It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Saturnalia, Everywhere I Go

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Io! Io! Saturnalia!

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From Dec. 17-23 in ancient Rome, holiday greetings rang out on the streets.

Lit candles hung from trees, and the halls were decked with greenery. Everyone exchanged small gifts. Old enemies greeted each other warmly on the street. Stores, schools and law courts were closed.

If you were a time traveler, you might have thought it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

But the Romans were welcoming Saturn, their god of agriculture, back from exile.

The greeting they shouted was "Io! Io! Saturnalia!" ("Hurrah! Hurrah for Saturnalia!").

Tradition taught that Saturn had ruled over the earliest Romans, giving them their first laws and teaching them to till the fields. His reign was a Golden Age of prosperity, equality and harmony among all his subjects.

John Ferguson, in "Civilization of the Ancient Mediterranean: Greece and Rome," wrote that Rome kicked off the festival with major sacrifices and an enormous public banquet.

In honor of Saturn, slaves were freed from their lives of toil and punishment all during the festival. They could speak out with impunity and even insult their masters. Slaves were the first to sit down to eat and -- in a complete role reversal -- it was the masters who served the slaves on Saturnalia.

The slaves even got a little money to spend on themselves.

The most outrageous custom of all was the mock king, or King of Chaos. In her Encyclopedia of Christmas, Tanya Gulevich said that even a slave could be selected, because the king was drawn by lot. Nobody could refuse the mock king's wishes and commands, even if it meant having to dance naked or lay insults on one's own head. A slave made mock king could even share his master's concubines throughout the festival.

In the early days of Rome, however, the King of Chaos paid a heavy price for his short reign. Maria Julia Goldwasser, in The Encyclopedia of Religion,  said that he was sacrificed at Saturnalia's end to mark the return of the status quo. This tradition of the mock king survived into the Middle Ages, with Christmas ceremonies like the Feast of Fools and the Lord of Misrule.

Revelers ate, drank and made merry to what even the Romans thought was an excess. During Saturnalia, men wore women's clothes, and wives dressed like their husbands. People could even gamble with dice in public during Saturnalia, though this was normally a crime.

Around 50 B.C., Seneca the Younger wrote, "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." [From the Epistolae, posted on http://www.candlegrove.com/sacaea.html]

Saturnalia gifts were rather modest. According to the Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations of the World Dictionary (compiled by Sue Ellen Thompson and Barbara Carlson), there were three types of presents: gifts of imitation fruit (a fertility symbol); candles (reminders of harvest bonfires past); and dolls (symbols of the human sacrifices).

More sober Romans and early Christians condemned the intemperance of the festival. Some Saturnalian customs survived their censure, however, to become a part of the ways and spirit in which we celebrate Christmas. In "The Ghosts of Christmas Past" (Civilization, December 1996/January 1997), Sara Sklaroff summed up how the pagan ways survived the Roman Empire:

"No record exists of the date of Jesus' birth, but Romans of the fourth century were already accustomed to a December holiday season. The Saturnalia ... and the Kalends of January (the first of the year, extending into the days following) had been the major festival days in Rome for centuries. On the 25th itself -- the winter solstice on the Julian calendar -- cultists reveled in the sun's regeneration. By picking December 25 as the day to celebrate Christ's birth, the church turned the energy of the pagan festivals and the worship of the Sun into a celebration of the Son."

Saturnalia also resembled the carnival celebrations in many parts of the world today.

Aidan Kelly, Peter Dresser and Linda M. Ross (Religious Holidays and Calendars: An Encyclopaedic Handbook) wrote that Saturnalia itself has been revived by some Neo-Pagans.

 For more facts, go to the Solstice, Sacaea-Saturnalia, Yule, and Today and Biblioteca Arcana websites.

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