The time which Saturn passed on earth is known as the age of gold. […] At Rome, in which his temple was placed, it was open in the time of war, and shut during that of peace. […] He slew his father, because, the world and time once created, he could exist no longer; he devoured his infants because time destroys all, and he threw them from his stomach because time returns with the years and days; and this part of the fable is also an image of the operations which nature accomplishes under the influence of time. […] At Delphi and at Athens the priestesses were not virgins, as at the other temples, but widows who were past the time of marriage. […] By this time mankind had owed their creation to the King of the Gods.