Saturnalia

For other uses, see Saturnalia (disambiguation).
Saturnalia

Observed by Romans
Type Classical Roman religion
Celebrations Feasting, role reversals, gift-giving, gambling
Observances Public sacrifice and banquet for the god Saturn; universal wearing of the Phrygian cap
Date December 17–23

Saturnalia was an ancient Roman festival in honour of the deity Saturn, held on 17 December of the Julian calendar and later expanded with festivities through to 23 December. The holiday was celebrated with a sacrifice at the Temple of Saturn, in the Roman Forum, and a public banquet, followed by private gift-giving, continual partying, and a carnival atmosphere that overturned Roman social norms: gambling was permitted, and masters provided table service for their slaves.[1] The poet Catullus called it "the best of days".[2]

Origins

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. The revelries of Saturnalia were supposed to reflect the conditions of the lost mythical age, not all of them desirable. The Greek equivalent was the Kronia.[3]

Although probably the best-known Roman holiday, Saturnalia as a whole is not described from beginning to end in any single ancient source. Modern understanding of the festival is pieced together from several accounts dealing with various aspects.[4] 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. 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.[5] 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.[6]

The popularity of Saturnalia continued into the 3rd and 4th centuries CE, 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.[7]

Public religious observance

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 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.[8] The official rituals were carried out according to "Greek rite" (ritus graecus). The sacrifice was officiated by a priest,[9] whose head was uncovered; in Roman rite, priests sacrificed capite velato, with head covered by a special fold of the toga.[10] 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.[11]

Following 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. A public banquet followed (convivium publicum).[12]

The day was supposed to be a holiday from all forms of work. Schools were closed, and exercise regimens were suspended. Courts were not in session, so no justice was administered, and no declaration of war could be made.[13]

After the public rituals, observances continued at home.[14] On 18 and 19 December, which were also holidays from public business, families conducted domestic rituals. They bathed early, and those with means sacrificed a suckling pig, a traditional offering to an earth deity.[15]

Io Saturnalia

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.[16] 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). It was a strongly emotive ritual exclamation or invocation, used for instance in announcing triumph or celebrating Bacchus, but also to punctuate a joke.[17]

Private festivities

"Meanwhile the head of the slave household, whose responsibility it was to offer sacrifice to the Penates, to manage the provisions and to direct the activities of the domestic servants, came to tell his master that the household had feasted according to the annual ritual custom. For at this festival, in houses that keep to proper religious usage, they first of all honor the slaves with a dinner prepared as if for the master; and only afterwards is the table set again for the head of the household. So, then, the chief slave came in to announce the time of dinner and to summon the masters to the table."[18]

Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.24.22–23

Saturnalia is the best-known of several festivals in the Greco-Roman world characterized by role reversals and behavioral license.[19] Slaves were treated to a banquet of the kind usually enjoyed by their masters. Ancient sources differ on the circumstances: some suggest that master and slave dined together,[20] while others indicate that the slaves feasted first, or that the masters actually served the food. The practice might have varied over time,[21] and in any case slaves would still have prepared the meal.

Saturnalian license also permitted slaves to disrespect their masters without the threat of a punishment. It was a time for free speech: the Augustan poet Horace calls it "December liberty".[22] In two satires set during the Saturnalia, Horace has a slave offer sharp criticism to his master.[23] Everyone knew, however, that the leveling of the social hierarchy was temporary and had limits; no social norms were ultimately threatened, because the holiday would end.[24]

The toga, the characteristic garment of the male Roman citizen, was set aside in favor of the Greek synthesis, colourful "dinner clothes" otherwise considered in poor taste for daytime wear.[25] Romans of citizen status normally went about bare-headed, but for the Saturnalia donned the pilleus, the conical felt cap that was the usual mark of a freedman. Slaves, who ordinarily were not entitled to wear the pilleus, wore it as well, so that everyone was "pilleated" without distinction.[26]

The participation of freeborn Roman women is implied by sources that name gifts for women, but their presence at banquets may have depended on the custom of their time; from the late Republic onward, women mingled socially with men more freely than they had in earlier times. Female entertainers were certainly present at some otherwise all-male gatherings.[27]

Role-playing was implicit in the Saturnalia's status reversals, and there are hints of mask-wearing or "guising".[28] No theatrical events are mentioned in connection with the festivities, but the classicist Erich Segal saw Roman comedy, with its cast of impudent, free-wheeling slaves and libertine seniors, as imbued with the Saturnalian spirit.[29]

Dice players in a wall painting from Pompeii.

