The Roman Festival Of Saturnalia

The Saturnalia Festival

The Pagan celebration known as Saturnalia was a celebration with similar events like the Christmas we know today. It started on the 17th December and eventually progressed on until the 25th of December of the Julian calendar. It started with just a single day of celebration, but by the late Republic between 133-31 B.C. it extended to a week long festival. During Saturnalia, work and business came to a halt along with schools and courts of law closed, and normal social patterns were suspended.

People liked to decorate their homes with wreaths and other greenerary and would have changed their traditional togas to the more colourful outfits known as synthesis.

It was normally celebrated and held inside and around The Temple of Saturn and started with sacrifice in the name of Saturn. He was known as the god of time and agriculture, after the sacrifice the celebrations like a  public banquet followed. Even slaves were allowed to get involved with the celebrations and in some cases were allowed to sit at the head of the table were they would be provided table service by their masters. This was the complete opposite to Roman social norms and many centuries later it would become known as Misrule. This was and still is considerd a time of liberty for all people, slaves and freemen.

During the festivities all work had been suspended, Romans spent Saturnalia continually partying and it had a carnival like atmosphere. There was also gambling, feasting, socializing, singing, playing music and gift giving. This included gag gifts and the most symbolic wax taper candles called cerei to signify light returning after the solstice.

The poet Catullus called it "the best of days", it is said the festivities often got so riotous, a Roman author called Pliny suposidly built a soundproof room so he could contiue to work during the extensive celebrations.

On the final day of Saturnalia, which like the gift giving tradition of the time is also called Sigillaria. many Romans gave loved ones and close friends small terracotta figures made of pottery or wax known as Signillaria. This may have been a relation to older Pagan celebrations involving human sacrifice.

Temple of Saturn and Other Saturnalia Customs

During the fourth century A.D. the earlier temples were replaced by the bigger more established temples, which we are famillar with today. The Temple of Saturn in Rome was the center of the ceremony for later Saturnalia celebrations. On the first day of the festival, a young pig would publicly be sacrificed in the temple, this would be located at the northwest section of the Roman forum.

As per tradition the statue of Saturn in the temple would have wollen bonds tied around his feet, but with relaxed traditions during Saturnalia, the bonds were loosend to symbolize the gods liberation. Within many of the Roman households a mock King was selected who would be called either the, "Leader of Saturnalia", "Saturnalicius Princeps" or "Lord of Misrule." 

More often a lowlier member of the household would have the title "Lord of Misrule", they would be responsible for making mischief during the celebrations. They would wear crazy clothes, insult guests and chase all the females. The basic idea of this title was because they ruled over chaos and mishief, instead of the normal Roman order. 

Another common custom of this role was to hide coins or different small objects inside cakes. This was one of many customs dating back to Saturnalia and was one method of choosing the mock King. The prefered method though was to elect the so called "King of the Saturnalia" who would be in charge of giving orders to help the merrymaking contine throughout the festivities.

How Saturnalia Led to Christmas

To quote the ledgendary Monty Python's, "Apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, road, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the romans ever done for us??".

Well, we can thank the Romans for many things during the Roman Empire's conquest from the second century B.C. to the fourth century A.D. Inevitable conversion to Roman ways and religious practices with the suppression of or adapted incorporation of older pagan rites, the seasonal celebrations with Celts and other groups and cultures. Our western cultures inheret many traditional celebrations of midwinter from Saturnalia. 

The Christian version of Christmas more specificaly, owes alot of the traditions to the Roman festival, especialy the time period it is celebrated in. By the fourth century A.D., most of the Western Christian churches agreed on celebrating Christmas on December 25th, allowing this to be intagrated into the traditional Saturnalia and many other popular pagan customs.