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Janus was the god of beginnings, Terminus was the god of the boundary, Silvanus of the forest, Vertumnus of the circling year. The farmer, in each part of his labor, in harrowing, plowing, sowing, etc., invoked a spirit. So marriage, birth, and every natural event had each a sacred life of its own.
Each city had a guardian spirit, each stream its nymph, each wood its faun; also there were gods to whom the boundary stones of estates were dedicated. There was a goddess of fruits called Pomona, and a god of fruits named Vertumnus. In their names the fields and the crops were solemnly blest, and all were sacred to Saturn.
"But," said Vertumnus, "if the tree stood alone, and had no vine clinging to it, it would lie prostrate on the ground. Why will you not take a lesson from the tree and the vine, and consent to unite yourself with some one? I wish you would. Helen herself had not more numerous suitors, nor Penelope, the wife of shrewd Ulysses.
As a gardener, I shall probably have as much joy, though not quite so much profit, by thirty or forty shillings; for there is the greatest promise of fruit this year at 'Blackheath, that ever I saw in my life. Vertumnus and Pomona have been very propitious to me: as for Priapus, that tremendous garden god, as I no longer invoke him, I cannot expect his protection from the birds and the thieves.
Desecrated because out of the fields and meadows was driven a divinity greater than Pales or Vertumnus or mighty Pan, the divinity called Man.
Priscus, frequently observed with three rings, sometimes with his left hand bare, lived so irregularly that he would change his robe every hour; from a magnificent edifice, he would on a sudden hide himself in a place, whence a decent freedman could scarcely come out in a decent manner; one while he would choose to lead the life of a rake at Rome, another while that of a teacher at Athens; born under the evil influence of every Vertumnus.
To everything existing, to the man and to the tree, to the state and to the store-room, was assigned a spirit which came into being with it and perished along with it, the counterpart of the natural phenomenon in the spiritual domain; to the man the male Genius, to the woman the female Juno, to the boundary Terminus, to the forest Silvanus, to the circling year Vertumnus, and so on to every object after its kind.
Bacchus and Silenus, with Satyrs and Nymphs, betray the greatest terror, and Vulcan, with his ponderous hammer on one shoulder, gazes towards Hercules, who is speaking of this event with Mercury, beside whom is Pomona all in dismay, as are also Vertumnus and all the other Gods dispersed throughout that Heaven, in which all the effects of fear are so well expressed, both in those who are standing and in those who are flying, that it is not possible, I do not say to see, but even to imagine a more beautiful fantasy in painting than this one.
Now think of these things, my dear, and lay aside your scorn and your delays, and accept a lover. So may neither the vernal frosts blight your young fruits, nor furious winds scatter your blossoms!" When Vertumnus had spoken thus, he dropped the disguise of an old woman, and stood before her in his proper person, as a comely youth. It appeared to her like the sun bursting through a cloud.
The second part introduced Iris, Hebe, Pomona, Vertumnus, and choruses of Arcadians and others. This part concluded with a dance by gods of the sea and the Lombardian rivers. The third part began with the appearance of Orpheus leading Hymen, to whom he sang praises, accompanying himself on the lyre.
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