of his kingdom
against Jove and his other allies.
The Greek poems
present this war as a general commotion of the mortal people, of the men gods,
and of all the elements of nature.
The clamor of the
war, writes Hesiodus, rose to the
sky, Jove threw continuously his thunderbolts from Olympus, the earth shook and
started to scream, the fire engulfed the huge woods, the Ocean (Istru) and the
vast Pontos boiled, the entire atmosphere burnt, and it seemed that the sky had
blended with the earth (Theog. v. 678 seqq).
We find the same
picture with the poet Quintus: the
sky poured on the Titans all the power of its fire; the earth took fire and the
flames engulfed the Titans from everywhere; the vast river of the Ocean started
to boil in its depths, the springs dried up, and all the animals born by the
earth perished (Posthomer, V. 104; VIII, 461 seqq).
The place where all
these extraordinary war events happened was, as results from the ancient
traditions and legends, near Oceanos potamos (Istru), close to Atlas mountain (Hesiodus, Theog. v. 746; Hyginus, Fab. 150), on the territory of
ancient Dacia.
The defeated
troupes of the Titans withdrew towards the west, to the mountainous region called
Tartaros (Homer, Iliad, XIV. 279; VIII. 481; Hymn. Apoll. v. 335-6; Hesiodus, Theog. v. 721), or Tatu by the Egyptians, at the Iron Gates, sidareiai pylai (Homer, Iliad, VIII. 13-15), “Porta Ser” in Egyptian papyri (Pierret, Le livre d. morts, p. 58) and
the high Riphei mountains, behind which the sun passes into another
geographical world, that of the dark, or of the night (Orpheus, Argon. v. 1123; Hesiodus,
Theog. v. 748; Homer, Odyss. XI. 14
seqq).
In the middle of
these mountains, “covered by fog and by dark woods”, the glorious troupes of
the Titans sustained the last defensive battles, but they were defeated and
overwhelmed by Jove’s army and by the flames of the burning woods. This group
of mountains, called by the ancients “Tartaros” and “Tatu”, seem to have been
the strong citadel formed by the western ridge of Cerna, where three principal peaks still bear today the same name:
one Tatul, another Tatoia (fem.) and the third Tatar (Generalkarte; Specialkarte d. oesterr.-ung.), an old dialectal form
of “Tatal” and “Tatan”.
The memory of these
prehistoric events, which took place in this region, is still preserved in a
great number of legends, traditions and old songs of the Romanian people.
The historian Dio Cassius, who lived in the 2nd
century ad, also mentions a cave on the territory of the Getae, called Keiren,
vast and strong (without doubt a cave in the deep roots of Cerna mountains), where, says he, the Titans, defeated by the gods,
had withdrawn, according to legends.
This war ended with
the total annihilation of the ancient and illustrious noble class of the
Titans, called theoi Titanes (Homer,
Iliad, XIV. 378), genus antiquum Terrae
and Terrae filii (Virgil, Aen. vI. 580), which in fact
seems to have been the very purpose of the southern coalition, because,
according to the ancients, the Titans and the Giants (Gigantes) had placed the
other peoples under the heavy yoke of slavery.
The Greek authors
attributed to Jove the honorific epithet of Titanochtonos, killer of
Titans (Homer, Batr. V. 282), and
this entire war was celebrated in ancient Greek literature under the name Titanomachia,
the divine defeat of this powerful and arrogant race.
Part of the Titans
faithful to Saturn, were imprisoned alive in the caves, or the dark depths
called “Tartaros”. Those who managed to escape the wrath of the new master of
the world, emigrated and were scattered through various parts of the western
world.
Their genealogic
name of Titans, meaning from the
race or the family of the Titans, still appears
in various regions of Italy, Gallia, Dalmatia and Pannonia during the
Roman epoch, and until late in the Middle Ages [1].
[1. According to Ravennas (ed. Parthey, p. 292), the
One Tetenius is mentioned on an inscription from
In
The traditions of
the ancients are not quite clear about the place where Saturn had been buried.
According to some
mentions found with Homer and Hesiodus, Saturn had been thrown underground near
Oceanos potamos (Iliad, XIV. 204), or had been buried alive, together with the
other Titans, in the precipice, or vast and dark cave, called Tartaros (Homer, Iliad, VIII, 482; XIV, 274 seqq;
Hesiodus, Theog. v. 851; Eschyl, Prom. vinct. v. 219; Apollonius Rhodius, I. 507).
Finally, there is
another tradition, which presents Saturn as living in the blessed islands from Oceanos potamos, where he reigns over the
souls of the deceased heroes (Hesiodus,
Op. v. 169; Pindar, Olymp. II. 136).
As we know, the
most renowned of these blessed islands had been Leuce, or the “Serpents’ island”, near the mouths of the Danube,
also called the “dwelling of the souls”, sedes
animarum (Avienus, Descr. orb.
v. 724), where, as the poet Arctinos
said (Homer, Carmina, ed. Didot, p.
583), the ashes of Achilles had been taken and buried [2].
[2. According to Philochorus (fragm. 184), Saturn had
been buried in