Tired of Christmas. This year we are celebrating Saturnalia all month long!!!!
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Any one else celebrating Saturnalia?
- Thread starter mamiecarter
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IS that like Festivus for the restofus?
Saturnalia, a Roman Holiday
Saturnalia was a Roman holiday that began one week before the winter solstice and lasted for an intire month. Feasting, wine drinking, dancing, gift giving and pranks and fun. Masters served dinner to their slaves to celebrate this holiday and the world briefly turned upside down.
Winter solstice holidays were celebrated in many cultures in antiquity and gradually merged with Christmas and were then supplanted by Christmas in the middle ages.
So why not just have a grand good time and skip the commercialization? Don't spend money just enjoy our friends and eat and drink and be happy.
Saturnalia was a Roman holiday that began one week before the winter solstice and lasted for an intire month. Feasting, wine drinking, dancing, gift giving and pranks and fun. Masters served dinner to their slaves to celebrate this holiday and the world briefly turned upside down.
Winter solstice holidays were celebrated in many cultures in antiquity and gradually merged with Christmas and were then supplanted by Christmas in the middle ages.
So why not just have a grand good time and skip the commercialization? Don't spend money just enjoy our friends and eat and drink and be happy.
Jbart74
TUG Member
Wow! Thanks for the history lesson! I really like this one. Now I have to do a bit of research so I can explain it to all of my friends and family. I mean, they're already on the same page, but I like a good history lesson to justify my heathen excesses!
I also like to include a naked dance around a fire on both solstices as well! :whoopie:
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I think I will stick with Christmas. It is more than just a day off for us.
To some, Christmas means just a bit more than commercialism and spending money. The true meaning of Christmas might be worthy of consideration...if Saturnalia should leave you feeling a little empty.
Steve
Jbart74
TUG Member
To some, Christmas means just a bit more than commercialism and spending money. The true meaning of Christmas might be worthy of consideration...if Saturnalia should leave you feeling a little empty.
Steve
Ouch! Okay Christians. No one was slamming your religion, just discussing different methods of celebration during the month of December. Everyone is different. We all have individual beliefs and desires and rites and fears and celebrations and reasons why...
Let's not turn this into a conflict thread. Let's all celebrate, during this great month of December, for whatever reason floats our individual boat!
I love you all!
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Saturnalia
Named for the Roman god of agriculture (for whom the sixth planet from the sun and the seventh day of the week were also named), Saturnalia was an ancient festival.
Origins
The Saturnalia was a large and important public festival in Rome. The Saturnalia was originally celebrated in Ancient Rome for only a day, but it was so popular that soon it lasted a week, despite Augustus' efforts to reduce it to three days, and Caligula's, to five. It involved the conventional sacrifices, a couch (lectisternium) set out in front of the temple of Saturn and the untying of the ropes that bound the statue of Saturn during the rest of the year. A Saturnalicius princeps was elected master of ceremonies for the proceedings. Besides the public rites there were a series of holidays and customs celebrated privately. The celebrations included a school holiday, the making and giving of small presents (saturnalia et sigillaricia) and a special market (sigillaria). Gambling was allowed for all, even slaves; however, although it was officially condoned only during this period, one should not assume that it was rare or much remarked upon during the rest of the year. It was a time to eat, drink, and be merry. The toga was not worn, but rather the synthesis, i.e. colorful, informal "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.[1]
The customary greeting for the occasion is a "io, Saturnalia!" — io (pronounced "yo") being a Latin interjection related to "ho" (as in "Ho, praise to Saturn").
Saturnalia in 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/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.
The poet Catullus describes Saturnalia as the best of days (Cat. 14.15). It was a time of celebration, visits to friends, and gift-giving, particularly of wax candles (cerei), and earthenware figurines (sigillaria).
Saturnalia's relation to Christmas
Main article: Christmas
There is a theory that Christians in the fourth century assigned December 25 (the Winter Solstice on the Julian calendar) as Christ's birthday (and thus Christmas) because pagans already observed this day as a holiday. As the dates of Saturnalia are not precisely coincident with Christmas, a more refined argument is that Christmas was set on the feast of Sol Invictus, which was on December 25, and which had supplanted Saturnalia. However, with many of the traditions of Saturnalia incorporated into Sol Invictus, it is possible that some of those traditions were also carried forward as a part of the Christian holiday.
