Saturn. This was one of the most ancient of the gods, called Chronos by the Greeks and Saturnus by the Romans. He was said to be the son of Uranos and Titaea, i.e. the heavens and the earth, and to have possessed the first government of the universe. His wife was Rhea, who was his sister. Saturn and his five brethren were called Titans, probably from their mother; Rhea and her five sisters likewise Titanides. Saturn seized upon the government of the universe by his superiority over his father and brothers yet pledged himself to rear no male children; accordingly he is represented as devouring his sons as soon as born. But this fate, three of them, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, escaped, through the artifice of Rhea, their mother, who gave him stones to devour instead of the children at their birth. Jupiter aided Saturn in recovering his throne, after he had been driven from it by his brothers, the Titans, and bound in Tartarus. But soon he made war, himself, upon Saturn, and seized the government.
