IO SATURNALIA FREE
Such is the purpose of this my brief reign therefore the merry noise on every side, the song, and the games therefore the slave and the free as one.’Įlements of the festival support its primitive Italic origins. During the Saturnalia, according to Lucian, ‘men may remember what life was like in my days, when all things grew without sowing or plowing of theirs–no ears of corn, but loaves complete and meat ready cooked–, when wine flowed in rivers, and there were fountains of milk and honey all men were good, and all men were gold. The ancient sources also associate Saturnalia with a mythical golden age when food was available without the associated toil. Some even went so far as to wear the traditional slave’s hat, the pilleus, a brimless felt cap worn by slaves during manumission. Roles would reverse within the household as masters served their slaves, dressing informally. People spent their time playing games, gambling, eating and drinking. Each household would choose a King of the festival by lot to preside over their parties and celebrations. Criminals could not be convicted, or wars started.
So, for the period of the Saturnalia, pleasure rules Rome. Drinking and being drunk, noise and games and dice, appointing of kings and feasting of slaves, singing naked, clapping of tremulous hands, an occasional ducking of corked faces in icy water, –such are the functions over which I preside. ‘ During my week the serious is barred,‘ Saturn tells his priest in Lucian’s Saturnalia, ‘ no business allowed. For the period of his festival, Saturnus was King.ĭuring the rule of Saturnus, the god dictated that all the social norms should be inverted. At the Saturnalia, the statue and so by implication Saturnus himself were released from these bonds. During most of the year, Saturn or Saturnus’s statue remained within his temple, physically and metaphorically bound. On December 17, a public banquet at the temple of Saturn marked the opening of the celebrations of Saturnalia.
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