Saturnalia
From Smith's A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890)SATURNALIA the festival of Saturnus, to whom the inhabitants of Latium attributed the introduction of agriculture and the arts of civilised life. Falling towards the end of December, at the season when the agricultural labours of the year were fully completed, it was celebrated in ancient times by the rustic population as a sort of joyous harvest-home, and in every age was viewed by all classes of the community as a period of absolute relaxation and unrestrained merriment.
During its continuance no public business could be transacted, the law courts were closed, the schools kept holiday, to commence a war was impious, to punish a malefactor involved pollution. (Macrobius Sat. i. 10, 16; Martial, i. 86; Suet. Aug. 32; Plin. Ep. viii. 7.)
Special indulgences were granted to the slaves of each domestic establishment; they were relieved from all ordinary toils, were permitted to wear the pilleus the badge of freedom, were granted full freedom of speech, partook of a banquet attired in the clothes of their masters, and were waited upon by them at table. (Macrobius Sat. i. 7; Dio Cass. lx. 19; Justin. xliii. 1, 3; Hor. Sat. ii. 7, 5; Martial, xi. 6, xiv. 1; Athen. xiv. 44.)
The public festival began with a sacrificium publicum in front of the temple of Saturn in the Forum (Dionys. vi. 1), and then followed the convivium publicum, at which senators and knights wore the dinner dress. In private the day began with the sacrifice of a young pig (Mart. xiv. 70; Hor. Od. iii. 17, 14); all ranks devoted themselves to feasting and mirth, presents were interchanged among friends, and crowds thronged the streets, shouting Io Saturnalia (this was termed clamare Saturnalia). (Catull. 14; Senec. Ep. 18; Suet. Aug. 75; Martial, v. 18, 19, vii. 53, xiv. 1; Plin. Ep. iv. 9; Macrobius Sat. i. 8, 10; Serv. ad Verg. Aen. iii. 407)
Many of the peculiar customs exhibited a remarkable resemblance to the sports of our own Christmas and of the Italian Carnival. Thus on the Saturnalia public gambling was allowed by the aediles (Martial, v. 84, xiv. 1, xi. 6), just as in the days of our ancestors the most rigid were wont to countenance card-playing on Christmas-eve; the wearing of the synthesis1 and of the pilleus (Martial, xiv. 141, vi. 24, xiv. 1, xi. 6; Senec. Ep. 18) may find their counterpart in the dominoes, the peaked caps, and other disguises worn by masques and mummers; the cerei were probably employed as the moccoli now are on the last night of the Carnival; and lastly, one of the amusements in private society was the election of a mock king (Tac. Ann. xiii. 15; Arrian, Diss. Epictet. i. 25; Lucian, Saturn. 4), which at once calls to recollection the characteristic ceremony of Twelfth-night.
Saturnus being an ancient national god of Latium, the institution of the Saturnalia is lost in the most remote antiquity. In one legend it was ascribed to Janus, who, after the sudden disappearance of his guest and benefactor from the abodes of men, reared an altar to him, as a deity, in the forum, and ordained annual sacrifices; in another, as related by Varro, it was attributed to the wandering Pelasgi, upon their first settlement in Italy, and Hercules, on his return from Spain, was said to have reformed the worship and abolished the practice of immolating human victims; while a third tradition represented certain followers of the last-named hero, whom he had left behind on his return to Greece, as the authors of the Saturnalia (Macrobius Sat. i. 7).
Records approaching more nearly to history referred the erection of temples and altars, and the first celebration of the festival, to epochs comparatively recent, to the reign of Tatius (Dionys. ii. 50), of Tullus Hostilius (Dionys. iii. 32; Macrobius Sat. i. 8), of Tarquinius Superbus (Dionys. vi. 1; Macrobius l. c.), to the consulship of A. Sempronius and M. Minucius, B.C. 497, or to that of T. Larcius in the preceding year (Dionys. vi. 1; Liv. ii. 21). These conflicting statements may be easily reconciled by supposing that the appointed ceremonies were in these rude ages neglected from time to time, or corrupted, and again at different periods revived, purified, extended, and performed with fresh splendour and greater regularity. (Comp. Jordan, Topog. i. 360.) The festival was, no doubt, an old Italian rite of prehistoric date, but the adoption of the ritus graecus in its ceremonies, as shown by the uncovered head [SACRIFICIUM] and the lectisternium, was due to the order from the Sibylline books in the year 217 B.C. (Liv. xxii. 1, 19). It is suggested by Marquardt that the feasting of slaves, which the Romans took to be a tradition from the golden age when all were equal, may have really originated with the lectisternium in that year; since such general feasting of all ranks was part of the lectisternia (Macrobius i. 6, 13).
During the Republic, although the whole month of December was considered as dedicated to Saturn (Macrobius i. 7), only one day, the XIV. Kal. Jan., was set apart for the sacred rites of the divinity: when the month was lengthened by the addition of two days upon the adoption of the Julian Calendar, the Saturnalia fell on the XVI. Kal. Jan., which gave rise to confusion and mistakes among the more ignorant portion of the people. To obviate this inconvenience, and allay all religious scruples, Augustus enacted that three whole days, the 17th, 18th, and 19th of December, should in all time coming be hallowed, thus embracing both the old and new style (Macrobius i. 10). A fourth day was added, we know not when or by whom, and a fifth, with the title Juvenalis, by Caligula (Dio Cass. lix. 6; Suet. Cal. 17); an arrangement which, after it had fallen into disuse for some years, was restored and confirmed by Claudius (Dio Cass. lx. 2).
