Saturnalia Explained

Saturnalia is probably the most famous Roman holiday which may have something to do with its proximity to Christmas but what is Saturnalia quick summary Saturnalia was the Roman festival of the god Saturn it began on December 17th with a mass public sacrifice at the temple of Saturn followed by several days of feasting gambling drinking and most notably the role reversal between slaves and slave owners a holiday when slaves were encouraged to dine with their slavers talk back to them and even make them serve the slaves but I want to make this video more comprehensive than a simple summary we know a lot about Saturnalia but no single Roman source describes the festival in its entirety so we need to piece together our picture of Saturnalia from different sources in this video I'll be citing from these Roman sources I put them in roughly chronological order here and I'll cite them throughout the video a few notes about our sources notice that these guys span 500 years of history it's pretty naive to assume that Catullus who was growing up in the 1st century BCE was celebrating Saturnalia the exact same way that Macrobius was in the 5th century even the length of the festival changed throughout his history in the time of Catullus it lasted seven days until December 23rd but then was shortened to three days before the Emperor Caligula extended it to four or five days so any summary of Saturnalia is an imperfect reconstruction based on what time period we're talking about or based on what location we're talking about also notice that these dudes are mostly super elite members of society yes Epictetus was a former slave Lucian was born into a middle-class family but many of these guys were the 1% of Roman society so take their perspectives with a healthy dose of skepticism especially when they're talking about the experiences of their own slaves but let's get into it breaking social norms was the central theme of Saturnalia in his poem on the holiday the poet Lucien has Saturn pronounced during my week the Sirius is barred no business is allowed drinking and being drunk noise and games of dice appointing of kings and easting of slaves so you were encouraged to break from your normal social inhibitions drinking games dancing naked and gambling which was usually forbidden in public a few of our sources talk about people playing a game called the king of Saturnalia where a king was chosen by chance who was then allowed to boss you around during the entire festival several sources also described gift-giving during Saturnalia giving gifts like clothes food or money but also crazier gifts like pet birds and puppies like the Roman poet Marshall mentions but the ultimate example of breaking social norms during the Saturnalia was the role reversal between enslaved people and their enslavers remember Rome was a slave owning society some scholars estimate that anywhere between 10 to 40% of the population were enslaved upper-class Romans enslaved anywhere between a handful of people to dozens and dozens of them slaves in Roma society did the farming the cooking and cleaning the entertainment like music and comedy but they also have specialized professions like medicine and accounting slaves are considered part of the upper class Romans Familia which despite its similarity to the English word family is probably best translated as household the male head of the household was called the paterfamilias a divinely ordained ruler over his wife and children as well as his slaves and their children so even though Saturnalia had public religious elements like that mass public sacrifice at the temple of Saturn at its heart Saturnalia was a domestic religious holiday specifically designed to upend what was considered the divinely ordained natural order of society our sources describe that during Saturnalia slaves were allowed to dine with their slave owners bossed them around and even talk back to them without being punished the historian Justin specifically says that slaves and slave owners reclined together reclining was a position associated with elite banqueting and it appears everywhere in Roman art depicting fancy banquets this role reversal was the reason for the season as far as the upper-class Roman was concerned now we don't actually know the historical origins of Saturnalia it may have originated as an cultural holiday to accompany the winter solstice in late December but most of our Roman sources say it originated in the mythic past during a Golden Age when Saturn ruled Italy as a king and no slavery existed justin describes Saturn's reign as a reign of such equality that no one was a slave in his reign or had any private property Macrobius writes the period of Saturn's reign is said to have been immensely happy because no one was yet distinguished by servitude or freedom but it's kind of ironic that they point to a Golden Age when slavery didn't exist when the holiday itself probably served to reinforce the institution of slavery ancient historians such as Hank first nel and Fanny de Lansky suggests that Saturnalia was a form of social control a sort of social safety valve to let slaves event aggression but also to remind them who truly is in charge all of this was role play after all right there was a limit to how much role reversal was permitted and some of our sources suggest that slave owners bent the rules all the time some would serve their slaves during the holiday but refused to dine together others say that Roman children served the slaves but not the upper-class adults and Macrobius says that only religiously observant households participated and even then the slaves dine first and then the slave owners not at the same time and perhaps most tellingly Seneca basically gives the game away when he mentions that he wouldn't let any slave dine at his table only the ones that deserve it life was not good as a Roman slave Marshall darkly jokes about beating his cook for ruining his meal Seneca talks about slaves serving their slave owners dinner while they themselves stood by hungry so this is what I mean by taking our sources with a healthy dose of skepticism Catullus who was born into one of the most prominent families in the Roman Empire called Saturnalia Optimo do to them the best of days but epic titus who himself was a former slave seems a little more cynical basically saying sure you can call a free man a slave on Saturnalia but a true master is whoever has the power of bestowing or of taking away any of the things he desires there was an artificial side to Saturnalia that we can only glimpse because Roman history was not written by the slaves it was written by the super rich slave owners like Plenty and Seneca but now I want to turn to the question of Christmas what relation if any does Saturnalia have on the establishment of Christmas after all most Christians celebrate it on December 25th the Romans on the other hands celebrated Saturnalia between December 17th and 23rd and there's some evidence that December 25th the winter solstice according to the Julian calendar was