The notion that he ruled over the Golden Age after his usurpation as king of the gods is a uniquely Roman extrapolation upon the Greek myth. During this time, all human beings were said to be equal, with no social distinctions made between classes. Here Saturn introduced agriculture and ushered in a mythological period of great peace and contentment called the Golden Age, over which he ruled. Defeated, Saturn fled away from Jupiter to Latium, where he was taken in by the god Janus. Jupiter later returned to overthrow Saturn, becoming the new supreme ruler of the cosmos. Saturn promptly swallowed the stone, and in the process of ridding it from his digestive system was forced to disgorge each of his children as well. For fear of losing a sixth child, Ops hid Jupiter and offered Saturn a large stone wrapped in swaddling clothes in his place. Among these children were Ceres (goddess of plants), Veritas (goddess of truth), Vesta (goddess of the hearth and home), Pluto (god of the underworld), Neptune (god of the waters), and Juno (eventual queen of the gods). However, it was foretold that one day a mighty son of Saturn would in turn overthrow him, and in order to prevent this from occurring, Saturn devoured all of his children by his wife Ops, a goddess of fertility and the earth (equivalent to the Greek Rhea), as soon as they were born. Caelus's reign was marked by tyranny, and so Saturn overthrew him, thereby supplanting him as the supreme deity. Just like Cronus in Greek mythology, Saturn was the son of the supreme sky god (Caelus, equivalent to the Greek Uranus) and the earth mother (Tellus Greek Gaia). and subsequently began to acknowledge the Greek myths as their own, Saturn became virtually indistinguishable from Cronus. After the Romans invaded Greece in 146 B.C.E. This seems plausible, considering that Saturn has often been connected to the Roman institution of munera, gladiatorial exhibitions of Etruscan derivation which were originally held to celebrate the funerals of patricians. If this is indeed the case, then Saturn may have originally been a underworld deity linked to funerary rites. This etymology is supported by the fact that it parallels the origin of other Latin names that end in -urnus, -arnus, and -erna and demonstrably derived from Etruscan roots (such as Volturnus and Mastarna, among others). The name more likely derives from the Etruscan Satre, which referred to a god of the underworld who was responsible for funereal matters. While numerous authors both ancient and modern have suggested that the name derived from the verb sero/ satum, "to sow," bearing an obvious connection to agriculture, others have disagreed.
The origins of the theonym Saturn, and the nature of the earliest forms of the god are not altogether clear.
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