But although, strictly speaking, one day only, during the Republic, was consecrated to religious observances, the festivities were spread over a much longer space. Thus, while Livy speaks of the first day of the Saturnalia (Saturnalibus primis, Liv. xxx. 36), Cicero mentions the second and third (secundis Saturnalibus, ad Att. xv. 32; Saturnalibus tertiis, ad Att. v. 20); and it would seem that the merry-making lasted during seven days, for Novius, the writer of Atellanae, employed the expression septem Saturnalia, a phrase copied in later times by Memmius (Macrobius i. 10), and even Martial speaks of Saturni septem dies (xiv. 72), although in many other passages he alludes to the five days observed in accordance with the edicts of Caligula and Claudius (ii. 89; xiv. 79, 141).
Among the presents of all kinds which were made at this season (Suet. Aug. 75; Plin. Ep. iv. 9, 7; Lucian, Cronosol. 14-16; Mart. iv. 46, vii. 53, and all book xiv.), we must notice especially the cerei and the sigillaria. The cerei were wax tapers (funiculi or funales cerei) and were the most ordinary gift (Macrobius i. 7, 33; Varro, L. L. v. 64; Mart. v. 18), which may possibly, as some think, have a symbolical reference to the festival of waning light in the season of bruma; it may be noticed also that candles were the light of primitive times before oil lamps were known (Varro, L. L. v. 119), and so may have belonged to a primitive festival. The sigillaria or sigilla, which were especially characteristic of the Saturnalia (Sen. Ep. xii. 3; Suet. Claud. 5; Macrobius i. 11, 49; Spartian. Carac. 1, Hadr. 17; Mart. xiv. 182), were small figures of terra-cotta and possibly sometimes of dough baked hard (Lobeck, Aglaoph. 1079). Some regarded them as relics of a human sacrifice to Saturn (Macrobius i. 11, 48; comp. OSCILLA). Hence the name of the street Sigillaria (Gell. v. 4), and the sale or fair of statuettes which lasted for four days after the 17th of December was called sigillaria; there is no ground for the supposition that certain of the festal days bore that name. (Marquardt, Staatsverw. iii. 586 ff.; Preller, Röm. Myth. p. 413.)
From The History of Rome by Theodor Mommsen
So after the completion of the work of the fields and the fortunate ingathering of their produce double festivals were celebrated in honour of the god and goddess of inbringing and harvest, Census (from -condere-) and Ops; the first, immediately after the completion of cutting (August 21, -Consualia-; August 25, -Opiconsiva-); and the second, in the middle of winter, when the blessings of the granary are especially manifest (December 15, -Consualia-; December 19, -Opalia-); between these two latter days the thoughtfulness of the old arrangers of the festivals inserted that of seed-sowing (Saturnalia from -Saeturnus- or -Saturnus-, December 17). In like manner the festival of must or of healing (-meditrinalia-, October 11), so called because a healing virtue was attributed to the fresh must, was dedicated to Jovis as the wine-god after the completion of the vintage; the original reference of the third wine-feast (-Vinalia-, August 19) is not clear. To these festivals were added at the close of the year the wolf-festival (-Lupercalia-, February 17) of the shepherds in honour of the good god, Faunus, and the boundary-stone festival (-Terminalia-, February 23) of the husbandmen, as also the summer grove-festival of two days (-Lucaria-, July 19, 21) which may have had reference to the forest-gods (-Silvani-), the fountain-festival (-Fontinalia-, October 13), and the festival of the shortest day, which brings in the new sun (-An-geronalia-, -Divalia-, December 21).
From Roman Festivals
Saturnalia, sacred to Saturn. A Roman thanksgiving for the harvest. It lasted seven days, during which the slaves had their liberty, in memory of the age of Saturn, when all were equal. The rich kept open table to all comers, and themselves waited on the slaves. Presents were interchanged, schools were closed. The Senate did not sit.
From The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter
Giton, who had been standing at my feet, and who had for some time been holding in his laughter, burst into an uproarious guffaw, at this last figure of speech, and when Ascyltos' adversary heard it, he turned his abuse upon the boy. "What's so funny, you curly-headed onion," he bellowed, "are the Saturnalia here, I'd like to know? Is it December now?
1 The synthesis was a costume specially made for wearing at dinner, and was also known as vestis cenatoria (stolê deipnitis) or cenatorium alone. It seems, from the other uses of the word synthesis, to have been a suit rather than a single garment, and was apparently easily put on and off, for we hear of dandies wearing several changes of attire at the same dinner (Mart. v. 79, 2). It was most in vogue during the Saturnalia (Mart. xiv. 1, 1, etc.); and it cannot have been altogether a fashion of the times of the Empire, for the Arval brothers wore it at their feasts (Acta, 27 [Mai, 218, 219], 17 [Mai, 241]). In their case, as befitted a solemn festival, the synthesis was white; but for ordinary occasions green (Mart. x. 29, 4), purple (Petron. 30), and other bright colours (Mart. ii. 46) were preferred. (Marquardt, Privatleben, pp. 322, 371; Iwan Müller, Handbuch, pp. 875, 928; Becker-Göll, Gallus, i. 15.)
