Deity

Saturn

SAT-urn

Roman Deities

As the face of the planet Saturn, the Roman Saturn embodies time, limitation, and mastery. Saturn is the Roman god of seed-sowing, agriculture, wealth, dissolution, periodic renewal, and, in later thought, of time itself. His mythic reign was remembered as a lost Golden Age of plenty, peace, and equality. His temple in the Forum housed the state treasury, and his great December festival, the Saturnalia, was a time of feasting, gift-giving, free speech, and the reversal of ranks between masters and slaves. He is the counterpart of the Greek Cronus, and he gives his name both to the planet and to Saturday. Sacred to him are the sickle and the scythe, and he embodies time, limitation, endurance, and the mastery that ripens through age.

Facts

Belief

Theology

Polytheistic: many gods 1

History

Historical Note

The Roman state treasury, the aerarium Saturni, was housed within Saturn's own temple in the Forum, a location tradition explained by his mythic identity as god of a lost golden age of shared plenty before private wealth existed. 2

Cult

Principal Cult Centre

The temple of Saturn in the Roman Forum 1

Attributes and Iconography

Saturn is conventionally shown as an old, bearded man carrying the harpe, the curved sickle or pruning hook that marks his character as a god of sowing and the harvest, and, in the Roman custom reserved for a small number of cults, with his head veiled, capite velato, in the manner of a priest at sacrifice. 2

Worship and Practice

Saturn's festival, the Saturnalia, held in mid December, was marked by a temporary suspension of ordinary social order in which masters were said to wait on their own slaves at table, along with gift giving and public feasting that ancient writers linked to a nostalgic memory of Saturn's own mythical golden age of equality. 3

Function

Domain / Function

Agriculture and harvest 1

Domain / Function

Fate and time 1

Attributions

Mythic Association

His festival, the Saturnalia in December, was among the most popular in Rome, marked by role reversal, gift giving and a temporary suspension of ordinary social rank. 2

Mythic Association

Ovid's Fasti records Roman tradition that Saturn once ruled Italy during a lost golden age of abundance and equality before being displaced, a memory kept alive each December in the licensed reversal of social roles during Saturnalia. 3

Origins

Origin of the Name

Saturn's name is connected to the Latin sero, to sow, reflecting his character as a god of agriculture and the harvest. 2

Position Profile

Key Text

Saturn's festival, the Saturnalia, held in mid December, was marked by a temporary reversal of social roles in which masters served their slaves at table, an inversion later scholars have linked to Saturn's own mythic reign as a lost golden age of equality before Jupiter's rule. 2

Identity

Gender

Male 1

Attestation

Era of Attestation

500 BCE to 391 CE 1

Veneration Today

Historically attested; no continuous cult 1

Historicity

Not a historical person: a divine or other-than-human being 2

Practice

Lineage

Roman tradition, echoing the Greek pattern, counts Saturn father of Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, Juno, Ceres and Vesta by his consort Ops, though unlike his Greek counterpart Cronus, Saturn's own overthrow by his son receives comparatively little emphasis in Roman sources, which favor his golden age reign instead. 2

Sources

Textual Note

Ovid's Fasti, describing the Saturnalia festival held each December, notes that during the celebration masters and slaves temporarily reversed their usual roles and dined together, a social inversion later Roman writers cited as evidence of the festival's link to the legendary Golden Age Saturn was believed once to have ruled over. 3

Learn More

The Sower, and the Lost Golden Age

Saturn is one of the oldest gods of Rome, a deity of seed-sowing and agriculture whose very name the Romans linked to satus, sowing. But the memory attached to him reached back further than farming: he was said to have reigned in Italy in a lost age of peace and plenty, when the earth gave its fruits without labour and there was no war, slavery or private property. This was the Latin Golden Age, the Saturnia regna, and the land of Latium was even called Saturnia in his honour. Through his identification with the Greek Kronos, whom Zeus overthrew, Saturn was imagined as an exiled king who had come to Italy and taught its people the arts of settled life before vanishing.

The cult statue of Saturn in his Roman temple was shown veiled, capite velato in the old Roman fashion, holding a curved sickle or harpe, and its feet were bound year-round with woollen fetters that were ceremonially loosened only during the Saturnalia itself, a vivid image of the god's own liberation echoing the festival's temporary release of ordinary social bonds; the writer Macrobius, in the fifth century CE, preserves this detail along with much of what is known about the festival's customs. Saturn's temple at the western end of the Roman Forum, traditionally dated to the earliest years of the Republic, was rebuilt more than once, and the eight surviving Ionic columns of its final restoration remain among the most recognisable ruins of the Forum today.

