By Water & Blood

Chapter 7: Origins of the Saturnalia

While these things are being narrated, one of the household staff, whose province it was to admit those wishing to meet the master, announces that Evangelus is present with Dysarius, who then at Rome seemed to stand out above the rest who professed the art of healing. Most of those sitting indicated with wrinkled face that the intervention of Evangelus was unpleasant to their leisure and less congruent with a calm gathering. For he was forward with bitter raillery and a wantonly biting tongue, and careless of offenses which, without distinction of dear or not friend, he provoked against himself everywhere by words sowing hatreds. But Praetextatus, as he was equally placid and mild toward all, ordered that they be admitted, sending people to meet them. Horus, following as they entered, conveniently accompanied them—a man strong alike in body and mind, who after countless palms among boxers migrated to the studies of philosophy and, following the sect of Antisthenes and Crates and of Diogenes himself, was held not undistinguished among the Cynics.

But Evangelus, after he entered and found so great a gathering rising to him, said: "Has chance drawn all these to you, Praetextatus, or have you assembled by arrangement intending to deliberate something deeper, for which there is need of witnesses removed? Which if it is so, as I judge, I will rather go away than mix myself in your secrets, from which will shall remove me, though fortune had made me rush in." Then Vettius, although constantly firm in the tranquillity of mind for every patience, yet somewhat moved by so forward a consultation, said: "If you had thought either of me, Evangelus, or of these lights of innocence, you would suppose no such secret among us that could not be made clear even to you or even to the crowd, because neither am I forgetful nor do I believe any of these unaware of that holy precept of philosophy, that one must so speak with men as if the gods hear, so speak with the gods as if men hear: of which the second part sanctifies that we ask nothing of the gods which it would be unseemly for us to confess to men that we wish. But we, that we might both have honor for the sacred holidays and yet avoid the torpor of holiday-keeping and turn leisure into useful business, have assembled intending to give the whole day to learned talks to be contributed as it were by subscription. For if through solemn rites no religion will forbid drawing off streams, if law and rights permit dipping sheep in a healthful river, why should it not be thought an honor of religion to dedicate to sacred days the sacred study of letters? But because some god has also wished you added to us, arrange—if it shall be with your willing—that we spend the day with common talks and feasts, to which I hold it obtained that all who are present today consent."

Then he: "To come upon talks uninvited is indeed not thought base, but to rush of one's own accord into a banquet prepared for others is not related by Homer even of a brother without a mark—and see lest you wish too arrogantly that three Menelauses have befallen you, when to that so great king one befell." Then all, helping Praetextatus, beg and courteously invite to the common fellowship, Evangelus indeed more often and especially, but sometimes also those who entered together with him. Meanwhile Evangelus, tempered by the petition of all, said: "I think the book of M. Varro from the Menippean satires which is entitled 'You know not what evening brings' is not unknown to you, in which he defines the number of guests by this law, that it be neither smaller than that of the Graces nor more numerous than that of the Muses. Here I see, excepting the king of the banquet, that you are as many as the Muses are: why then do you seek to add men to a perfect number?" And Vettius said: "This your presence will grant us, that we both fill the Muses and the Graces, whom it is fair to assemble to the feast of the chief of all the gods."

When therefore they had sat down, Horus, looking at Avienus, whom he was accustomed to frequent more familiarly, said: "In the cult of this Saturn, whom you call chief of the gods, your rite disagrees with the most religious nation of the Egyptians. For they had received neither Saturn nor Sarapis himself into the secrets of the temples until the death of Alexander of Macedon, after whom, pressed by the tyranny of the Ptolemies, they were compelled to receive these gods also into cult after the manner of the Alexandrians, among whom they were especially worshipped. Yet they so obeyed the command that they did not altogether confuse the observances of their own religion. For because it was never lawful for Egyptians to appease the gods with cattle or blood but with prayers and incense alone, yet to these two newcomers victims had to be slaughtered according to custom, they placed their shrines outside the pomerium, so that those also might be worshipped with the blood of a sacrifice solemn for themselves and yet the urban temples not be polluted by the death of cattle: and so no town of Egypt received within its walls a shrine either of Saturn or of Sarapis. Of these I hear that one has scarcely and with difficulty been admitted by you, but Saturn you celebrate with the greatest honor among the rest. If therefore there is nothing that forbids me to know this, I wish it brought into the open."

Here Avienus, remitting the expectation of the inquirer to Praetextatus, said: "Although all who are present are strong in equal learning, yet Vettius, uniquely conscious of all sacred things, can open to you both the origin of the cult which is paid to this god and the cause of the solemn festival." When Praetextatus had tried to pour this back upon others, all obtained from him that he himself should discourse. Then, silence made, he began thus:

"It is lawful for me to bring into the open that origin of the Saturnalia which is not referred to the secret nature of divinity, but which is either discussed mixed with fabulous things or is opened to the crowd by the physicists. For the hidden reasons flowing from the mere fountain of truth it is not permitted to narrate even in the sacred rites themselves, but if anyone attains them, he is ordered to keep them covered within his conscience. Whence what it is lawful to know our Horus will be allowed to recognize with me.

