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===Influence on Christmas===
===Influence on Christmas===
A number of scholars view aspects of the Saturnalia festival as being the origin of some later [[Christmas]] customs, particularly the practice of [[Gift economy|gift giving]], which was suppressed by the [[Catholic Church]] during the [[Middle Ages]] due to perceived "pagan origins".<ref name="OriginMyth">[http://web.archive.org/web/20110430004539/http://www.bsu.edu/web/01bkswartz/xmaspub.html The Origin of the American Christmas Myth and Customs] – ''Ball State University''. Swartz Jr., BK. Archived version retrieved 2011-10-19.</ref> Some also claim that Saturnalia influenced the chosen date of Christmas, however Christmas does not coincide with the date range of Saturnalia (December 17–23).<ref>Carl Philipp Emanuel Nothaft. "From Sukkot to Saturnalia: The Attack on Christmas in Sixteenth-Century Chronological Scholarship." Journal of the History of Ideas 72.4 (2011): 503-522. Project MUSE. Web. 5 Dec. 2011.</ref> The Catholic Encyclopedia states the Church's view on the latter claim by saying that while midwinter pagan feasts such as Saturnalia may have helped influence the eventual choice to fix the date of Christmas, this does not mean that Christian Christmas traditions find their origin or inspiration there: "though the abundance of analogous midwinter festivals may indefinitely have helped the choice of the December date, the same instinct which set Natalis Invicti at the winter solstice will have sufficed, apart from deliberate adaptation or curious calculation, to set the Christian feast there too."<ref>Martindale, Cyril, "Christmas: History and Celebration," ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'', 1912 -- http://oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Christmas</ref>
A number of scholars view aspects of the Saturnalia festival as being the origin of some later [[Christmas]] customs, particularly the practice of [[Gift economy|gift giving]], which was suppressed by the [[Catholic Church]] during the [[Middle Ages]] due to perceived "pagan origins".<ref name="OriginMyth">[http://web.archive.org/web/20110430004539/http://www.bsu.edu/web/01bkswartz/xmaspub.html The Origin of the American Christmas Myth and Customs] – ''Ball State University''. Swartz Jr., BK. Archived version retrieved 2011-10-19.</ref> The Catholic Encyclopedia states the Church's view on the latter claim by saying that while midwinter pagan feasts such as Saturnalia may have helped influence the eventual choice to fix the date of Christmas, this does not mean that Christian Christmas traditions find their origin or inspiration there: "though the abundance of analogous midwinter festivals may indefinitely have helped the choice of the December date, the same instinct which set Natalis Invicti at the winter solstice will have sufficed, apart from deliberate adaptation or curious calculation, to set the Christian feast there too."<ref>Martindale, Cyril, "Christmas: History and Celebration," ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'', 1912 -- http://oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Christmas</ref>


==Literature==
==Literature==

Revision as of 22:34, 17 December 2011

Saturnalia
"Saturnalia" by Ernesto Biondi (1909), at the Buenos Aires Botanical Gardens.
Observed byAncient Romans
TypeHistorical, pagan
CelebrationsCelebration in honor of the Roman god
DateDecember 17–23
For other uses, see Saturnalia (disambiguation).

Saturnalia was an ancient Roman festival in honor of the deity Saturn originally held December 17 and later expanded with unofficial festivities through December 23. 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]

In Roman mythology, Saturn was an agricultural deity who reigned over the world in the Golden Age, when humans enjoyed the spontaneous bounty of the earth without labor in a state of social egalitarianism. The revelries of Saturnalia were supposed to reflect the conditions of the lost mythical age. The Greek equivalent was the Kronia.[3]

The Saturnalia was the dramatic setting of the multivolume work of that name by the Latin antiquarian Macrobius, the major source on the holiday. In one of the interpretations in Macrobius's work, Saturnalia is a festival of light as a symbol of knowledge and truth, represented by the abundant presence of candles.[4]

The popularity of Saturnalia continued into the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, and as the Roman Empire came under Christian rule, some of its customs may have influenced the seasonal celebrations surrounding Christmas and the New Year.[5]

Rituals and festivities

The main cult statue of Saturn normally had its feet bound in wool, which was removed for the holiday as an act of liberation.[6] The official rituals were carried out according to "Greek rite" (ritus graecus). 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.[7] This procedure is usually explained by the Hellenization of Saturn's cult through assimilation with his Greek counterpart Cronus, but it may also be one of the Saturnalian reversals, the opposite of what was normal.[8]

According to the Augustan historian Livy, following the sacrifice the Roman senate arranged a lectisternium, a ritual of Greek origin that typically involved placing the deity's image on a sumptuous couch, as if he were present and actively participating in the festivities. A public banquet was held (convivium publicum), and afterward the shouting of io Saturnalia began, originally only on the single day.[9]

A Saturnalicius princeps was elected master of ceremonies for the proceedings. Besides the public rites there were a series of private festivities. The celebrations included a school holiday, the making and giving of small presents (sigillaria). Gambling was allowed for all, even slaves.

