This famous festival fell in
December, the last month of the Roman year, and was popularly
supposed to commemorate the merry reign of Saturn, the god of sowing
and of husbandry, who lived on earth long ago as a righteous and
beneficent king of Italy, drew the rude and scattered dwellers on
the mountains together, taught them to till the ground, gave them
laws, and ruled in peace. His reign was the fabled Golden Age: the
earth brought forth abundantly: no sound of war or discord troubled
the happy world: no baleful love of lucre worked like poison in the
blood of the industrious and contented peasantry. Slavery and
private property were alike unknown: all men had all things in
common. At last the good god, the kindly king, vanished suddenly;
but his memory was cherished to distant ages, shrines were reared in
his honour, and many hills and high places in Italy bore his name.
Yet the bright tradition of his reign was crossed by a dark shadow:
his altars are said to have been stained with the blood of human
victims, for whom a more merciful age afterwards substituted
effigies.
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