PART 2 – Ch

PART 2 – Ch.XII.3

(The principal prehistoric divinities of Dacia)

XII. 3. Saturn as Princeps Deorum, Manes, Deus Manus, and Tartaros (Tatal, TN – the Father).

After the death of Uranos, the founder of the great Pelasgian empire in Europe, the rule over the world passed on to his son Saturn.

Like Uranos, Saturn was one of the great kings of the Pelasgian race.

According to the theocratic ideas of those times, the same titles and divine honors previously held by Uranos, and before him by the Sky, in its cosmogenic meaning, were now attributed to Saturn.

The same dogma was preserved, but the name of Uranos was replaced by that of Saturn in the public cult. It was only the succession of a new monarch to the empire of the world, a simple change of its political head and supreme priest of the cult, but not a change of the dogma of its religion. So, according to the theological doctrines of those times, Saturn was on his turn considered “Princeps deorum” (Macrobius, Saturn. I.c.7), “the beginner of all the gods and of the entire posterity” (Isidorus Hispal. Originum VIII.11.30; Plato, Cratylus, Ed. Didot, I.p.296), or, as Dionysius of Halikarnassus says (lib.I.c.38), the divinity of Saturn embraced now the whole nature of the universe.

Under the reign of Saturn, mankind made a huge progress on its way to civilization.

Saturn is the one who, as ancient traditions tell us, made the people leave their wild sort of lives, brought them together in a society, gave them laws (Virgil, Aen. VIII.320), and taught them agriculture (Macrobius, Staurn. I.7; Diodorus Siculus, lib. V. 66. 4). He is in general the beginner and distributor of human happiness.

During the worldly empire of Saturn, the golden age took place, the earthly paradise of the Bible, those centuries full of abundance and contentment, when justice and goodwill ruled on this earth, essential conditions for the moral and material happiness of mankind (Hesiod, Opera et Dies. V. 109 seqq; Ovid, Metam. I. 89 seqq.; Virgil, Eclog. IV. 6).

The cult of Saturn was especially spread in the northern parts of Istru and in Italy.

The ancient religion of Dacia was initially celestial or Uranic, and later the same religion will have Saturnian forms.

The Getae, as the historian Mnaseas of Patrae tells us, venerated Saturn, whom they called Zamolxis (Photius, Lex – Frag. Hist. graec. III p.153, frag. 23).

The northern sea is called in Greek literature, as well as in Roman literature, the Sea of Saturn (Dionysius, Orbis Descriptio, v.32; Pliny, H.N.Iv.27.3).

Everywhere during antiquity, the entire north-west region was considered as the empire of the religion of Saturn (Diodorus Siculus, V. 66. 5; Cicero, De nat. Deor. III. 17; Theompompos, Fragm. 293; Ephorus, Fragm. 38).

In ancient cosmogenic theology, the honorific name of Saturn was pater (Pindar, Olymp.II.v.84; Eschyl, Eumenides, v.641; Macrobius, Saturn. I. c.7), deus parens (Corn. Nepos, c.12), meaning father of the gods, of mankind and of all the forces of nature, exactly as the Sky (Cerus manus) had had the same attributes earlier.

Apart from these other names, Saturn also had the epithet presbites (Lucian, Saturn.V); with the Romans, senex, vetus deus (Ovid, Fast. V.627; Virgil, Aen.VII.204), meaning “the old man” (TN – mosul), “the ancient god”. In some parts of Scythia and Dacia, Saturn was also called Papae-os, word whose original meaning was also “mos” (TN – old man) [1].

[1. “The Scythians”, writes Herodotus (IV. 59), “call Jove Papaeos, as I believe, and the Earth, Apia”; and “they believe that the Earth is the wife of Jove”. But it is known that Ops or Opis (Apia with the Scythians) was the wife of Saturn”.

In ancient Greek language pappos means “old man” and this is the exclusive epithet of Saturn. The same word exists also in Latin- Varro (L.L.VII. 29). And in Macedo-Romanian language pap aus also has the meaning of “old man” (Weigand, Aromunen, 94.244)].

All these attributes of Saturn were interpreted by antique theology as representing the god of maturity and perfection.

According to the doctrines of Pelasgian theology, Saturn represented in the prehistoric epoch not only the personification of the divine power of the Sky, but he was also venerated as a telluric divinity, as the lord of the underground world. In this quality, Saturn had with the Romans the honorific title Deus Manus (C.I.L.VIII.2.9326; Servius, V.A.X.198), and Manes (Appuleius, De deo Socr.), while under the name of Mania was meant the feminine divinity of the other world (Macrobius, Saturn I. 7; Varro, L.L.IX. 61) [2].

[2. The Pelasgians of Asia Minor (Lydiens) had also preserved the memory of an ancient king of theirs, called Manes, son of Jove (meaning Uranos) and Gaea (Dionysius Halicarn. I. 27).

But this Manes was the same as Saturn, who had ruled not only in Europe, but also over a part of western Asia, as well as in the northern lands of Africa].

Finally, Manes were the spirits of the deceased, whose dwellings were underground, in the empire of Saturn (Cicero, De Legibus II.9).

The epithet of Manus given to the Pelasgian divinity of Saturn, had initially no other meaning than “big” (TN – mare), attribute of his particular dignity and power, as a sovereign god.

With Hesiod (Theog. 459), Kronos or Saturn is called megas, and in Latin inscriptions magnus. Megas and magnus were the only titles of majesty of prehistoric antiquity.

While Saturn, as divinity of the lower world, had the name of Manus with the Romans, with the Greeks he appears in this quality with the epithet Tartaros (Pindar, Olymp. II. 77).