The toga was not worn, but rather the Greek synthesis, colourful "dinner clothes"; and the pileus (freedman's hat) was worn by everyone. Slaves were exempt from punishment, and treated their masters with (a pretense of) disrespect. The slaves celebrated a banquet: before, with, or served by the masters. Yet the reversal of the social order was mostly superficial; the banquet, for example, would often be prepared by the slaves, and they would prepare their masters' dinner as well. It was license within careful boundaries; it reversed the social order without subverting it.[10]

On the calendar

Saturnalia was supposed to have been held on December 17 from the time of the oldest Roman religious calendar,[11] which the Romans believed to have been established by the legendary founder Romulus. It was a dies festus, a legal holiday when no public business could be conducted.[12] The day marked the dedication of the Temple to Saturn in the Roman Forum in 497 BC.[13]

By the late Republic, the celebration of Saturnalia had expanded to a full seven days,[14] but during the Imperial period contracted variously to three to five days.[15] Under Augustus, there was a three-day official holiday.[16] Caligula extended it to five.[17]

Historical context

Saturnalia underwent a major reform in 217 BC, 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.[18] Cato the Elder (234–149 BC) was aware of a time before the so-called "Greek" elements had been added to the Roman Saturnalia.[19] It was not unusual for the Romans to offer cult to the gods 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.[20] Robert E.A. 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.[21] The table service that masters offered their slaves thus would have extended to Carthaginian or African war captives.[22]

Influence on Christmas

A number of scholars view aspects of the Saturnalia festival as being the origin of some later Christmas customs, particularly the practice of gift giving, which was suppressed by the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages due to perceived "pagan origins".[23] The Catholic Encyclopedia states the Church's view on the latter claim by saying that while midwinter pagan feasts such as Saturnalia may have helped influence the eventual choice to fix the date of Christmas, this does not mean that Christian Christmas traditions find their origin or inspiration there: "though the abundance of analogous midwinter festivals may indefinitely have helped the choice of the December date, the same instinct which set Natalis Invicti at the winter solstice will have sufficed, apart from deliberate adaptation or curious calculation, to set the Christian feast there too."[24]

Literature

Seneca the Younger wrote about Rome during Saturnalia around AD 50 (Sen. epist. 18,1-2):

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.

Horace in his Satire II.7 (published circa 30 BC) uses a setting of the Saturnalia for a frank exchange between a slave and his master in which the slave criticizes his master for being himself enslaved to his passions. Martial Epigrams Book 14 (circa AD 84 or 85) is a series of poems each based on likely saturnalia gifts, some expensive, some very cheap. For example: writing tablets, dice, knuckle bones, 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. Pliny in Epistles 2.17.24 (early second century AD) describes a secluded suite of rooms in his Laurentine villa which he uses 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.'

Macrobius in Saturnalia I.24.23-23 wrote:

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.[25]

The Mishna and Talmud (Avodah Zara 8a) describe a pagan festival called Saturna which occurs 8 days before the winter solstice. It is followed 8 days after the solstice with a festival called Kalenda. 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 8 days. Once he saw that the days were getting longer again he realized that this was the natural cycle of the world, so made 8 days of celebration. The Talmud states that this festival was later turned into a pagan festival.[26][27]

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, 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. ^ Jane Chance, Medieval Mythography: From Roman North Africa to the School of Chartres, A.D. 433–1177 (University Press of Florida, 1994), p. 71.
  5. ^ 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.
  6. ^ 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.
  7. ^ Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," pp. 139–140.
  8. ^ Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," p. 140.
  9. ^ Livy 22.1; Vernsel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," p. 141; Palmer, Rome and Carthage, p. 63.
  10. ^ Woolf, Greg. March 2005.
  11. ^ Robert E.A. Palmer, Rome and Carthage at Peace (Franz Steiner, 1997), p. 62.
  12. ^ Palmer, Rome and Carthage, p. 63.
  13. ^ Palmer, Rome and Carthage, p. 63; Mueller, "Saturn," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, p. 221.
  14. ^ Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.10.3, citing the Atellane composers Novius and Mummius; Versnel, "Saturnus and the Saturnalia," p. 146.
  15. ^ Miller, "Roman Festivals," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, p. 172.
  16. ^ Mueller, "Saturn," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, p. 221.
  17. ^ Suetonius, Life of Caligula 17; Mueller, "Saturn," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, p. 221.
  18. ^ Livy 22.1.20; Palmer, Rome and Carthage, pp. 63–64.
  19. ^ Palmer, Rome and Carthage, p. 64, citing the implications of Cato, frg. 77 ORF4.
  20. ^ Palmer, Rome and Carthage, passim. See also the importation of Cybele to Rome during this time.
  21. ^ 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.
  22. ^ Palmer, Rome and Carthage, pp. 63–64.
  23. ^ The Origin of the American Christmas Myth and Customs – Ball State University. Swartz Jr., BK. Archived version retrieved 2011-10-19.
  24. ^ Martindale, Cyril, "Christmas: History and Celebration," The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1912 -- http://oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Christmas
  25. ^ Beard, M. North, J. and Price, S. "Religions of Rome. Vol II A Source Book, number 5.3.
  26. ^ A portion of Avodah Zarah 8, quoted in Menachem Leibtag's Chanuka - Its Biblical Roots - Part Two, hosted on The Tanach Study Center
  27. ^ 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.

Further reading

  • Balsdon, "Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome" p 124-5.
  • Beard, M. North, J. and Price, S. "Religions of Rome. Vol II A Source Book, numbers 5.3 and 7.3.
  • Dupont 1992 p 205-7. And the Oxford Classical Dictionary sv. Saturnalia.
  • Woolf, Greg. "Roman Leisure" course handout, University of St. Andrews, March 2005.


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