By Water & Blood

Book 1, Chapter 10: The Length of the Saturnalia

But that we may return to the Saturnalia: it was held unholy to begin war during the Saturnalia, and to exact penalties from a wrongdoer on those same days is a matter for expiation. Among our ancestors the Saturnalia were finished in a single day, which was the fourteenth day before the Kalends of January; but after Gaius Caesar assigned two days to this month, they began to be celebrated from the sixteenth. From this it came about that, since the common people did not know the fixed day of the Saturnalia, and some celebrated after the day inserted by Gaius Caesar and others according to the old custom, more days were counted as Saturnalia—although even among the ancients there was an opinion that the Saturnalia lasted seven days, if that is to be called an opinion which is confirmed by suitable authorities. For Novius, the most approved writer of Atellan farces, says: "At last the seven Saturnalia we have long awaited have come." Mummius too, who after Novium and Pomponius revived the Atellan art that had long lain dormant, says: "Our ancestors, as they instituted many things well, did this best of all: from the depth of cold they made seven days of Saturnalia."

But Mallius says that those who, as we said above, had protected themselves under the name and religion of Saturn instituted three festival days and called them the Saturnalia, "whence also Augustus," he says, "following this opinion of the matter, ordered in his judicial laws that the holidays be observed for three days." Masurius and others believed that the Saturnalia were held on a single day, that is the fourteenth before the Kalends of January; Fenestella confirms their view, saying that the Vestal Aemilia was condemned on the fifteenth before the Kalends of January, on which day, if the Saturnalia were being held, she would not have pleaded her case at all. Then he adds: "The Saturnalia followed that day." Presently he says: "But on the following day, which was the thirteenth before the Kalends of January, the Vestal Licinia was ordered to plead her case," from which he shows that the thirteenth before the Kalends was a working day.

But on the twelfth there are holidays of the goddess Angeronia, to whom the pontiffs make sacrifice in the shrine of Volupia. Verrius Flaccus says that she is called Angeronia because, when propitiated, she drives away the anguish (angores) and anxieties of minds. Masurius adds that the image of this goddess, with mouth bound and sealed, is placed on the altar of Volupia for this reason: that those who conceal their pains and anxieties arrive, by the benefit of patience, at the greatest pleasure. Julius Modestus says that sacrifice is made to this goddess because the Roman people, after a vow previously offered, were freed from the disease called angina.

On the eleventh before the Kalends there are holidays dedicated to the Lares, for whom Aemilius Regillus the praetor vowed a temple to be built in the Campus Martius during the war with Antiochus. On the tenth before the Kalends there are holidays of Jupiter which are called the Larentalia, concerning which—since it is pleasant to tell stories—these roughly are the opinions. For they say that in the reign of Ancus the temple-warden of Hercules, idle during a holiday, challenged the god to a game of dice, while the god himself held the hand of each, with the added condition that the loser should be mulcted of a dinner and a courtesan. Hercules having won, the man shut Acca Larentia, the most famous courtesan of that time, within the temple with a dinner; and on the next day she spread the rumor that after lying with the god she had received a gift, so that she might not refuse the profit of the first opportunity offered when she returned home. And so it came about that, on leaving the temple, she was soon accosted by Carutius, captivated by her beauty. Following his wish and taken in marriage, after her husband's death she became mistress of all his goods, and when she died she named the Roman people her heir. And therefore she was buried by Ancus in the Velabrum, the most frequented place in the city, and a solemn sacrifice was established for her, by which sacrifice might be made to her Manes through the flamen, and the holidays were consecrated to Jupiter, because the ancients judged that souls are given by Jupiter and after death are returned to him again.

Cato says that Larentia, enriched by the gain of prostitution, after her death left to the Roman people the fields Turax, Semurium, Lintirium, and Solonium, and was therefore honored with the magnificence of a tomb and the honor of an annual parentation. Macer in the first book of his Histories confirms that Acca Larentia, the wife of Faustulus, was the nurse of Romulus and Remus; that in the reign of Romulus she married a certain rich Tuscan Carutius and was increased by her husband's inheritance, which she afterward left to Romulus, whom she had reared, and that parental rites and a festival day were established by him out of piety.

From all this, therefore, it can be gathered that the Saturnalia were held on a single day and were celebrated only on the fourteenth before the Kalends of January. On that day alone, at the temple of Saturn after the banquet had been dissolved, people used to shout "Saturnalia!"—a day which is now assigned among the Saturnalia to the Opalia, though at first it had been ascribed equally to Saturn and to Ops. They believed this goddess Ops to be the wife of Saturn, and therefore in this month both the Saturnalia and the Opalia are celebrated, because Saturn and his wife are believed to be the discoverers of grain as well as of fruits; and so, when all the produce of the fields has already been gathered in, these gods are worshipped by men as authors of a more cultivated life. Some have also been persuaded that they are heaven and earth, and that Saturn is so called from sowing (a satu), whose cause is from heaven, and that Ops is the earth, by whose aid (ope) the nourishment of human life is sought, or from work (ab opere), through which fruits and crops are born. To this goddess they form vows while seated and touch the earth of set purpose, showing that mother earth herself is to be sought by mortals. Philochorus says that Cecrops first set up an altar to Saturn and Ops in Attica and worshipped them as gods in place of Jupiter and Earth, and instituted that heads of households, when grain and fruits had already been gathered, should feast everywhere with their slaves, with whom they had endured the toil of labor in tilling the countryside. For the god delights in the honor of slaves, in contemplation of their labor. Hence it is that by a foreign custom we sacrifice to this god with uncovered head.

I judge that we have already abundantly proved that the Saturnalia used to be celebrated on only a single day, that is the fourteenth before the Kalends; but afterward they were extended to three days, first from the days added by Caesar to this month, then from the edict of Augustus by which he assigned three days of holiday to the Saturnalia: begun therefore from the sixteenth, they end on the fourteenth, on which alone they had formerly been accustomed to be held. But the added celebration of the Sigillaria extends the public bustle and the joy of religion to seven days."