Gambling and dice-playing, normally prohibited or at least frowned upon, were permitted for all, even slaves. Coins and nuts were the stakes. On the Calendar of Philocalus, the Saturnalia is represented by a man wearing a fur-trimmed coat next to a table with dice, and a caption reading: "Now you have license, slave, to game with your master."[30][31] Rampant overeating and drunkenness became the rule, and a sober person the exception.[32]

Seneca looked forward to the holiday, if somewhat tentatively, in a letter to a friend:

"It is now the month of December, when the greatest part of the city is in a bustle. Loose reins are given to public dissipation; everywhere you may hear the sound of great preparations, as if there were some real difference between the days devoted to Saturn and those for transacting business. … Were you here, I would willingly confer with you as to the plan of our conduct; whether we should eve in our usual way, or, to avoid singularity, both take a better supper and throw off the toga."[33]

Some Romans found it all a bit much. Pliny describes a secluded suite of rooms in his Laurentine villa, which he used as a retreat: "...especially during the Saturnalia when the rest of the house is noisy with the licence of the holiday and festive cries. This way I don't hamper the games of my people and they don't hinder my work or studies."[34]

Gift-giving

The Sigillaria on 19 December was a day of gift-giving.[35] Because gifts of value would mark social status contrary to the spirit of the season, these were often the pottery or wax figurines called sigillaria made specially for the day, candles, or "gag gifts", of which Augustus was particularly fond.[36] Children received toys as gifts.[37] In his many poems about the Saturnalia, Martial names both expensive and quite cheap gifts, including writing tablets, dice, knucklebones, moneyboxes, combs, toothpicks, a hat, a hunting knife, an axe, various lamps, balls, perfumes, pipes, a pig, a sausage, a parrot, tables, cups, spoons, items of clothing, statues, masks, books, and pets.[38] Gifts might be as costly as a slave or exotic animal,[39] but Martial suggests that token gifts of low intrinsic value inversely measure the high quality of a friendship.[40] Patrons or "bosses" might pass along a gratuity (sigillaricium) to their poorer clients or dependents to help them buy gifts. Some emperors were noted for their devoted observance of the Sigillaria.[41]

In a practice that might be compared to modern greeting cards, verses sometimes accompanied the gifts. Martial has a collection of poems written as if to be attached to gifts.[42] Catullus received a book of bad poems by "the worst poet of all time" as a joke from a friend.[43]

Gift-giving was not confined to the day of the Sigillaria. In some households, guests and family members received gifts after the feast in which slaves had shared.[44]

On the calendar

Drawing from the Calendar of Philocalus depicting the month of December, with Saturnalian dice on the table and a mask (oscilla) hanging above.

As an observance of state religion, Saturnalia was supposed to have been held ante diem xvi Kalendas Ianuarias, sixteen days before the Kalends of January, on the oldest Roman religious calendar,[45] which the Romans believed to have been established by the legendary founder Romulus and his successor Numa Pompilius. It was a dies festus, a legal holiday when no public business could be conducted.[46] The day marked the dedication anniversary (dies natalis) of the Temple to Saturn in the Roman Forum in 497 BC.[47] When Julius Caesar had the calendar reformed because it had fallen out of synchronization with the solar year, two days were added to the month, and Saturnalia fell on 17 December. It was felt, however, that the original day had thus been moved by two days, and so Saturnalia was celebrated under Augustus as a three-day official holiday encompassing both dates.[48]

By the late Republic, the private festivities of Saturnalia had expanded to seven days,[49] but during the Imperial period contracted variously to three to five days.[50] Caligula extended official observances to five.[51]

The date 17 December was the first day of the astrological sign Capricorn, the house of Saturn, the planet named for the god.[52] Its proximity to the winter solstice (21 to 23 December on the Julian calendar) was endowed with various meanings by both ancient and modern scholars: for instance, the widespread use of wax candles (cerei, singular cereus) could refer to "the returning power of the sun's light after the solstice".[53]

