Tags
Christmas, December, festivals, history, Julian calendar, pagan religions, paganism, Religio Romana, Roman, Roman dates, Saturn, Saturnalia
December 17th begins the festival Romans loved – the Saturnalia. 😊
First off – the number of festival days went up and down like a yo-yo. It was around forever (centuries, probably) as a one-day event, but it was accidentally increased to 3 days in 45BCE. It spread to 7 days (17th to 23rd) over the next 20 years before the emperor Augustus imposed an official 3-days-only order, which was largely ignored. 30-40 years later, the notorious emperor Caligula increased the official holiday to 5 days – 17th to 21st).
The first thing about the dates is that the Saturnalia never coincided with 25th December, whatever you see on the internet claiming it did. And there’s that niggling thing about going to 3 days accidentally. That’s to do with Julius Caesar’s reform of the Roman calendar and there’s a fun story about the effect that had on Marc Anthony’s birthday. To tell it, I might need to explain a teensy bit about Julius’s calendar, but I’ll make it brief, I promise! (Or you can skip that section)
Roman Dates
By the time Julius became Rome’s Dictator, the calendar was already out of whack with the seasons, and it got worse for a few years. So, Julius added 1 or 2 days to some months to make them more regular and add up to 365 days. It’s basically his calendar we use today. But the Romans had touches we don’t use, like dividing each month into three: Kalends (1st), Nones (9th) and Ides (in the middle). They used these to count backwards, so it was important to know how long the month was if you were calculating dates to the next Kalends. If you picked a 29-day month, the day after the Ides would be 14th before Kalends, whereas in a 30-day month, it would be the 15th before Kalends.
The problem was no one knew when to celebrate festivals. And that’s where Marc Anthony’s birthday comes into it. Under the old calendar, he’d been born on the 17th day before Kalends of February (=14th January). This was the day after the Ides. Adding two days to January now made the day after the Ides the 19th before Kalends. The new 17th before the Kalends fell three days after the Ides.
So, did he celebrate on the 19th or the 17th? He went for the day after the Ides, as he always had, and changed the official date of his birthday to 19th before Kalends (new style). Fine for a birthday, but what about festivals? December was one of those months that had 2 days added – so everyone faced the same problem as Marc Anthony about the Saturnalia. Was the Saturnalia to continue to be celebrated on 14th before Kalends (= 17th December) or on the new-style date of 16th before Kalends (=19th December)? As a god was involved – Saturn – they played it safe and extended the festival to 3 days to include both dates.
/end Roman Dates
Julius died rather famously on the Ides of March, the year after his calendar reforms – no, I don’t think they killed him for that. 😊 For the next 17 years, Rome was ruled by three guys who were more interested in wars and fighting each other than the Saturnalia. Left to themselves, the population expanded it to 7 days – 17th to 23rd December. (I’ll not bore you with the Roman dates).
Then, one of the three guys won out and became Augustus Caesar, and he tried to rein in the Saturnalia by limiting it officially to 3 days. You can guess how successful that was when 30-40 years later, the Emperor Caligula gave in and extended the official festival to 5 days. Over 200 years later, it was still 7 days. And yes, still 17th-23rd December.
Celebrations
- Shouting Yo Saturnalia at random strangers (Io Saturnalia in Latin)
- Unbinding the feet of Saturn’s statue and placing it on a dinner-couch to enjoy the festivities
- private gift-giving (often gag gifts or small figurines made of wax or pottery known as Sigillaria)
- continual partying with rampant overeating and drunkenness
- gambling was allowed, even for slaves.
- masters provided table service for their slaves or the slaves ate first or with the masters.
- electing of a “Ruler of the Saturnalia”, who gave orders to people, which were followed and presided over the merrymaking.
- Wearing party clothes instead of togas.
- Everyone wearing a conical hat (including aristocrats and slaves).
Sound familiar? 😀
One practice I adopted from a friend in the Roman religion is to buy a bag of gold coins every December, to represent the gold coins that were a popular Saturnalia gift. And doesn’t that chime with the old Northern British custom of bringing a coin into the house (among other things) at first-footing?
Some sources:
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/encyclopaedia_romana/calendar/saturnalia.html
Calendar – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar
Leaves from a Book of Shadows 