Bibliography
Excluding the section on Christmas, a good deal of this article was taken from a March 2005 handout and lecture from the course "Roman Leisure" by Professor Woolf of the University of St Andrews. Sources:
* 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.
Notes
1. ^ Woolf, Greg. March 2005. See handout sources.
External links
* Saturnalia, A longer article by James Grout
* Epistulae morales ad Lucilium, Lucius Annaeus Seneca
* The real "reason for the season."
* Why is Dec. 25 the date to celebrate Christmas? Two explanations compete. By: Richard Ostling, Associated Press
* The Catholic Encyclopedia, An extensive scholarly review of the origin of Christmas and possible contributions from other holidays
* What Catholic Teachers Admit About Christmas Highlights historical connections of Christmas to Saturnalia and other celebrations
* Les Saturnales The Saturnalias (French)
* Saturnalia (Ireland)
From Wikipedia
Richard
Named for the Roman god of agriculture (for whom the sixth planet from the sun and the seventh day of the week were also named), Saturnalia was an ancient festival.
Origins
The Saturnalia was a large and important public festival in Rome. The Saturnalia was originally celebrated in Ancient Rome for only a day, but it was so popular that soon it lasted a week, despite Augustus' efforts to reduce it to three days, and Caligula's, to five. It involved the conventional sacrifices, a couch (lectisternium) set out in front of the temple of Saturn and the untying of the ropes that bound the statue of Saturn during the rest of the year. A Saturnalicius princeps was elected master of ceremonies for the proceedings. Besides the public rites there were a series of holidays and customs celebrated privately. The celebrations included a school holiday, the making and giving of small presents (saturnalia et sigillaricia) and a special market (sigillaria). Gambling was allowed for all, even slaves; however, although it was officially condoned only during this period, one should not assume that it was rare or much remarked upon during the rest of the year. It was a time to eat, drink, and be merry. The toga was not worn, but rather the synthesis, i.e. colorful, informal "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.[1]
The customary greeting for the occasion is a "io, Saturnalia!" — io (pronounced "yo") being a Latin interjection related to "ho" (as in "Ho, praise to Saturn").
Saturnalia in 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/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.
The poet Catullus describes Saturnalia as the best of days (Cat. 14.15). It was a time of celebration, visits to friends, and gift-giving, particularly of wax candles (cerei), and earthenware figurines (sigillaria).
Saturnalia's relation to Christmas
Main article: Christmas
There is a theory that Christians in the fourth century assigned December 25 (the Winter Solstice on the Julian calendar) as Christ's birthday (and thus Christmas) because pagans already observed this day as a holiday. As the dates of Saturnalia are not precisely coincident with Christmas, a more refined argument is that Christmas was set on the feast of Sol Invictus, which was on December 25, and which had supplanted Saturnalia. However, with many of the traditions of Saturnalia incorporated into Sol Invictus, it is possible that some of those traditions were also carried forward as a part of the Christian holiday.
Bibliography
Excluding the section on Christmas, a good deal of this article was taken from a March 2005 handout and lecture from the course "Roman Leisure" by Professor Woolf of the University of St Andrews. Sources:
* 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.
Notes
1. ^ Woolf, Greg. March 2005. See handout sources.
External links
* Saturnalia, A longer article by James Grout
* Epistulae morales ad Lucilium, Lucius Annaeus Seneca
* The real "reason for the season."
* Why is Dec. 25 the date to celebrate Christmas? Two explanations compete. By: Richard Ostling, Associated Press
* The Catholic Encyclopedia, An extensive scholarly review of the origin of Christmas and possible contributions from other holidays
* What Catholic Teachers Admit About Christmas Highlights historical connections of Christmas to Saturnalia and other celebrations
* Les Saturnales The Saturnalias (French)
* Saturnalia (Ireland)
From Wikipedia
Richard
ricoba
TUG Member
I shouldn't have made my post since it breaks TUG rules!
Last edited:
Jbart74
TUG Member
I deleted my post after reading Ricoba's delete, then reading the rules of TUG. My post was clearly in violation of the TUG rules. Sorry to all who might have read it.
Happy December to all!
Happy December to all!
Last edited:
Mimi39
TUG Member
This is a light hearted, fun posting and a good history lesson. Too bad some people go out of their way to find something to be offended about. Just because Christmas isn't a religious holiday for many of us it doesn't mean we can't enjoy the season or fell "empty" about doing so.
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