The Saturnalia, and the Treasury Under His Temple

Saturn's great festival, the Saturnalia, opened on the seventeenth of December and ran for several days, and it was the most beloved holiday of the Roman year. For its duration the ordinary order was turned upside down: masters served their slaves at table, gambling was allowed in public, a mock king of misrule was chosen, gifts were exchanged, and the formal toga was set aside, a licensed reversal that recalled the equality of his Golden Age. Many of its customs of feasting and gift-giving passed into the later midwinter festivals of Europe. His temple in the Roman Forum, one of the oldest in the city, held the aerarium, the state treasury, so that the god of the abundant past also guarded the wealth of the present. Later thought made Saturn a figure of time and its devouring passage, an association that ran through astrology into the melancholy planet-god of the Renaissance.

Because the temple also held the state treasury, the aerarium Saturni, the phrase sub Saturno, under Saturn, could stand as shorthand for the public finances themselves, tying the god of a mythical age without private property to the very institution that managed Rome's money. The mock king of misrule chosen during the Saturnalia, sometimes called the Saturnalicius princeps, who issued playful commands his household had to obey, is widely cited by folklorists as an ancestor of the medieval and early modern Lord of Misrule and King of the Bean traditions of European midwinter festivity, one of the clearer unbroken threads running from Roman religion into later folk custom.

Correspondences & Relations

Saturn was an Italic god of sowing whom the Romans equated with Greek Cronus, and the planet came with the equation. His festival, the Saturnalia, sits at the year's turning, reinforcing the planet's link with time and limit.

Connections

Associated With

Aquarius Fifth Term: Saturn

This source names Saturn directly: "This term spans 25 to 30 degrees of Aquarius and is ruled by Saturn."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Aquarius First Term: Mercury

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Aquarius Fourth Term: Mars

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Aquarius Second Term: Venus

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Aquarius Third Term: Jupiter

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Aries Fifth Term: Saturn

This source names Saturn directly: "This term spans 25 to 30 degrees of Aries and is ruled by Saturn."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Aries First Term: Jupiter

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Aries Fourth Term: Mars

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Aries Second Term: Venus

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Aries Third Term: Mercury

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Cancer Fifth Term: Saturn

This source names Saturn directly: "This term spans 26 to 30 degrees of Cancer and is ruled by Saturn."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Cancer First Term: Mars

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Cancer Fourth Term: Jupiter

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Cancer Second Term: Venus

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Cancer Third Term: Mercury

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Capricorn Fifth Term: Mars

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Capricorn First Term: Mercury

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Capricorn Fourth Term: Saturn

This source names Saturn directly: "This term spans 22 to 26 degrees of Capricorn and is ruled by Saturn."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Capricorn Second Term: Jupiter

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Capricorn Third Term: Venus

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Chiron

This source names Saturn directly: "Kowal in 1977, orbiting between Saturn and Uranus, and its glyph was devised by the astrologer Al H."

Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion

Decan 1 of Leo

This source names Saturn directly: "heart of the sign, sub-ruled by Saturn, which lends structure and gravity to Leo's radiance."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Decan 1 of Pisces

This source names Saturn directly: "of the final sign, sub-ruled by Saturn, which lends form and boundary to Pisces' boundlessness."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Decan 2 of Libra

This source names Saturn directly: "20 degrees), cardinal air sub-ruled by Saturn, exalted in Libra and lending its ideal of balance real weight."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Decan 3 of Sagittarius

This source names Saturn directly: "30 degrees), mutable fire sub-ruled by Saturn, which grounds the archer's vision in discipline and purpose."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Decan 3 of Taurus

This source names Saturn directly: "30 degrees), fixed earth sub-ruled by Saturn, which lends discipline and endurance to Taurus' patience."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

From Masha'allah to Kepler: Theory and Practice in Medieval and Renaissance Astrology

This source names Saturn directly: "the tradition, including essays on Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions across medieval Islamic, Jewish and Latin astrology."

Source From Masha'allah to Kepler: Theory and Practice in Medieval and Renaissance AstrologyCharles Burnett and Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum (editors)

Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature

This source names Saturn directly: "Its strength is that it was checked directly for this record: no Saturn satellite of any designation is named Coeus, and Saturn XXXIV is recorded as Polydeuces, named in January 2005."

Source Gazetteer of Planetary NomenclatureUnited States Geological Survey, Astrogeology Science Center, for the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature

Gemini Fifth Term: Saturn

This source names Saturn directly: "This term spans 24 to 30 degrees of Gemini and is ruled by Saturn."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Gemini First Term: Mercury

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Gemini Fourth Term: Mars

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Gemini Second Term: Jupiter

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Gemini Third Term: Venus

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Kepler's View of the Star of Bethlehem and the Babylonian Almanac for 7/6 B.C.

