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| Io, Saturnalia! Tee |
But as with most Greek mythology, it is best to look beyond the borderline-nonsensical surface story to the larger cultural significance. And Saturn, of course, ruled over a golden age that only a dramatically transgressive act (like devouring your own offspring) could bring to an end.
As I look ahead to teaching mythology next year, and as I indulge my various modern-day guilty pleasures (like the BBC's Robin Hood series), I ponder the ridiculousness of many ancient and modern myths. I hope to show my students that they should then ask "Why is this myth ridiculous in this particular way? What does it tell us about the people who created it, believed in it and derived great satisfaction from the different versions of it?"
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2 comments:
This raises an interesting question for me - how important was Saturn's association with Kronos' mythology to the Romans? While Kronos was (please correct me if I'm wrong) never worshipped by the Greeks and certainly never had a temple, Saturn's temple in Rome was very prominent and housed the city treasury, and he was revered as the founder of the Saturnian Golden Age. Do we know/have some idea roughly at what point the Roman gods started being association with Greek mythology? Do we know if Saturn, in his pre-Hellenistic Italian form, originally had this dark past?
The first certain indication of an identification with Kronos seems to be Livius Andronicus (3rd c. BC). There are less definite links before this, such as Saturn's rites being performed ritu graeco, "in the Greek fashion." But Saturn was always a god of opposites. He was connected both to the harvest and to the underworld (the festivals of chthonic gods occurred in December). Several classical authors attribute negative inflluences to his planet. So the answer to your excellent and very pertinent question is a resounding ... "maybe."
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