Historical context

Saturnalia underwent a major reform in 217 BCE, after the Battle of Lake Trasimene, when the Romans suffered one of their most crushing defeats by Carthage during the Second Punic War. Until that time, they had celebrated the holiday according to Roman custom (more Romano). It was after a consultation of the Sibylline books that they adopted "Greek rite", introducing sacrifices carried out in the Greek manner, the public banquet, and the continual shouts of io Saturnalia that became characteristic of the celebration.[54] Cato the Elder (234–149 BCE) remembered a time before the so-called "Greek" elements had been added to the Roman Saturnalia.[55]

It was not unusual for the Romans to offer cult (cultus) to the deities of other nations in the hope of redirecting their favor (see evocatio), and the Second Punic War in particular created pressures on Roman society that led to a number of religious innovations and reforms.[56] Robert Palmer has argued that the introduction of new rites at this time was in part an effort to appease Ba'al Hammon, the Carthaginian god who was regarded as the counterpart of the Roman Saturn and Greek Cronus.[57] The table service that masters offered their slaves thus would have extended to Carthaginian or African war captives.[58]

King of the Saturnalia

Ave, Caesar! Io, Saturnalia! (1880) by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, with the Praetorian Guard hailing Claudius (veiling himself in a curtain) as the new emperor after the assassination of Caligula.[59]

Imperial sources refer to a Saturnalicius princeps who ruled as master of ceremonies for the proceedings. He was appointed by lot, and has been compared to the medieval Lord of Misrule at the Feast of Fools. His capricious commands, such as "Sing naked!" or "Throw him into cold water!", had to be obeyed by the other guests at the convivium: he creates and (mis)rules a chaotic and absurd world. The future emperor Nero is recorded as playing the role in his youth.[60]

Since this figure does not appear in accounts from the Republican period, the princeps of the Saturnalia may have developed as a satiric response to the new era of rule by a princeps, the title assumed by the first emperor Augustus to avoid the hated connotations of the word "king" (rex). Art and literature under Augustus celebrated his reign as a new Golden Age, but the Saturnalia makes a mockery of a world in which law is determined by one man and the traditional social and political networks are reduced to the power of the emperor over his subjects.[61] In a poem about a lavish Saturnalia under Domitian, Statius makes it clear that the emperor, like Jupiter, reigns a temporary term, until the return of Saturn.[62]

Theological and philosophical views

Saturn driving a four-horse chariot (quadriga) on the reverse of a denarius issued in 104 BCE by the plebeian tribune Saturninus, with the head of the goddess Roma on the obverse: Saturninus was a popularist politician whose Saturnian imagery played on his name and evoked both his program of grain distribution to aid the poor and his intent to subvert the social hierarchy.[63]

The Saturnalia reflects the contradictory nature of the deity Saturn himself: "There are joyful and utopian aspects of careless well-being side by side with disquieting elements of threat and danger."[64]

As a deity of agricultural bounty, Saturn embodied prosperity and wealth in general. The name of his consort Ops meant "wealth, resources". Her festival, Opalia, was celebrated on 19 December. The Temple of Saturn housed the state treasury (aerarium Saturni) and was the administrative headquarters of the quaestors, the public officials whose duties included oversight of the mint. It was among the oldest cult sites in Rome, and had been the location of "a very ancient" altar (ara) even before the building of the first temple in 497 BCE.[65]

The Romans regarded Saturn as the original and autochthonous ruler of the Capitolium,[66] and the first king of Latium or even the whole of Italy.[67] At the same time, there was a tradition that Saturn had been an immigrant deity, received by Janus after he was usurped by his son Jupiter (Zeus) and expelled from Greece.[68] His contradictions—a foreigner with one of Rome's oldest sanctuaries, and a god of liberation who is kept in fetters most of the year—indicate Saturn's capacity for obliterating social distinctions.[69]

Roman mythology of the Golden Age of Saturn's reign differed from the Greek tradition. He arrived in Italy "dethroned and fugitive",[70] but brought agriculture and civilization and became a king. As the Augustan poet Vergil described it:

