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 A Don’s Life

 by Mary Beard • Dec. 20, 2007 • original (http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/2007/12/five-

things-the.html)

(http:// timesonline.ty pepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2007/12/19/saturnalia.jpg)OK, the Romans didn’t

actua lly hav e Christmas. And ev en Christian Roma ns didn’t celebrate Jesus’ birthday on 2 5

December until at least the fourt h centur y AD.

But th ey did hav e a big festival in late December for th e god Satu rn (god of sowin g, it is often

said – but for m ost u rban Romans his temple(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of _Saturn)

in th e Foru m was best known becau se it doubled as the stat e treasur y ).

 An d there ar e lots of thing s about t his festiv al – the Saturnalia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturnalia) –

th at should ring a (Christmas) bell.

1 )   A big din n er . On 1 7 December, there w as a gr eat banquet at which the gods -- or statu es of 

them at a ny rate -- joined in. And it w as a day of release for Satu rn him self, because the

 woollen threads which boun d the feet of his sta tu e toget her were cu t or loosened. No, don’t ask 

me why : I hav en’t a clue. But it’s another n ice addition to the list of v ery weird things the

Romans did.

 An d next . . .

()

2) Pr e s en t g i v i n g . The real Christmas-like bit  was not what h appened at th e tem ple, but

 what went on at home and th roug hout the ci ty (w here there w as m ore eating, dr in king a nd

genera l wildness). The w eek or so that followed was a tim e when people gav e each other

presents. In fact, ther e is a w hole book of short v erses by  Martial

(http://lonestar.texas.net/~robison/martial.html), supposedly to go on th e ancient equiv alent of gift-tag s.

3) T im e of f for t he w or k e r s. This was th e case ev en for t he slav es, wh o sometim es had

dinner waited on by their m asters (a custom horribly reminiscent of those awful carn iv alesque

office dinners, wh ere the m anag ers swap places with the kitchen and cleaning staff, and serv e

the food – and ev ery one feels dead emba rr assed).

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4) It a l l g ot l on g e r a n d l on g e r . Just like now (w hen m y univ ersity seems to shut down for

almost a fortn ight), the w hole thing expanded. That sober party -pooper the em peror Au gustus

tried to limit it to thr ee day s, without m uch long t erm success – it wa s soon ta king u p more

than a w eek.

5) Mean Scrooges an d upper-c lass ki l l - joy s. A few Rom an w riter s enter int o the spirit of 

the occasion. Catullus (http://www.negenborn.net/catullus/text2/e14.htm), for exa mple, ca lled it “th e best of 

day s”. But m ostly they were supercilious lot, complaining about the forced jollity and the

forced shut -down (just lik e m e . . .!). The philosopher Seneca tu t-tuts(http://www.atheistf oundation.org.au/saturnalia.htm) about a ll the dissipation and fact that y ou can t get an y 

public business done. Th e y ounger Pliny  (http://www.bartleby. com/9/4/1023.html) loftily tak es himself off to

the at tic to get on w ith h is work (h e doesn’t wa nt t o put a dam pener on the slav es’ fun – but,

more to the point, h e doesn’t want to be distu rbed by t heir r owdiness). And don’t im agin e tha t

the u pstairs-downstairs div ide was mu ch lessened by the car niv al. Th ere’s a nice passage in

Petronius’ Satyrica wh ere a slav e steps out of line and is shar ply rem inded that it ’s not

December.

So is this the real origin of “our” Christm as? Well, lots of people hav e ima gined that t he earl y 

Christians grafted their festiv ities onto an old pagan ritua l. May be they did. But there h onestly is no ev idence for it , bey ond the rough coincidence of dates. And, in fact , it w as not unt il a few 

centu ries after Jesus’ birth ha d got fixed onto 25 December th at w e see signs of m uch Chr istma s

merr y ma king. In th e middle of the sixth centu ry they still thought it necessary to forbid

fasting on Chr istm as day – a prohibition w hich kind of ov er-achiev ed!

Origi nal URL:http://timesonline.type pad.com/dons_life/2007 /1 2/five-things-the.html