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During those times the kingdom of Argos came to an end; being
transferred to Mycene, from which Agamemnon came, and the kingdom of
Laurentum arose, of which Picus son of Saturn was the first king,
when the woman Deborah judged the Hebrews; bill it was the Spirit of
God who used her as His agent, for she was also a prophetess,
although her prophecy is so obscure that we could not demonstrate,
without a long discussion, that it was uttered concerning Christ.
Now the Laurentes already reigned in Italy, from whom the origin of
the Roman people is quite evidently derived after the Greeks; yet the
kingdom of Assyria still lasted, in which Lampares was the
twenty-third king when Picus first began to reign at Laurentum. The
worshippers of such gods may see what they are to think of Saturn the
father of Picus, who deny that he was a man; of whom some also have
written that he himself reigned in Italy before Picus his son; and
Virgil in his well-known book says, "That race indocile, and
through mountains high Dispersed, he settled, and endowed with laws,
And named their country Latium, because Latent within their coasts
he dwelt secure. Tradition says the golden ages pure Began when he
was king."
But they regard these as poetic fancies, and assert that the father of
Picus was Sterces rather, and relate that, being a most skillful
husbandman, he discovered that the fields could be fertilized by the
dung of animals, which is called stercus from his name. Some say he
was called Stercutius. But for whatever reason they chose to call him
Saturn, it is yet certain they made this Sterces or Stercutius a god
for his merit in agriculture; and they likewise received into the
number of these gods Picus his son, whom they affirm to have been a
famous augur and warrior. Picus begot Faunus, the second king of
Laurentum; and he too is, or was, a god with them. These divine
honors they gave to dead men before the Trojan war.
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