"[H]e gathered together the unruly race [of fauns and nymphs] scattered over mountain heights, and gave them laws … . Under his reign were the golden ages men tell of: in such perfect peace he ruled the nations."[71]

Munera

Saturn also had a less benevolent aspect. Another of his consorts was Lua, sometimes called Lua Saturni ("Saturn's Lua") and identified with Lua Mater, "Mother Destruction", a goddess in whose honor the weapons of enemies killed in war were burned, perhaps in expiation.[72] Saturn's chthonic nature connected him to the underworld and its ruler Dis Pater, the Roman equivalent of Greek Plouton (Pluto in Latin) who was also a god of hidden wealth.[73] In sources of the third century AD and later, Saturn is recorded as receiving dead gladiators as offerings (munera) during or near the Saturnalia.[74] These gladiator events, ten days in all throughout December, were presented mainly by the quaestors and sponsored with funds from the treasury of Saturn.[75] The practice of gladiator munera was criticized by Christian apologists as a form of human sacrifice.[76] Although there is no evidence of this practice during the Republic, the offering of gladiators led to later theories that the primeval Saturn had demanded human victims. Macrobius says that Dis Pater was placated with human heads and Saturn with sacrificial victims consisting of men (virorum victimis).[77] During the visit of Hercules to Italy, the civilizing demigod insisted that the practice be halted and the ritual reinterpreted. Instead of heads to Dis Pater, the Romans were to offer effigies or masks (oscilla); a mask appears in the representation of Saturnalia in the Calendar of Filocalus. Since the Greek word phota meant both vir (man) and lumina (lights), candles were a substitute offering to Saturn for the light of life.[78] The figurines that were exchanged as gifts (sigillaria) may also have represented token substitutes.[79]

In The Golden Bough, J.G. Frazer interpreted an incident from the Acts of Saint Dasius, an early martyrological text, as indicative of human sacrifice in connection with the Saturnalia. Dasius was a Christian soldier who refused to play the part of the King of the Saturnalia when it was allotted to him, and for his refusal was killed. From this anecdote, Frazer surmises that the King of the Saturnalia was originally a scapegoat victim who was killed as a human sacrifice to Saturn at the end of his festival.[80] Since the role of the "king" is not attested before the Imperial period, this interpretation is not generally accepted by modern specialists of Roman religion. The martyrdom of Dasius took place at Durostorum in the province of Moesia Inferior on 20 November 303 CE, the anniversary of Diocletian's accession as emperor (dies imperii) and nearly a month before the date of the communal sacrifice for the Saturnalia (December 17).[81] The execution occurred more broadly in the context of general harassment of Christians in the Roman military during the Diocletianic Persecution, the edict for which had been issued in February of that year, and only after Dasius refused to venerate Imperial icons.[82] K.M. Coleman regards the martyrdom of Dasius as an enactment of scapegoat ritual, but likens it to the ritualized executions that took place as mythological scenarios in the arena, with the costuming and role of the Christian meant to enhance the purposes of retributive justice and the restoration of the pax deorum.[83] As an element of martyr narrative, the torture of the mock "king" may recall the mocking of Jesus of Nazareth by Roman soldiers in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew.[84]

Other ancient interpretations

Roman disc in silver depicting Sol Invictus (from Pessinus in Phrygia, 3rd century CE).

The Neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry took an allegorical view of the Saturnalia. He saw the festival's theme of liberation and dissolution as representing the "freeing of souls into immortality"—an interpretation that Mithraists may also have followed, since they included many slaves and freedmen.[85] According to Porphyry, the Saturnalia occurred near the winter solstice because the sun enters Capricorn, the astrological house of Saturn, at that time.[86] In the Saturnalia of Macrobius, the proximity of the Saturnalia to the winter solstice leads to an exposition of solar monotheism,[87] the belief that the Sun (see Sol Invictus) ultimately encompasses all divinities as one. Perceived relations among the Mithraic mysteries, the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (the "Birthday of the Unconquered Sun") on December 23, and the Christian Nativity as celebrated on December 25 are a matter of long-standing and complex scholarly debate.