This source names Saturn directly: "a triple conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in Pisces in 7 BCE underlies the Star of Bethlehem, and setting Kepler's calculation against an actual Babylonian astronomical almanac tablet recording the..."

Source Kepler's View of the Star of Bethlehem and the Babylonian Almanac for 7/6 B.C.A. J. Sachs and C. B. F. Walker

Lead

This source names Saturn directly: "The alchemists' Saturn, the heaviest, dullest and slowest of the seven metals, marked with a symbol combining a scythe and a cross; the association survives in the word saturnine and in saturnism..."

Source Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the ElementsJohn Emsley

Leo Fifth Term: Mars

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Leo First Term: Jupiter

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Leo Fourth Term: Mercury

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Leo Second Term: Venus

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Leo Third Term: Saturn

This source names Saturn directly: "This term spans 11 to 18 degrees of Leo and is ruled by Saturn."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Libra Fifth Term: Mars

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Libra First Term: Saturn

This source names Saturn directly: "This term spans 0 to 6 degrees of Libra and is ruled by Saturn."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Libra Fourth Term: Venus

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Libra Second Term: Mercury

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Libra Third Term: Jupiter

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Mashallah ibn Athari

This source names Saturn directly: "that conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn, recurring roughly every twenty years and cycling through the four astrological triplicities over a longer period, mark the timing of major changes on Earth..."

Source Mashallah ibn Athari (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

Mashallah ibn Athari (Wikipedia)

This source names Saturn directly: "that conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn mark the timing of major terrestrial and historical change."

Source Mashallah ibn Athari (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

Mysterium Cosmographicum

This source names Saturn directly: "Mars, tetrahedron, Jupiter, cube, Saturn."

Source Mysterium CosmographicumJohannes Kepler

Pisces Fifth Term: Saturn

This source names Saturn directly: "This term spans 28 to 30 degrees of Pisces and is ruled by Saturn."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Pisces First Term: Venus

This source names Saturn directly: "Jupiter or Venus first through Mars or Saturn last."

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Showing 1 to 50 of 79 in Associated With, page 1 of 2.

Depicted In

Saturn Devouring His Son

Source Saturn Devouring His Son, Wikipedia

Identified with (Interpretatio)

Cronus

Interpretatio romana: Greek Titan Cronus identified with Roman Saturn.

Source Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A HistoryMary Beard, John North and Simon Price

Huangdi

As the Chinese face of Saturn, Huangdi the Yellow Emperor presides over the center and the element Earth, set alongside the Roman Saturn in the shared figure of the ordering center and the measured turning of time.

Source Chinese Mythology: An IntroductionAnne Birrell

Kuninotokotachi

Kuninotokotachi is the Japanese face of Saturn, set alongside the Roman Saturn in the shared astrological figure of the primal ground, time and foundation.

Source Shinto: A HistoryHelen Hardacre

Shani

Shani is the Hindu face of the planet Saturn, set alongside the Roman Saturn in the shared astrological figure of time, limitation and the discipline that mastery requires.

Source Encyclopedia of HinduismDenise Cush, Catherine Robinson and Michael York (eds.)

Sacred to This Deity

Saturnalia

Saturnalia's own description: "held in honour of the god Saturn," opening with public sacrifice at the Temple of Saturn.

Source Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A HistoryMary Beard, John North and Simon Price

Worshipped In

Roman Religion

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

The Roman Forum

The Roman Forum's own description names "the temples of Saturn" among the temples it held; Saturn is a live family deity with no honest edge target problem, and no edge previously connected the two. Castor, Pollux, Concord and the deified emperors have no honest target (Castor/Pollux exist here only as astronomical "star" entities, the rest have no live entity).

Source Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A HistoryMary Beard, John North and Simon Price

Sources

1. The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th edition

Simon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth and Esther Eidinow (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2012s.v. SaturnView the Source

2. Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A History

Mary Beard, John North and Simon Price, Cambridge University Press, 1998View the Source

3. Fasti

Ovid, Loeb Classical Library, 1931View the Source

Encyclopedia of Religion

Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005s.v. Saturn; the Saturnalia, the temple treasury, and the identification with KronosView the Source

Metamorphoses

Ovid, (various editions)Metamorphoses, Book 1, lines 1-4 (Invocatio), tr. Brookes More

Quote, Metamorphoses, Book 1, lines 1-4 (Invocatio), tr. Brookes More

My soul is wrought to sing of forms transformed to bodies new and strange! Immortal Gods inspire my heart, for ye have changed yourselves and all things you have changed!

View the Source

Take a Related Quiz

Gods of Ancient Rome: BeginnerIncludes a question about Saturn.
Gods of Ancient Rome: ExpertIncludes a question about Saturn.
Gods of Ancient Rome: IntermediateIncludes a question about Saturn.

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