14. Your theologians, then,
and authors on unknown antiquity, say that in the universe there are
three Joves, one of whom has Æther for his father; another,
Cœlus; the third, Saturn, born and buried4152
in the
island of
Crete.
They
speak of five Suns and five Mercuries,—of whom, as they
relate, the first Sun is called the son of
Jupiter, and is regarded as
grandson of Æther; the second
is also
Jupiter’s son,
and the mother who bore him Hyperiona;
4153
| 4153
Arnobius repeats this statement in ch. 22, or the name would have been
regarded as corrupt, no other author making mention of such a goddess;
while Cicero speaks of one Sun as born of Hyperion. It would
appear, therefore, to be very probable that Arnobius, in writing from
memory or otherwise, has been here in some confusion as to what Cicero
did say, and thus wrote the name as we have it. It has also been
proposed to read “born of Regina” (or, with Gelenius,
Rhea), “and his father Hyperion,” because Cybele is termed
βασίλεια;
for which reading there seems no good reason.—Immediately below,
Ialysus is made the son, instead of, as in Cicero, the grandson of the
fourth; and again, Circe is said to be mother, while Cicero speaks of
her as the daughter of the fifth Sun. These variations, viewed
along with the general adherence to Cicero’s statements (de N.
D., iii. 21 sqq.), seem to give good grounds for adopting the
explanation given above. |
the third the son of Vulcan, not
Vulcan of Lemnos, but the son of the Nile; the fourth, whom
Acantho bore at
Rhodes in the heroic age,
was the
father of
Ialysus;
while the fifth is regarded as the son of a Scythian
king and subtle Circe. Again, the first Mercury, who is said to
have
lusted after Proserpina,
4154
| 4154
i.e., in Proserpinam genitalibus adhinnivisse
subrectis. |
is son of Cœlus,
who is
above all. Under the
earth is the second, who
boasts that he is
Trophonius. The third
was born of Maia, his mother, and
the third Jove;
4155
| 4155 Lit.,
“of Jupiter, but the third.” |
the fourth is
the
offspring of the Nile, whose name the people of Egypt dread and
fear to utter. The fifth is the slayer of Argus, a fugitive and
exile, and the
inventor of letters in Egypt. But there are five
Minervas also, they say, just as
there are five Suns and
Mercuries; the first of whom is no virgin but the mother of Apollo by
Vulcan; the second, the offspring of the Nile, who is asserted to be
the Egyptian Sais; the third is descended from Saturn, and is the one
who devised the use of arms; the fourth is sprung from Jove, and the
Messenians name her Coryphasia; and the fifth is she who slew her
lustful
4156
| 4156
i.e., incestorum appetitorem. |
father,
Pallas.
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