Saturnalia

​PRIEST But, O best of the Titans, I have no need of such things; but do answer me instead that which I have most desired to know, and if you tell it to me, you will have given a sufficient return in place of the sacrifice, and for the future I release you from your debts. CRONUS Only ask; for I will answer, if I happen to know. PRIEST First of all that matter, whether those things we hear about you are true, how you swallowed down the children born of Rhea, and she, having secretly taken Zeus away and substituted a stone in place of the infant, gave it to you to swallow down, and he, when he reached manhood, drove you out of your rule, having conquered you in war, and then carrying you off, cast you into Tartarus, having bound both you and all your allied force, as many as were marshaled on your side. CRONUS Look here, if we were not celebrating a festival, and if it were not permitted to be drunk and to abuse one’s masters with impunity, you would have known that it is permitted to me at least to be angry, when you ask such things, without respecting a god so grey-haired and aged. PRIEST And I, O Cronus, do not say these things of my own accord, but Hesiod and Homer say so; for I hesitate to say that almost all other men too have believed these things about you.

​CRONUS Do you really think that that shepherd, that charlatan, knows anything sound about me? Consider it in this way. Is there any man—for I will not say a god—who would willingly endure to devour his own children, unless he were some Thyestes, who fell into the hands of an impious brother and ate? And even if he were so mad as this, how would he not notice that he was eating a stone instead of a baby, unless his teeth were utterly unfeeling? But we neither fought a war, nor did Zeus take the rule by force; rather, he rules because I willingly handed it over to him and stepped aside. For that I am neither bound nor in Tartarus, you yourself see, I think, unless you are as blind as Homer.

​PRIEST What happened to you, then, O Cronus, that you gave up the rule? CRONUS I will tell you. In general, because I am already old and gouty through time. Therefore indeed the multitude imagined that I was bound. For I was not able to hold out against so much injustice of the men of today, but it was necessary always to run up and down brandishing the thunderbolt, burning up perjurers or temple-robbers or violent men, and the business was altogether troublesome and fit for a young man. I therefore abdicated, acting wisely, in favor of Zeus. And besides, it seemed to me to be well to distribute the rule among my children and myself to feast for the most part in quiet, neither giving audience to those who pray, nor being troubled by those who ask for opposite things, nor being compelled to thunder or lighten or sometimes to throw hail ; but I lead this sweetest life suitable for an old man, drinking my nectar unmixed, and chatting with Iapetus and the others of my age; while he rules, having ten thousand troubles. However, these few days, for the reasons I have mentioned, it seemed good to me to set apart, and I resume the rule, so that I may remind men what life was like in my time, when all things grew for them without sowing and without plowing, not ears of corn, but ready bread and prepared meats, and wine flowed like a river, and fountains of honey and milk; for all were good and of gold. This is my reason for this short-lived sovereignty, and because of this there is everywhere hand-clapping, song, play, and equal status for all, both slaves and free. For in my time no one was a slave.