The Mishna and Talmud (Avodah Zara 8a) describe a pagan festival called Saturna which occurs for eight days before the winter solstice. It is followed for eight days after the solstice with a festival called Kalenda culminating with the Kalends of January. The Talmud ascribes the origins of this festival to Adam, who saw that the days were getting shorter and thought it was punishment for his sin. He was afraid that the world was returning to the chaos and emptiness that existed before creation. He sat and fasted for eight days. Once he saw that the days were getting longer again he realized that this was the natural cycle of the world, so made eight days of celebration. The Talmud states that this festival was later turned into a pagan festival.[88][89]

Influence

Unlike several Roman religious festivals which were particular to cult sites in the city, the prolonged seasonal celebration of Saturnalia at home could be held anywhere in the Empire.[90] Saturnalia continued as a secular celebration long after it was removed from the official calendar.[91] As William Warde Fowler noted: "[Saturnalia] has left its traces and found its parallels in great numbers of medieval and modern customs, occurring about the time of the winter solstice."[92]

See also

References

  1. ↑ John F. Miller, "Roman Festivals," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome (Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 172.
  2. ↑ Catullus 14.15 (optimo dierum), as cited by Hans-Friedrich Mueller, "Saturn," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, p. 221.
  3. ↑ William F. Hansen, Ariadne's Thread: A Guide to International Tales Found in Classical Literature (Cornell University Press, 2002), p. 385.
  4. ↑ Fanny Dolansky, "Celebrating the Saturnalia: Religious Ritual and Roman Domestic Life," in A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), p. 484.
  5. ↑ Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.1.8–9; Jane Chance, Medieval Mythography: From Roman North Africa to the School of Chartres, A.D. 433–1177 (University Press of Florida, 1994), p. 71.
  6. ↑ Robert A. Kaster, Macrobius: Saturnalia, Books 1–2 (Loeb Classical Library, 2011), note on p. 16.
  7. ↑ Mary Beard, J.A. North, and S.R.F. Price, Religions of Rome: A Sourcebook (Cambridge University Press, 1998), vol. 2, p. 124; Craig A. Williams, Martial: Epigrams Book Two (Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 259 (on the custom of gift-giving). Many observers schooled in the classical tradition have noted similarities between the Saturnalia and historical revelry during the Twelve Days of Christmas and the Feast of Fools; see entry on "Bacchanalia and Saturnalia," in The Classical Tradition, edited by Anthony Grafton, Glenn W. Most, and Salvatore Settis (Harvard University Press, 2010), p. 116. "The reciprocal influences of the Saturnalia, Germanic solstitial festivals, Christmas, and Chanukkah are familiar," notes C. Bennet Pascal, "October Horse," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 85 (1981), p. 289.
  8. ↑ Macrobius 1.8.5, citing Verrius Flaccus as his authority; see also Statius, Silvae 1.6.4; Arnobius 4.24; Minucius Felix 23.5; Miller, "Roman Festivals," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, p. 172; H.S. Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," in Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman Religion: Transition and Reversal in Myth and Ritual (Brill, 1993, 1994), p. 142.
  9. ↑ The identity or title of this priest is unknown; perhaps the rex sacrorum or one of the magistrates: William Warde Fowler, The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic (London, 1908), p. 271.
  10. ↑ Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," pp. 139–140.
  11. ↑ Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," p. 140.
  12. ↑ Livy 22.1; Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," p. 141; Robert E.A. Palmer, Rome and Carthage at Peace (Franz Steiner, 1997), p. 63.
  13. ↑ Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," p. 147, citing Pliny the Younger, Letters 8.7.1, Martial 5.84 and 12.81; Lucian, Cronosolon 13; Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.10.1, 4, 23.
  14. ↑ Mary Beard, J.A. North, and S.R.F. Price, Religions of Rome: A History (Cambridge University Press, 1998), vol. 1, p. 50.
  15. ↑ Horace, Odes 3.17, Martial 14.70; Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 272.
  16. ↑ Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," p. 141; Palmer, Rome and Carthage, p. 63.
