But as the legends of Saturn are not all derived from Noah, so neither do all the traditions concerning Bacchus appertain to Saturn. I shall simply separate and note such as appear to me to be in common, e.g. “that Bacchus found out the making of wine, the art of planting trees, and many things else commodious for mankind.” [“And Noah, a husbandman, began to till the ground, and planted a vineyard, and drinking the wine was made drunk,” Gen. ix. 20.][175] It is said there were several Bacchuses. This may be only a reduplication, such as we have seen in the case of Oannes, Nin, and Nebo, or as in the multiplications of Jupiter. “Joves omnes reges vocarunt antiqui.”[176]
On this subject Montfauçon says (i. 155)[177] apropos of a point to which I shall again refer, viz. that Bacchus was Tauricornis.
“Diodorus Siculus says that the horns are only ascribed to the second Bacchus, the son of Jupiter and Proserpine; but these distinctions of various Bacchus were minded only in the more ancient times, hardly known in their worship.... This will also hold good of most of the other gods who were multiplied in the same manner.”
Vicomte d’Anselme (Gainet, i. 224), asks with reference to his Greek name of Dionysius, “Pourquoi les Grecs donnaient-ils le nom de Dionysos ou de divin Noush (dios nous ou Noë) à l’inventeur du vin?”—Vide supra, [ch. ix.]; vide also Gainet, i. 225.
Bacchus is by some called “Tauricornis” (compare supra, [p. 203], Nin) “or Bucornis, and moreover he is frequently so represented,” (i.e. not only with the horn in hand, a “bull’s horn,” as he is sometimes, which might be a drinking horn or cornucopia, in its way emblematical of the vir agricola”), “but also with horns on the head. Horace calls him “Bicorniger,” Orpheus, Βουκερως; Nicander, Ταυροκερως.“—Montfauçon, i. 147, 155; comp. p. 204, [note] to “Nin.”
One Bacchus, Cicero tells us, “was King of Asia and author of the Laws called Subazian.”—Montfauçon, i. 144. It is, moreover, said that Bacchus travelled through all nations as far as India,[178] doing good in all places, and teaching many things profitable to the life of man. His conquests are said to have been easy and without bloodshed. But it is also noted that amidst his benevolence to mankind, he was relentless in punishing all want of respect for his divinity, and indeed the conduct and punishment of Chanaan may be said to be narrated in the history of Pentheus.—Vide Montf. i. 161.[179]
III. Janus.—Janus represented the most ancient tradition of Noah in Italy; subsequent migrations brought in the legend of Saturn, and thus we find them variously confounded—Saturn sometimes figuring as his guest, sometimes as his son, sometimes as his colleague on the throne. Like Saturn he appears as double-headed or bifrons, he is said to have introduced civilisation among the wild tribes of Italy, and under him, as under Saturn, there appears to have been a golden age.
I have made reference to Saturn as Oceanus (vide Montfauçon, i. 5), and as Oceanus his representations are very remarkable. In one he appears as an old man sitting on the waves of the sea, with a sea monster on one side of him, and his spear or rod in his hand. In another as sitting on the waves of the sea with ships about him; he is “holding an urn and pours out water, the symbol of the sea, and also of rivers and fountains.”
But Janus is also represented in his medals “with a prow of a ship on the reverse,” and he is said to have first invented crowns, ships, and boats, and to have coined the first money.
“According to the accounts of mythologists,” says Macrobius, “all families in the time of Janus were full of religion and holiness.” “Xenon says he was the first that built temples and instituted sacred rites,” and was therefore always mentioned at the beginning of sacrifices.