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Reference to them is found in the earliest chronicles of Britain, and countless legends are told of their origin and history, they usually being traced to mythical hands. In James I.'s reign Stonehenge was said to be a Roman temple, dedicated to Coelus; subsequently, it was attributed to the Danes, the Phoenicians, the Britons, and the Druids by various writers.
¶ But by the way touching this Coelus, I will not denie, but assuredly such a prince there was: howbeit that he had a daughter named Helen, whom he maried vnto Constantius the Romane lieutenant that was after emperor, I leaue that to be decided of the learned.
The first Venus, who has a temple at Elis, was the daughter of Coelus and Dies. The second arose out of the froth of the sea, and became, by Mercury, the mother of the second Cupid. The third, the daughter of Jupiter and Diana, was married to Vulcan, but is said to have had Anteros by Mars. The fourth was a Syrian, born of Tyro, who is called Astarte, and is said to have been married to Adonis.
But what delight do you take in the explication of fables, and in the etymology of names? that Coelus was castrated by his son, and that Saturn was bound in chains by his son! By your defence of these and such like fictions you would make the authors of them appear not only not to be madmen, but to have been even very wise. But the pains which you take with your etymologies deserve our pity.
'Beside her, added a Eupatrid, who pretended to be better informed than any other person upon all manner of subjects, 'beside her the daughter of Coelus and the Sea would seem but a mere Ethiopian servant. 'Your words are blasphemy, and although Aphrodite be a kind and indulgent goddess, beware of drawing down her anger upon you.
Thus the firmament was filled with deities. Time, under the name of Saturn, was pictured as the son of heaven; or Coelus by earth, called Terra, or Thea; he was represented as an inexorable divinity naturally artful, who devoured his own children who revenged the anger of his mother upon his father; for which purpose she armed him with a scythe, formed of metals drawn from her own bowels, with which he struck Coelus, in the act of uniting himself to Thea, and so mutilated him, that he was ever after incapacitated to increase the number of his children: he was said to have divided the throne with Janus king of Italy, his reign seems to have been so mild, so beneficent, that it was called the golden age; human victims were sacrificed on his altars, until abolished by Hercules, who substituted small images of clay.
To begin, then: they who are called theologists say that there are three Jupiters; the first and second of whom were born in Arcadia; one of whom was the son of Æther, and father of Proserpine and Bacchus; the other the son of Coelus, and father of Minerva, who is called the Goddess and inventress of war; the third one born of Saturn in the isle of Crete, where his sepulchre is shown.
As for myself, I candidly confess to you, that, since the invention of these weapons by Jove, I do not see how war can be carried on by us any longer with effect. 'By the memory of old Coelus and these fast-flowing tears, murmured the venerable Oceanus, patting at the same time a crocodile on the back, 'I call you all to witness that I have no interest to deceive you.
Had Creation resolved itself into its original elements, had Chaos come again, or even old Coelus, the indignity might have been endured; but to be baffled by an Olympian juste milieu, and to find, after all the clamour, that nothing has been changed save the places, is, you will own, somewhat mortifying.
Democritus represents him as having derived the arts of weaving and sewing from the spider, and the art of building of tempered clay from the swallow; and we also read in Pliny's "Natural History," that the nest of the swallow suggested to Toxius, the son of Coelus, the invention of mortar.
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