  17. ↑ Entry on io, Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982, 1985 reprinting), p. 963.
  18. ↑ Beard et al., Religions of Rome: A Sourcebook, vol. 2, p. 124.
  19. ↑ Robert Parker, On Greek Religion (Cornell University Press, 2011), p. 211.
  20. ↑ Seneca, Epistulae 47.14; Carlin A. Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster (Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 498.
  21. ↑ Dolansky, "Celebrating the Saturnalia," p. 484.
  22. ↑ Horaces, Satires 2.7.4, libertas Decembri; Mueller, "Saturn," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, pp. 221–222.
  23. ↑ Horace, Satires, Book 2, poems 3 and 7; Catherine Keane, Figuring Genre in Roman Satire (Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 90; Maria Plaza, The Function of Humour in Roman Verse Satire: Laughing and Lying (Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 298–300 et passim.
  24. ↑ Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans, passim.
  25. ↑ Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," p. 147 (especially note 59).
  26. ↑ Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," p. 147; Dolansky, "Celebrating the Saturnalia," p. 492.
  27. ↑ Dolansky, "Celebrating the Saturnalia," pp. 492–494.
  28. ↑ At the beginning of Horace's Satire 2.3, and the mask in the Saturnalia imagery of the Calendar of Philocalus, and Martial's inclusion of masks as Saturnalia gifts; Beard et al., Religions of Rome: A Sourcebook, vol. 2, p. 125.
  29. ↑ Erich Segal, Roman Laughter: The Comedy of Plautus (Oxford University Press, 1968, 2nd ed. 1987), pp. 8–9, 32–33, 103 et passim.
  30. ↑ Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," p. 148, citing Suetonius, Life of Augustus 71; Martial 1.14.7, 5.84, 7.91.2, 11.6, 13.1.7; 14.1; Lucian, Saturnalia 1.
  31. ↑ See http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/chronography_of_354_06_calendar.htm for a copy of the actual calendar
  32. ↑ Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," p. 147, citing Cato the Elder, De agricultura 57; Aulus Gellius 2.24.3; Martial 14.70.1 and 14.1.9; Horace, Satire 2.3.5; Lucian, Saturnalia 13; Scriptores Historiae Augustae, Alexander Severus 37.6.
  33. ↑ Seneca the Younger, Epistulae 18.1–2.
  34. ↑ Pliny the Younger, Letters 2.17.24. Horace similarly sets Satire 2.3 during the Saturnalia but in the countryside, where he has fled the frenzied pace.
  35. ↑ Dolansky, "Celebrating the Saturnalia," pp. 492, 502. Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.10.24, seems to indicate that the Sigillaria was a market that occurred at the end of Saturnalia, but the Gallo-Roman scholar-poet Ausonius (Eclogues 16.32) refers to it as a religious occasion (sacra sigillorum, "rites of the sigillaria").
  36. ↑ Suetonius, Life of Augustus 75; Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," p. 148, pointing to the Cronosolon of Lucian on the problem of unequal gift-giving.
  37. ↑ Beryl Rawson, "Adult-Child Relationships in Ancient Rome," in Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome (Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 19.
  38. ↑ Martial, Epigrams 13 and 14, the Xenia and the Apophoreta, published 84–85 AD.
  39. ↑ Dolansky, "Celebrating the Saturnalia," p. 492, citing Martial 5.18, 7.53, 14; Suetonius, Life of Augustus 75 and Life of Vespasian 19 on the range of gifts.
  40. ↑ Ruurd R. Nauta, Poetry for Patrons: Literary Communication in the Age of Domitian (Brill, 2002), pp. 78–79.
  41. ↑ Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," pp. 148–149, citing Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.10.24 and 1.11.49; Suetonius, Life of Claudius 5; Scriptores Historiae Augustae Hadrian 17.3, Caracalla 1.8 and Aurelian 50.3. See also Dolansky, "Celebrating the Saturnalia," p. 492.
  42. ↑ Martial, Book 14 (Apophoreta); Williams, Martial: Epigrams, p. 259; Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," p. 148; Nauta, Poetry for Patrons, p. 79 et passim.
  43. ↑ Catullus, Carmen 14; Robinson Ellis, A Commentary on Catullus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1876), pp. 38–39.
  44. ↑ Dolansky, "Celebrating the Saturnalia," pp. 492.
  45. ↑ Palmer, Rome and Carthage, p. 62.
  46. ↑ Palmer, Rome and Carthage, p. 63; Beard et al., Religions of Rome: A History, vol. 1, p. 6.
  47. ↑ Palmer, Rome and Carthage, p. 63; Mueller, "Saturn," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, p. 221.
