Curiosities & wonders > History of the heathen gods and heroes of antiquity, very necessary for understanding the writings of the ancients, and the modern English poets

70 THE HISTORY OF
Saturn was the fon of Terra or Vefta. and Coe
linn, Ccelus or Coelius, who was the ofF-fpring O'
.liither and Dies, and the ancienteft of all the gods.
This Coelum married his own daughter Vefta'
and begat of her many children, the moft eminent
of whom was Saturn, whofe brothers were the Cy-
clops, Oceanus, Titan, the hundred-handed Giants,
and divers others : His fifters were, Ceres, Tethys.
and Ops or Rhea, whom afterwards he had to wife.1
Thefe lifters perfuaded their mother Vefta, that lhe;
would exclude Titan or Titanus the eldeft fon, and?
that the kingdom lliould be devolved upon Saturn,,
tho’ it belonged to his brother by hereditary right.;
When Titan faw his mother and lifter zealous for:
his brother, thinking fit to yield to the time, he
quitted his right, and transferred it to Saturn, up¬
on this condition, that he Ihould bring up no male
child, and that after his death, the kingdom Ihould
return to Titan’s pofterity.
Saturn not only accepted the condition, but kept;
it with ftridl fidelity, whilft he could, but at laft
his delign was prevented; for when his wife Ops
perceived that he devoured all the male children,
having brought forth Jupiter and Juno at one birth,
Ihe offered the daughter to him, but fent atvay the
fon Jupiter to be nurfed privately in Mount Ida,
by the Curetes and Corybantes, Priefts of Cybele,
who ufed to make a noife with drums and cymbals,
that the crying of the infant might not be heard
by Saturn. Ey the fame trick Ihe faved Heptane
and Pluto from her devouring hulband.
This artifice of Ops being difcovered, Saturn de¬
manded the boy of her: but Ihe gave him a ftone
wrapped in fwaddling-clothes for Jupiter, which
he fwallowed down inftantly.
Mean