 One of the most famous celebrations in Roman religion was the Saturnalia, which kicked off December 17th and concluded on December 23rd, filled with gift-giving, revelry, partying, and drinking. We'll take a look at this tradition and where it was celebrated in Rome, concluding with the re-enactment of the solemn ritual as performed by the group Sodales in the Villa of Meccentius along the Via Appia. Io Saturnalia! We can begin by looking at the ancient sources, with disparate pieces of information stretching over several centuries that reflect on the Saturnalia, a celebration held in Rome at the end of the year. It is impossible to have an accurate picture of the festival since it evolved over that period of time, from Republic to late antiquity, but we will highlight a number of interesting anecdotes and observations into what happened during the festivities. The Port Catollis called it the best of days. The Augustan historian Livy recorded that his sacrifice and electricity should be held in the temple of Saturn in Rome and also a public feast, and the cries of the Saturnalia should be kept up throughout the city for a day and a night and people bidden to hold it a sacred day and so keep it in perpetuity. Tassus records during the Feast of Saturn, amid other pastimes of his playmates, at a game of lot drawing for king of the Saturnalia, the lot fell to Nero upon which he gave all his other companions different orders and such as would not put them to the blush. But when he told Britannicus to step forward and begin his song, hoping for a laugh at the expense of the boy, well let's just say it didn't go according to how he had hoped. In the second century Lucian records the activities during the Saturnalia, drinking and being drunk, noise and games and dice, a pointing of kings of Saturnalia, and feasting of slaves, singing naked, clapping of tremulous hands, and occasional ducking of corked faces in icy water. He also notes that you might find yourself an absolute monarch by favor of the knuckle bone or dice, and you can give ridiculous commands, and you can make anyone do anything. One must shout out a liable on himself, another must dance naked, or pick up the flute girl and carry her three times around the house. During this festival, the role of a master and slave is famously reversed. Macrobius' Saturnalia records around 400 that at this festival they first honor the slaves with the dinner prepared as if for the master, and only afterwards a table is again set for the head of household. So it's not so much according to Macrobius that the master serves the slave, but it's rather the slave is acting as if he is the master by being served first. Why did this role reversal take place? This was an escape valve for everyone at the end of the year, even slaves had something to look forward to. And the traditions, according to the Romans, harkened back to earlier times, way before the founding of Rome, when there was a society without slaves, ruled by Saturn throughout Italy. So it's a time once again to recall that simpler society, and thereby for a short amount of time, you suspend the conventional norms. Slaves with time off, eating first. Dicing was taking place throughout the city, otherwise not freely permitted. Gift exchange would take place at the end of the Saturnalia. Parties were happening every night at home for the week. Courts were closed, schools were closed, executions were temporarily suspended. All indebted to Saturn, who was the Greek Cronus. He killed his father, the sky god Uranus, and spilled his seed into the earth. So he was for the Romans and the Greeks an agricultural divinity. And they gave thanks to him at the end of the year. Also during the festival of the Saturnalia on December 19th, there was another agricultural divinity that was worshiped and venerated, ops, the Apalia festival. So when we turn to the looking at the statue of Saturn, we see that he's holding a sickle, referring to his role as an agricultural divinity and also tied to the underworld, the spinning of the blood of Uranus. So at the end of the year, besides this recollection of the blood spilled by Saturn, which then tied him to the god of the underworld, Dis, it was also marked at the end of the year by sacrifices in the form of gladiatorial games, the Munera, the obligations, blood offerings to the gods of the underworld, marking the end of the calendar year, went hand in hand with the Saturnalia festival. December 25th was also identified in the Roman calendar as the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. So passing through to Saturnalia festival was the anticipation and experience of the shortest day of the year and the beginning of longer days, eventually incorporating into the role of this festival the god Sol Invictus, the incongruable god of the sun, at least by the third century AD. And as we'll see, Saturn as well is a god of light and will have associated with him in the Sigillaria at the end of the Saturnalia, the festivity that includes the exchange of candles. Saturn's going to light the way. Let's come back to the affolding of events. On December 17th, the Romans recalled the foundation of the temple of Saturn on the capital line hill slopes, going all the way back to the beginning of the fifth century BC. What we see here today in the capital line slopes is actually the last rebuilt of the temple, which also held the treasury of Rome, last rebuilt between 360 and 380 AD. Inside was the cult statue in ivory according to Pliny, filled with oil to keep it from warping and its legs were bound with wool, symbolically liberated on the Saturnalia. Those wool bonds were removed, underlining the liberation of everyone. Time to let your hair down. This already was the beginning of the festivities, the public veneration of Saturn at this temple on December 17th. What happens next? At home you celebrate by taking a cold bath at dawn according to Tertullian. You make a sacrifice at the family altar of a suckling pig, a typical offering to the gods of the underworld. There's banqueting, there's the masters serving their slaves, there's the drinking, the dicing, the king of the Saturnalia. Throughout the period of festivities we know that there is a lot of gift exchange. They could sometimes be precious, expensive gifts like a puppy, like jewelry, but also could be something really modest, like a bag of walnuts. So you have this going on in the privacy of your homes throughout the entire week. But then on the last day, December 23rd, it's the Sigillaria festival. And this is something different. You go shopping in the Sipta Yulia, in the campus marshes. Later on, people are shopping at the porticoes and the baths of Tretian. And what you're doing is buying terracotta figurines. You're also buying candles. Why do you buy figurines? Why do you give them to other people? The idea is that they're stand-in from time long past when people made human sacrifices. So now you're substituting with these figures, you're giving it to your friends, and it acts as a sacrifice of atonement for oneself and one's family to Saturn instead of the god of the underworld. And the candles, well, Saturn is the light leading you forward to the new year, leading you forward to more light that's going to come into your lives as the days get longer beyond the winter solstice. But all in all, the light, the figurines, the tradition of remembering sacrifice is all the way for you to remember your deceased ancestors, the manes. Hey, right now I'm in the Villa of Maxentius along the Via Appia, but I'm here today to tell you that you can join me in Rome, learning how to build an ancient Roman city. The core of our experience is Rome, but we're going to other cities as well in Lazio. So I hope you join me this May 2024. It's going to be a unique look at ancient Rome and urbanization. It's an extraordinary experience. I hope you join me. You can sign up. There's all the information on our website. Just click on the link.