marked as the feast and birthday of the Sun God Sol Invictus the dates seem way too convenient to be a coincidence well there are two prevailing and possibly overlapping theories the Christianization theory and the calculation theory the Christianisation theory goes that Christian authorities picked December 25th specifically to convert a season of pagan holidays into Christian holidays people already were celebrating in late December and these cultural habits are too deeply entrenched to change that easily so let's slap a new Christian name on it the Christianisation theory is certainly possible later sources such as Pope Gregory the Great encouraged the Christian authorities to convert pagan temples into churches and pagan holidays into Christian holidays the problem is when it comes to Christmas this theory is based on educated conjecture not direct evidence no Christian source from the Roman period specifically mentions Christianizing December 25th for the purpose of celebrating Jesus's birth only hundreds of years later in the early 12th century do we get the first explicit reference to Christianizing December 25th this comes from a Syria Crider named Dionysius Barcella b+ the December 25th date for Sol Invictus is based on only one source it comes from a Christian calendar dating to 354 which makes a passing reference to December 25th being the birthday of Sol Invictus this is one single source written decades after when the Sol Invictus birthday was supposedly instituted compare this to my earlier list of Saturnalia sources bunches and bunches of ancient texts from contemporaries who actually celebrated Saturnalia themselves these include detailed descriptions of the gifts that were given and games that were played we don't have anything approaching that level of detail for the December 25th sol invictus festival that's not to deny that pagans were celebrating on this day I'm sure that they were but according to the ancient historian Phillip na theft the lack of evidence raises the question whether the birthday of Sol Invictus celebrations on December 25th were really so ancient widespread and momentous as to exert a strong influence on Christian communities so I'd say that it's plausible that there was some religious competition over converting celebrations of December 25th to be specifically Christian celebrations but the evidence isn't as concrete as many would lead you to believe again educated conjecture not direct evidence this leads us to the second prevailing theory the calculation theory which hypothesizes that many early Christians believed Jesus was conceived and crucified on the same day March 25th or April 6 depending on how you calculate it therefore they dated Jesus's birth to December 25th or January 6 because these dates are exactly nine months later I'm drawing a lot of this research from two peer-reviewed articles by scholars of early Christianity which cover the calculation Theory pretty thoroughly so I'd really recommend you read them to get the full picture links are in the description below I cover this in another video too if you want to check it out this theory may sound a bit weird but a lot of our Christian sources back it up a 4th century Christian text called on solstices and equinoxes says therefore our Lord was conceived on March 25th which is the day of the Passion of the Lord and of his conception the Gospels say nothing about when Jesus was born but they do mention when he died on or near the Passover during the spring Christians spent a ton of time trying to calculate the exact date even though it's probably impossible to figure that out and to date seem to pop up again and again March 25th and April 6 Julius africanus a 3rd century Christian historian seems to have dated Jesus's conception to March 25th same with Hippolytus another Christian Kanaga for riding around the same time but other Christians calculated it - April 6 I don't think it's a coincidence that these two dates come exactly 9 months after the two dominant dates that Christians calculated as his crucifixion January 6 was celebrated mostly in Egypt in Asia but eventually lost out to 25th in popularity but even to this day the Armenian Orthodox Church continues to celebrate on January 6 I'm convinced by the calculation theory because it explains why two different dates December 25th and January 6 became the two dominant dates the January 6 date seems so much more random without this explanation because it's nowhere near the Saturnalia or Sol Invictus festivals to blame any attempt to Christianize those holidays but I do think there may be some overlap between these two theories namely Christians do seem to think equinoxes and solstices were involved somehow with Jesus's birth and death according to the Roman Julian calendar December 25th was the winter solstice according to that same calendar March 25th was the spring equinox it's possible that December 25th one out / January 6 because Christians were trying to align Jesus's death and birth with days that were already widely recognized and celebrated as important in fact the Sol Invictus festival probably did the same thing the cult of Sol Invictus was popular among Roman emperors such as aurelion and the ancient historian gaston Helzberg hypothesizes that the Romans saw this as the son's birthday because it was one of the most dramatic moments in the sun's course it makes a lot of sense to put a solar holiday on the shortest day of the year when every following day would be longer and longer so I'd modify the Christianization theory as an attempt to ascribe Christian significance to the winter solstice rather than an attempt to specifically Christianize Saturnalia or Sol Invictus whether you were worshipping Saturn's soul or Jesus though there was a deeply entrenched habit to celebrate something in late December and that habit didn't simply die off but crowby us was writing in the 5th century CE II well into the Christian period when December 25th was becoming the most popular day to celebrate Christmas so we can reconstruct December in the late Roman Empire as a time of multiple festivals which possibly involves some level of religious syncretism and competition around the winter solstice all of my sources both primary and secondary sources are in the description below I invite you to check my research and as always thanks for watching I'll see you next time you

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Keywords: Saturnalia, what is saturnalia?, Saturnalia explained, Sol Invictus, birthday of sol invictus, sun god, sol, Jesus, Christmas, December 25, December 17, December 23, Saturn, Catullus, optimo dierum, December, winter solstice, paganism, pagans, Christians, Christianity, early Christianity, spring equinox, vernal equinox, Julius Africanus, Hippolytus, Chronograph of 354, birth of christ, birth of jesus, Jesus Christ, Seneca, Roman holiday, mithra, mithras

Id: 5lsctaPJSvo

Length: 13min 30sec (810 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 12 2019

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