Sun of Night

[This article tackles two issues in the "proto-astronomical" conception of the planet Saturn, first attested in Mesopotamia and followed by the Greeks and Hindus: the long-standing problem of Saturn's baffling association with the Sun; and why Saturn was deemed to be "black". After an extensive consideration of explanations offered from the 5th century to the 21st, as well as some new "thought experiments", we suggest that Saturn's connection with the Sun had its roots in the observations that Saturn's course appears to be the steadiest one among the planets and that its synodic period of all the planets most closely resembles the length of the solar year. For the black colour attributed to Saturn we propose a solution which is partly lexical and partly observational (due to atmospheric effects). Finally, some thoughts are offered on the question why in Hellenistic times some considered the "mock sun" Phaethon of Greek myth to have been Saturn.
-----