The term Tartaros appears in Greek literature as an exotic, barbarian name, exactly as the residence of Saturn, Kronou turdis, was outside the horizon of the Greek world (Homer, Iliad, VIII. v. 479).

From its primitive meaning the word Tartaros was identical with the archaic Latin “tata” (in folk Latin language, Varro, Non. 81. 5), Greek pater (TN – father). The labial p in the Aeolian dialect often changed with t. Tartaros was therefore only a simple northern dialectal form of the word pater, pater or tata, title of honor and respect given in antiquity to the creator father of the gods and of mankind. (The interspersing of r in the middle is due to the tendency of assimilating the first syllable with the last, in order to give a more energetic, and at the same time a more mysterious character to this honorific title. In the language of the Osci, the god Mamers, or Mars, was also called Marma and Marmar, Mamor and Marmor (C.I.L.I.p.9-10).

Saturn was also venerated by the Gauls as a telluric divinity, under the name of Teutates (Lucanius, Phars. I. 444; Dionysius Halic. I. c. 38), which is the same word as the Latin tata, the Greek tata, tetta and the Lituanian tetis, tetatis.

With Homer (Hymn. in Apoll. v. 335) and Hesiod (Theog. v. 851) the names of Tartaros and Kronos are identical. And with Valerius Flaccus (Argonaut. IV. 258-260), the supreme lord of the other world appears under the name of Pater Tartarus, although both these words had in the beginning the same origin and meaning, from a historical and philological point of view.

Finally, as Suetonius tells us (Oct. Augustus, c. 70), in a certain part of Rome Apollo was venerated under the name of Tortor, a form evidently altered from the archaic Tartar-us.

We have examined here, based on the old religious doctrines, the primitive origin and meaning of the word Tartar-os, because this name belongs to the prehistoric domain of Dacia. Various mountain peaks in the Romanian countries, from the river Siret to Biharia, and from Biharia to the lands of Moravia, bear even today the names of Tatal, Tatar, Tatra. The origin of these orographic names is neither familiar, nor ethnic. It has nothing to do with personal names of some ancient owners of the mountains. They are only obscure remains of a primitive cult, when the lofty peaks of the Carpathians were consecrated to the supreme divinity of the universe, called “Tatal” (TN – Father) [3].

[3. Such are the following names found on the principal summits of the Carpathians: Tatarul mare and Tatarul mic at the sources of the river Buzeu; Tatarul, mountain southwards of Porcesci in Fagaras district; Tatareu, mountain southwards of Paring, and another high mountain northeast of Paring; Tatal, the peak of the mountain Olanul in Mehedinti district; Tatoia, mountain in Banat near the frontier; Cracu Tatar in Banat, westwards of Cracu Tutila; Tartaroiu or Tartaroia in Bihor county; Tataruka, Tatulski grou and Tatulska, mountains in Maramures district, southeast of Brustura village; Tartarka and Tatarka in Bucovina, north of Chirli-Baba, and another peak south of this village is called Omul (the Man); Tatar-havas, northeast of Gyergyo-Ditro in Transilvania; Totrus, river which flows from Transilvania to Moldova through the Ghimes pass. It is certain that the mountain where this river had its sources, had once the same name. And south of the pass of Ghimes there is the peak called in Hungarian Apa-havas, meaning the mountain of the father;

Pliny (III. 20.7) and Tacitus (Hist. III. 9) mention a Tartarus fluvius, which flew from the Alps into the Pad. In the county Zips in Hungary the highest peak of the Carpathians is called Tatra. The same mountain was called in the Middle Ages Tatur (Anonymus Belae Regis notarius, c. XVIII). Other two high peaks in the county Turocz and Lyptau have the names of Fatra (from the German Vater)].

In the whole of Italy, as Dionysius of Halikarnassus (I. 34) tells us, the heights of the mountains and promontories had been dedicated to Saturn. And a Kronion oros was at Olympia in the Peloponnesus (Pausanias, VI. 20.1; Ptol. III. 14.15; Pindar, Olymp. VIII. 17). Also, in the lands of Germany, various mountain peaks have even today the names of Altvater and Grossvater (Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, I. 153). In a more remote time, the term tater also appears to have been applied to some consecrated mountains of Germany.

In German mythology tatermann means idol, demonic spirit, and an old dictionary explains this word by alpinus (Grimm, D. M. I. 470).

In the beginning therefore, the term of Tartar-os appears in the northern parts of the Pelasgian territory, especially in Dacia, as a cosmogenic title of the supreme divinity.

Later though, the authority of the word Tartaros diminished, after Saturn was deposed and Jove was accepted as the absolute ruler of the Greek world and the head of its religion.

Greek theology applied then this archaic name of the northern Pelasgians, exclusively to the divinity of the lower world, to the mountains and subterranean caves (Homer, Iliad, VIII. 13; Ibid. Hymn in Merc. V. 256; Hesiod, Theog. v. 740; Plato, Phaedo. I. p.88), where, according to legends, Jove had imprisoned Saturn and the Titans, his supporters (Homer, Iliad, VIII. 479; XIV. 203.275; Hesiod, Theog. v.851; Stephanus Byz. v. Tartaros) [4].

[4. Tartaros, with the meaning of height or mountain, appears also in ancient literature.

Plato calls Tartaros the place near the clouds (Suidas, Tartaros). Homer (Iliad. XIV. 279) and Hesiod (Theog. 851) call the Titans ‘Ypotartarioi, word which in this form has the meaning of: the Titans, who dwell under the mountain Tartaros, as Homer also calls the city of Thebes, under the mountain Placos, ‘Ypoplachie (Iliad, VI. 397).

NEXT