BOOK IT.
Ceres and
Saturnus.
who guards the treasures of the earth, and whom the Latins identified with Hades. She must hate those who spoil her trees and waste her fruits; hence she punishes with fearful hunger the earth-tearer Erysichthon. As possessing and guarding the wealth of the earth, she takes her place among the Chthonian deities, whose work is carried on unseen by mortal eyes. As teaching men how to plough, to sow, and to reap, she is Demeter Thesmophoros, the lover of law, order, peace and justice.
Of the Latin Ceres it is enough to say that although, like other Latin deities, she has no special mythology, her name at least is significant. She is strictly the ripener of the fruits of the earth ; and since, as such, she could have no attribute wholly inconsistent with the character of the Greek Demeter, it became easy to attach to Ceres all the stories told of the Hellenic goddess.^ With the name of Ceres we ought to connect that of Saturnus, a god who has no feature in common with the Greek Kronos with whom the later Romans identified him, as they identified his wife Ops, a name corresponding in meaning with that of Ploutos, with Rhea. Saturnus, as the sower of the seed,^ answers far more nearly to the Greek Triptolemos, Avho is taught by Demeter. At the end of his work Saturn is said to have vanished from the earth, as Persephone disappears when the summer has come to an end ; and the local tradition went that Latium was his lurking-place.^
Erichtho- nios.
Section III. —THE CHILDREN OF THE EARTH.
As the Eleusinian myth tells the story of the earth and her treasures under the name of Demeter, so the Athenian legend tells the same story under the name of Erechtheus or Erichthonios, a son of Hephaistos, according to one version, by Atthis, a daughter of Kranaos, according to another, by Athene herself.* In the latter
a like kind. There are but few which would be found to withstand the test of philological analysis ; but even where this is the case, we are fully justified in selecting those versions which explain themselves. The mere fact that in one of them lasion is called a son of Zeus and ITemera, is sufficient evidence that this was one way of accounting for his existence ; and this phrase is trans- parent. ' The name has by some been iden- tified with the Greek Kore, by others with the Latin Garanus or Recaranus. By Professor Max Miiller it is referred to the root which yields the Sanskrit Sarad, autumn, viz. sri or srf, to cook or ripen. Sri, or Lakshmi, is in the Rama- yana the wife of Vishnu. Like Aphro- dite, she rises from the sea, but with four arms, and her dwelling is in the Lotos. ^ Breal, Hennle et Cacus, 38.
- The name must necessarily be
traced through its cognate forms ; and thus, l^efore we can judge positively, we must compare it with Latini, Lakini, Lavini, &c.
- As Kranaa is a title of Athene,
Atthis the child of Kranaos is probably only Athene under a slight disguise.
