"_Aurea_, quæ perhibent, _illo sub rege_ fuerunt _Sæcula_; sed placidâ populos in pace regebat, Deterior donec paulatim ac discolor ætas Et belli rabies et amor successit habendi."[170] [170] Bryant (Mythology, ii. 261) says:--"He is by Lucian made to say of himself [Greek: oudeis hyp' emou doulos ên]. The Latins in great measure confine his history to their own country, where, like Janus, he is represented as refining and modelling mankind, and giving them laws. At other times he is introduced as prior to law; which are seeming contrarieties very easy to be reconciled." There were traditions also of Saturn in Crete and Sparta.--_Bryant_, iii. 414. Allowing for the confusion incidental to the deification of Noah in the person of Saturn, which necessitates his descent from heaven, the rest of the verses seem merely to describe what is recorded in tradition, if not implied in the scriptural narrative, that Noah, a voyager and exile, his possessions having been lost in the Flood, flying the wrath--not indeed as directed against himself, but the consequences of the wrath of the Almighty[171]--persuaded the survivors of the Flood to abandon the mountains, to which they clung in fear of a second Deluge, and brought them into the plains, incited and encouraged by his example,--he who, if he be the same (_vide supra_, 208, 209) with Nin and Nebo, we have seen called "the sustainer," "the supporter," "he who strengthens the hearts of his followers," who taught them the cultivation of the soil, and of whom it is now said more distinctly than we have seen it heretofore stated, _legesque dedit_.[172] [171] _Vide supra_, p. 211. [172] An indirect argument in proof of the identity of Saturn and Noah might be adduced if I had space to incorporate Boulanger's evidence of the ceremonies among the ancients' commemoration of the Deluge, ("Vestiges d'usages hydrophoriques dans plusieurs fêtes anciennes et modernes"). This being assumed, is it not of some significance that when the Roman pontiffs proceeded to the banks of the Tiber to perform their annual (commemorative) ceremonial, that they should make their expiatory sacrifices to Saturn? The points that Bryant takes (ii. 262) are very striking:--"He was looked upon as the _author_ of time, 'Ipse qui _auctor_ temporum' (Macrob. i. 214). [His medals had on the reverse the figure of _a ship_.] They represented him as of an uncommon age, with hair white as snow; they had a notion that he _would return to second childhood_. 'Ipsius autem canities primosis nivibus candicabat; _licet etiam ille puer posse fieri crederetur_.'--Martianus Capella. Martial's address to him, though short, has in it something remarkable, for he speaks of him as a native _of the former world_--