  48. ↑ Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.10.23; Mueller, "Saturn," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, p. 221; Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 268; Carole E. Newlands, "The Emperor's Saturnalia: Statius, Silvae 1.6," in Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text (Brill, 2003), p. 505.
  49. ↑ Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.10.3, citing the Atellane composers Novius and Mummius; Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," p. 146.
  50. ↑ Miller, "Roman Festivals," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, p. 172.
  51. ↑ Suetonius, Life of Caligula 17; Cassius Dio 59.6.4; Mueller, "Saturn," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, p. 221; Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 268, citing Mommsen and CIL I.337.
  52. ↑ Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 268, note 3; Roger Beck, "Ritual, Myth, Doctrine, and Initiation in the Mysteries of Mithras: New Evidence from a Cult Vessel," Journal of Roman Studies 90 (2000), p. 179.
  53. ↑ Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 272. Fowler thought the use of candles influenced the Christmas rituals of the Latin Church, and compared the symbolism of the candles to the Yule log.
  54. ↑ Livy 22.1.20; Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.10.18 (on the shout); Palmer, Rome and Carthage, pp. 63–64.
  55. ↑ Palmer, Rome and Carthage, p. 64, citing the implications of Cato, frg. 77 ORF4.
  56. ↑ Palmer, Rome and Carthage, passim. See also the importation of Cybele to Rome during this time.
  57. ↑ Palmer, Rome and Carthage, p. 64. For other scholars who have held this view, including those who precede Palmer, see Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," pp. 141–142, especially note 32.
  58. ↑ Palmer, Rome and Carthage, pp. 63–64.
  59. ↑ The painting represents a scene recorded by Josephus, Antiquitates Iudiacae 19; and Cassius Dio 60.1.3.
  60. ↑ By Tacitus, Annales 13.15.
  61. ↑ Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," pp. 206–208.
  62. ↑ Statius, Silvae 1.6; Nauta, Poetry for Patrons, p. 400.
  63. ↑ Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," p. 162.
  64. ↑ H.S. Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," in Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman Religion: Transition and Reversal in Myth and Ritual (Brill, 1993, 1994), p. 148.
  65. ↑ Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," pp. 136–137; Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 271.
  66. ↑ The Capitolium had thus been called the Mons Saturnius in older times.
  67. ↑ Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," pp. 138–139.
  68. ↑ Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," p. 139. The Roman theologian Varro listed Saturn among the Sabine gods.
  69. ↑ Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," pp. 139, 142–143.
  70. ↑ Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," p. 143.
  71. ↑ Vergil, Aeneid 8. 320–325, as cited by Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," p. 143.
  72. ↑ Mueller, "Saturn," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, p. 222. Versnel, however, proposes that Lua Saturni should not be identified with Lua Mater, but rather refers to "loosening": she represents the liberating function of Saturn ("Saturnus and the Saturnalia," p. 144).
  73. ↑ Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," pp. 144–145. See also the Etruscan god Satre.
  74. ↑ For instance, Ausonius, Eclogue 23 and De feriis Romanis 33–7. See Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," pp. 146 and 211–212, and Thomas E.J. Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators (Routledge, 1992, 1995), p. 47.
  75. ↑ More precisely, eight days were subsidized from the Imperial treasury (arca fisci) and two mostly by the sponsoring magistrate. Michele Renee Salzman, On Roman Time: The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (University of California Press, 1990), p. 186.
  76. ↑ Mueller, "Saturn," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, p. 222; Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," p. 146.
  77. ↑ Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.7.31; Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," p. 146.
  78. ↑ Rabun Taylor, "Roman Oscilla: An Assessment," in RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 48 (2005), p. 101; Jane Chance, Medieval Mythography: From Roman North Africa to the School of Chartres, A.D. 433–1177 (University Press of Florida, 1994), pp. 71–72.
