s pacified and
turned to mercy by the humble prayers of the miserable people and by the
temple built by them upon the Tarpeian rock. In the third, then, was
seen figured how, Saturn seeking cruelly to devour his son Jove, his
shrewd wife and compassionate daughters sent to him in Jove's stead the
stone, which he brought up again before them, being left thereby in
infinite sorrow and bitterness. Even as in the fourth was painted the
same fable of which there has been an account in speaking of the
above-described car of Heaven--namely, how he cut off the genitals of
the above-named Heaven, from which the Giants, the Furies, and Venus had
their origin. And in the last, likewise, was seen how, after he was made
a prisoner by the Titans, he was liberated by his compassionate son
Jove. And then, to demonstrate the belief that is held by some, that
history first began to be written in the time of Saturn, there was seen
figured with the authority of an approved writer a Triton blowing a
sea-conch, with the double tail as it were fixed in the earth, closing
the last part of the car; at the foot of which (as has been told of the
others) was seen a pure maiden, representing Pudicity, adorned with
green draperies and holding a white ermine in her arms, with a gilded
topaz-collar about the neck. She, with the head and face covered with a
yellow veil, had in her company Truth, likewise figured in the form of a
most beautiful, delicate, and pure young woman, clothed only in a few
white and transparent veils; and these, walking in a manner full of
grace, had between them the happy Age of Gold, also figured as a pure
and gracious virgin, wholly nude, and all crowned and adorned with those
first fruits produced by herself from the earth. After them followed
Quiet, robed in black draperies, in the aspect of a young but very grave
and venerable woman, who had as head-dress a nest composed in a most
masterly manner, in which was seen lying an old and featherless stork,
and she walked between two black priests, who, crowned with fig-leaves,
and each with a branch of the same fig in one hand, and in the other a
basin containing a flat cake of flour and honey, seemed to wish to
demonstrate thereby that opinion which is held by some, that Saturn was
the first discoverer of grain-crops; for which reason the Cyrenaeans (and
even such were the two black priests) are said to have been wont to
offer him sacrifices of those things named above. These we