The Saturnalia

Saturnalia was the Roman midwinter festival of Saturn — god of agriculture and of the lost golden age when, in myth, people lived in plenty without masters or slaves. It opened on 17 December with a sacrifice at the Temple of Saturn in the Forum (performed, unusually, in the Greek rite with the priest's head uncovered) followed by a public banquet; the woolen bonds that fettered Saturn's cult-statue through the year were untied for the occasion, a gesture of release. Over time the holiday stretched from a single day to a week, officially the 17th through the 23rd. Its signature was a licensed inversion of the social order: citizens laid aside the toga for festive 'synthesis' dinner-dress and put on the pilleus, the freedman's cap; gambling, normally restrained, was permitted to everyone, slaves included; masters waited on their slaves, who were briefly free to speak their minds; and a mock 'king of the Saturnalia' (Saturnalicius princeps), chosen by lot, issued playful, absurd commands. People exchanged small gifts — modeled clay or wax figurines (sigillaria) and wax tapers (cerei). Because no single ancient source describes the festival from beginning to end, its full picture is pieced together from many.