  79. ↑ Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.10.24; Carlin A. Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster (Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 166. For another Roman ritual that may represent human sacrifice, see Argei. Oscilla were also part of the Latin Festival and the Compitalia: Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 272.
  80. ↑ "Since the custom of putting a mock king to death as a representative of a god cannot have grown out of a practice of appointing him to preside over a holiday revel, whereas the reverse may very well have happened, we are justified in assuming that in an earlier and more barbarous age it was the universal practice in ancient Italy, wherever the worship of Saturn prevailed, to choose a man who played the part and enjoyed all the traditionary privileges of Saturn for a season, and then died [...] in the character of the good god who gave his life for the world": 1922 ed., 58.3 "The Roman Saturnalia"); originally published in the 2nd ed. of 1900. C.f. Andrew Lang, Magic and Religion (1901), 109-111.
  81. ↑ As pointed out by John Helgeland, "Christians and the Roman Army A.D. 173–337," Church History 43.2 (1974), p. 160, and Edward Champlin, "The Testament of the Piglet," Phoenix 41.2 (1987), p. 180.
  82. ↑ Helgeland, "Christians and the Roman Army," p. 160; Champlin, "The Testament of the Piglet," p. 180.
  83. ↑ K.M. Coleman, "Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments," Journal of Roman Studies 80 (1990), p. 69 et passim.
  84. ↑ Champlin, "The Testament of the Piglet," p. 181, citing also H. Leclerq, "Dasius," Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie 4.1 (1920) 272–282, and Stefan Weinstock, "Saturnalien und Neujahrfest in den Märtyreacten," in Mullus. Festschrift Theodor Klauser, edited by A. Stuiber and A Hermann, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum Ergänzungsband 1 (1964), 391–400. Some scholars deny the authenticity of the martyrdom, among them Champlin, "The Testament of the Piglet," and H. Delehaye, Les passions des martyrs et les genres littéraires (Brussels, 1966), pp. 230–235. The Bassus who presided over the execution cannot be shown to have been historical: T.D. Barnes, The New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine (Harvard University Press, 1982), p. 184, as cited by Champlin, "The Testament of the Piglet," p. 180. The historicity of the martyrdom, however, need not reflect on the accuracy of its depiction of Saturnalian customs, as Champlin observes. Weinstock saw the ceremonies at Durostorum as a peculiar combination of the Saturnalia and a solar festival, as summarized by Coleman, "Fatal Charades," p. 69, and Champlin, "The Testament of the Piglet," p. 181.
  85. ↑ Porphyry, De antro 23, following Numenius, as cited by Roger Beck, "Qui Mortalitatis Causa Convenerunt: The Meeting of the Virunum Mithraists on June 26, A.D. 184," Phoenix 52 (1998), p. 340. One of the speakers in Macrobius's Saturnalia is Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, a Mithraist.
  86. ↑ Roger Beck, "Ritual, Myth, Doctrine, and Initiation in the Mysteries of Mithras: New Evidence from a Cult Vessel," Journal of Roman Studies 90 (2000), p. 179.
  87. ↑ R. van den Broek, "The Sarapis Oracle in Macrobius Sat., I, 20, 16–17," in Hommages à Maarten J. Vermaseren (Brill, 1978), vol. 1, p. 123ff.
  88. ↑ A portion of Avodah Zarah 8, quoted in Menachem Leibtag's Chanuka - Its Biblical Roots - Part Two, hosted on The Tanach Study Center
  89. ↑ A portion of Avodah Zarah 8, quoted in Ebn Leader's The Darkness of Winter - Environmental reflections on Hanukah, hosted on The Kibbutz Institute for Holidays and Jewish Culture.
  90. ↑ Greg Woolf, "Found in Translation: The Religion of the Roman Diaspora," in Ritual Dynamics and Religious Change in the Roman Empire. Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop of the International Network Impact of Empire (Heidelberg, July 5–7, 2007) (Brill, 2009), p. 249. See Aulus Gellius 18.2.1 for Romans living in Athens and celebrating the Saturnalia.
  91. ↑ Michele Renee Salzman, "Religious Koine and Religious Dissent," in A Companion to Roman Religion (Blackwell, 2007), p. 121.
  92. ↑ Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 268.

Bibliography

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