Saturn's family: wife, children and descendants
Saturn's wife is Ops, the Roman goddess of abundance, whom the Romans identified with the Greek Titaness Rhea. Saturn's children, in the genealogy borrowed from the Greek myth of Cronus, are six: Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, Pluto, Vesta and Ceres. Latin tradition added an Italian line of descent: Picus, father of Faunus and grandfather of King Latinus.
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Parents and siblings
Like Cronus, Saturn is the son of Sky and Earth: Uranus and Gaia for the Greeks, Caelus and Terra for the Latins. Hesiod lists twelve Titans, six sons and six daughters: Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys and finally Cronus, the youngest (Theogony 133–138). He is the one who overthrows his father with a sickle (see Saturn and Cronus).
Several of these siblings now circle the planet Saturn: the moons Rhea, Tethys, Hyperion, Phoebe and Iapetus carry their names, and Titan, the largest, the name of the whole generation.
Saturn's wife: Ops
Ops is a very old Roman goddess whose name means "wealth, resources"; it gave Latin the adjective opulentus, the source of English "opulent". She presides over the abundance of stored harvests, which makes her the natural partner of a god of sowing (see Saturn, the Roman god).
Two festivals were hers. The Opalia, on 19 December, came two days after the start of the Saturnalia. The Opiconsivia, on 25 August, honored Ops Consiva, protector of grain put into storage, in a small shrine inside the Regia that only the senior Vestal and one priest could enter. Ops also had a temple on the Capitol. Through the Saturn-Cronus equation she was identified with Rhea, mother of the gods, and later linked with the Phrygian Great Mother, Cybele.
A second, more mysterious goddess is paired with Saturn: Lua, named in lists of prayers as Lua Saturni. Weapons captured from the enemy were dedicated to her and burned in her honor. Scholars do not agree on her exact nature.
The six children of Saturn
Saturn's offspring do not belong to the old Roman cult: they were transferred from Greek mythology, each Olympian receiving a Latin counterpart. According to Hesiod, Cronus swallowed them all at birth except the last, saved by a stone in swaddling clothes.
| Greek | Roman | Domain | In the sky |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hestia | Vesta | Hearth, sacred fire of the city | Asteroid 4 Vesta |
| Demeter | Ceres | Grain, harvest | Dwarf planet 1 Ceres |
| Hera | Juno | Marriage, queenship | Asteroid 3 Juno |
| Hades | Pluto (Dis Pater) | Underworld, riches of the soil | Dwarf planet Pluto |
| Poseidon | Neptune | Sea, earthquakes | Planet Neptune |
| Zeus | Jupiter | Sky, kingship | Planet Jupiter |
The solar system has reunited the family: Saturn's inner neighbor is the planet of his son Jupiter, who dethroned him, while Ceres and Vesta orbit in the asteroid belt. Hesiod gives the birth order as Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, Zeus, which makes Zeus the youngest but also, once his siblings are vomited up, in a sense the first to be "reborn".
Other children
Greek myth credits Cronus with other unions. The best known produced Chiron, the wise centaur who taught Achilles: Cronus is said to have seduced the Oceanid Philyra in the form of a horse to escape Rhea's notice, hence their son's half-human, half-horse nature. The poet Apollonius of Rhodes tells the episode in the Argonautica.
The Italian line: Picus, Faunus, Latinus
The Romans gave their Saturn a local lineage. In Book 7 of the Aeneid (47–49), Virgil presents King Latinus as the son of Faunus, himself the son of Picus, and names Saturn as the first founder of the bloodline. Latinus' palace holds statues of these ancestors, among them "old Saturn" and two-faced Janus (7.177–180).
Picus, king of Latium and a seer, is a striking figure: the sorceress Circe, whose love he had rejected, turned him into a woodpecker, the bird that bears his name in Latin (picus). Ovid tells the transformation in Book 14 of the Metamorphoses. Faunus, his son, became a god of woods and herds, equated with the Greek Pan. This genealogy makes Saturn the ancestor of the kings who welcomed Aeneas, and so indirectly a mythical forefather of the Romans, consistent with his role as king of the Latin Golden Age.
Saturn as a human king: Ennius' version
One learned tradition turned Saturn into a man. The poet Ennius, adapting the Sacred History of the Greek writer Euhemerus, told how Saturn and Titan were two royal brothers; Saturn was allowed to rule on condition that he raise no sons, hence his attempt to do away with his children and Ops' trick to save Jupiter. We know the text through the Christian writer Lactantius, who used it to argue that the pagan gods were merely deified humans.
"Children of Saturn" also has an astrological meaning: in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the "children of the planets" were the trades and temperaments ruled by each planet. Saturn's children were peasants, miners, prisoners and melancholics (see saturnine melancholy).
The most famous image of this family remains the father eating one of his children, in Rubens and in Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son, where it is unclear which child is shown.
FAQ
Who is Saturn's wife?
Saturn's wife is Ops, the Roman goddess of abundance and harvest, identified with the Greek Titaness Rhea. She was celebrated on 19 December (Opalia) and 25 August (Opiconsivia).
How many children did Saturn have?
In the Greco-Roman genealogy, Saturn and Ops have six children: Vesta, Ceres, Juno, Pluto, Neptune and Jupiter. Greek myth also credits Cronus with the centaur Chiron.
Who are Saturn's parents?
Saturn is the son of Caelus and Terra, Sky and Earth, the Roman equivalents of Uranus and Gaia. He is the youngest of the Titans.
Which child is Saturn eating in Goya's painting?
Goya never said, and the headless body makes it impossible to identify. In the myth Cronus swallows his children whole, whereas Goya paints a bloody devouring.
Sources
- Hesiod, Theogony, lines 133–138 and 453–506
- Virgil, Aeneid 7.47–49 and 7.177–191
- Ovid, Metamorphoses 14.320–396 (Picus)
- Lactantius, Divine Institutes 1.14 (fragment of Ennius' Euhemerus)