It was a time for free speech: the Augustan poet Horace calls it "December liberty". Saturnalian license also permitted slaves to enjoy a pretense of disrespect for their masters, and exempted them from punishment. The practice might have varied over time, and in any case slaves would still have prepared the meal. Ancient sources differ on the circumstances: some suggest that master and slave dined together, while others indicate that the slaves feasted first, or that the masters actually served the food. Slaves were treated to a banquet of the kind usually enjoyed by their masters. Saturnalia is the best-known of several festivals in the Greco-Roman world characterized by role reversals and behavioral license. It was a strongly emotive ritual exclamation or invocation, used for instance in announcing triumph or celebrating Bacchus, but also to punctuate a joke. The interjection io (Greek ἰώ, ǐō) is pronounced either with two syllables (a short i and a long o) or as a single syllable (with the i becoming the Latin consonantal j and pronounced yō). The phrase io Saturnalia was the characteristic shout or salutation of the festival, originally commencing after the public banquet on the single day of 17 December. ![]() They bathed early, and those with means sacrificed a suckling pig, a traditional offering to an earth deity. ![]() On 18 and 19 December, which were also holidays from public business, families conducted domestic rituals. Īfter the public rituals, observances continued at home. Courts were not in session, so no justice was administered, and no declaration of war could be made. Schools were closed, and exercise regimens were suspended. The day was supposed to be a holiday from all forms of work. A public banquet followed ( convivium publicum). įollowing the sacrifice the Roman Senate arranged a lectisternium, a ritual of Greek origin that typically involved placing a deity's image on a sumptuous couch, as if he were present and actively participating in the festivities. This procedure is usually explained by Saturn's assimilation with his Greek counterpart Cronus, since the Romans often adopted and reinterpreted Greek myths, iconography, and even religious practices for their own deities, but the uncovering of the priest's head may also be one of the Saturnalian reversals, the opposite of what was normal. The sacrifice was officiated by a priest, whose head was uncovered in Roman rite, priests sacrificed capite velato, with head covered by a special fold of the toga. The official rituals were carried out according to "Greek rite" ( ritus graecus). The statue of Saturn at his main temple normally had its feet bound in wool, which was removed for the holiday as an act of liberation. Ruins of the Temple of Saturn (eight columns to the far right), with three columns from the Temple of Vespasian and Titus (left) and the Arch of Septimius Severus (center). The popularity of Saturnalia continued into the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, and as the Roman Empire came under Christian rule, many of its customs were recast into or at least influenced the seasonal celebrations surrounding Christmas and the New Year. The renewal of light and the coming of the new year was celebrated in the later Roman Empire at the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, the "Birthday of the Unconquerable Sun", on 23 December. ![]() In one of the interpretations in Macrobius's work, Saturnalia is a festival of light leading to the winter solstice, with the abundant presence of candles symbolizing the quest for knowledge and truth. The Saturnalia was the dramatic setting of the multivolume work of that name by Macrobius, a Latin writer from late antiquity who is the major source for information about the holiday. ![]() Modern understanding of the festival is pieced together from several accounts dealing with various aspects. Īlthough probably the best-known Roman holiday, Saturnalia as a whole is not described from beginning to end in any single ancient source. The revelries of Saturnalia were supposed to reflect the conditions of the lost mythical age, not all of them desirable. In Roman mythology, Saturn was an agricultural deity who was said to have reigned over the world in the Golden Age, when humans enjoyed the spontaneous bounty of the earth without labor in a state of innocence.
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