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Arnobius - Book IV

Chapter XIV.

14. Your theologians, then, and authors on unknown antiquity, say that in the universe there are three Joves, one of whom has Æther for his father; another, Coelus; the third, Saturn, born and buried [4152] in the island of Crete. They speak of five Suns and five Mercuries,--of whom, as they relate, the first Sun is called the son of Jupiter, and is regarded as grandson of Æther; the second is also Jupiter's son, and the mother who bore him Hyperiona; [4153] the third the son of Vulcan, not Vulcan of Lemnos, but the son of the Nile; the fourth, whom Acantho bore at Rhodes in the heroic age, was the father of Ialysus; while the fifth is regarded as the son of a Scythian king and subtle Circe. Again, the first Mercury, who is said to have lusted after Proserpina, [4154] is son of Coelus, who is above all. Under the earth is the second, who boasts that he is Trophonius. The third was born of Maia, his mother, and the third Jove; [4155] the fourth is the offspring of the Nile, whose name the people of Egypt dread and fear to utter. The fifth is the slayer of Argus, a fugitive and exile, and the inventor of letters in Egypt. But there are five Minervas also, they say, just as there are five Suns and Mercuries; the first of whom is no virgin but the mother of Apollo by Vulcan; the second, the offspring of the Nile, who is asserted to be the Egyptian Sais; the third is descended from Saturn, and is the one who devised the use of arms; the fourth is sprung from Jove, and the Messenians name her Coryphasia; and the fifth is she who slew her lustful [4156] father, Pallas.