32. Mercury, also, has been
named as though he were a kind of go-between; and because conversation
passes between two speakers, and is exchanged by them, that which is
expressed by this name has been produced.4015
| 4015 Lit.,
“the quality of this name has been adjusted.” |
If this, then, is the case, Mercury
is not the name of a
god, but of
speech and words exchanged
by two
persons; and in this way is
blotted out and annihilated the noted
Cyllenian bearer of the caduceus,
born on the cold
mountain
top,
4016
| 4016 So
Orelli, reading monte vertice; the last word, according to
Oehler, not being found in the ms. |
contriver of
words and names,
the god who presides over
markets, and over the
exchange of goods and commercial intercourse. Some of you have
said that the
earth is the Great Mother,
4017
| 4017
i.e., Cybele. Cf. Lucr., ii. 991 sqq. |
because it
provides all things living
with
food; others declare that the same
earth is Ceres, because
it brings forth crops of useful fruits;
4018
while some maintain that it is Vesta,
because it alone in the universe is at rest, its other members being,
by their constitution, ever in motion. Now if this is propounded
and maintained on sure grounds, in like manner, on your interpretation,
three deities have no existence: neither Ceres nor Vesta are to
be reckoned in the number
4019
| 4019
Fasti—“list,” “register.” |
of the gods; nor, in fine, can the mother of the gods herself, whom
Nigidius thinks to have been married to Saturn, be rightly declared a
goddess, if indeed these are all names of the one earth, and it alone
is signified by these titles.
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