"This region which is now called Italy Janus held in kingdom, who—as Hyginus following Protarchus of Tralles relates—together with Cameses equally a native possessed this land with power so shared that the region was called Camesene, the town Ianiculum. Afterward the kingdom was reduced to Janus alone, who is believed to have borne a double face, so that he looked upon what was before and what was behind his back: which without doubt is to be referred to the prudence and skill of the king, who both knew the past and foresaw the future, just as Antevorta and Postvorta, most fitting companions of divinity, are worshipped among the Romans. This Janus therefore, when he had received with hospitality Saturn conveyed by ship, and having been taught by him the skill of the country had reduced that wild and rough living before fruits were known into a better state, rewarded him with partnership of the kingdom. When he also first stamped bronze, he preserved reverence for Saturn in this too, so that since that one had been carried by ship, on one side indeed the likeness of his own head, on the other a ship was expressed, whereby he might propagate the memory of Saturn to posterity. That bronze was so stamped is understood even today in the game of dice, when boys throwing denarii aloft cry 'heads or ships' (capita aut navia), with the game as witness of antiquity. That these reigned one and concordant and founded neighboring towns by common work—besides Maro, who relates, 'Ianiculum was this one's name, Saturnia that one's'—is also ready from this, that posterity also dedicated two continuous months to them, so that December possessed the sacred of Saturn, January the name of the other. When among these things Saturn had suddenly disappeared, Janus devised increases of his honors and first named all the land obedient to his sway Saturnia, then founded an altar with rites as to a god, which he named Saturnalia: by so many centuries the Saturnalia precede the age of the Roman city. He therefore ordered him to be observed with the majesty of religion as the author of a better life: his image is evidence, to which he added a sickle, the mark of harvest. To this god they attribute the skill of grafting shoots and the rearing of fruits and of all things fertile of whatever kind. The Cyrenaeans also, when they make a divine rite to him, are crowned with fresh figs and mutually send cakes, judging Saturn the discoverer of honey and of fruits. The Romans also call him Sterculius, because he first procured fertility for the fields by dung. The times of his reign are reported most happy, both because of abundance of things and also because not yet was anyone discriminated by slavery or freedom—which matter can be understood from this, that at the Saturnalia complete license is permitted to slaves.

"Another cause of the Saturnalia is thus handed down. Those who had been left in Italy by Hercules—as some report, because he was angry that the herd had been left unguarded, as some judge, deliberately leaving them that they might protect his altar and temple from incursions—these therefore, when they were harassed by robbers, having occupied a lofty hill named themselves Saturnians, by which name before that the same hill also was called, and because they felt themselves safe by the name and religion of this god, they are said to have instituted the Saturnalia so that the very observation of the proclaimed festival might call the rustic minds of the neighbors to greater reverence of the rite.

"Nor am I unaware of that cause which is assigned to the Saturnalia, that the Pelasgi, as Varro records, when driven from their seats they had sought diverse lands, most flowed together to Dodona and, uncertain to what places they should cling, received a response of this kind: 'Go seeking the Saturnian land of the Sicels and of the Aborigines, Cotyle, where an island floats; mixing with whom send a tenth to Phoebus and send heads to Hades and to the father send a light (phōta).' And when the lot had been received, after very many wanderings they put in to Latium and discovered an island floated up in the lake of Cutilia. For a most ample turf, whether that was continuous slime or a compacted mass of marsh, adorned with shrubs and trees into the license of a wood, wandered with waves forever tossing, so that faith was also made from this of Delos, which lofty with mountains, vast with plains, yet migrated through the seas. This miracle therefore perceived, they learned that these seats had been predicted for them, and having devastated the Sicilian inhabitants they occupied the region, a tenth of the booty according to the response consecrated to Apollo, and having erected a shrine to Dis and an altar to Saturn, whose festival they named Saturnalia. And when for a long time they believed they appeased Dis with human heads and Saturn with victims of men because of the oracle in which was 'and send heads to Hades and to the father send a light (phōta),' they say that Hercules afterward, returning through Italy with the cattle of Geryon, persuaded their posterity to change the inauspicious into auspicious sacrifices, offering to Dis not heads of men but little masks (oscilla) fashioned by art to human likeness, and cultivating the Saturnian altars not by slaughtering a man but by kindled lights, because phōta signifies not only a man but also lights. Thence began the custom of mutually sending wax candles through the Saturnalia. Others think candles are sent for no other reason than that under this prince we were brought forth from an uncouth and dark life as it were to light and the knowledge of good arts. That also I find in letters, that when many on the occasion of the Saturnalia through avarice ambitiously exacted gifts from clients and that burden weighed on the thinner, Publicius a tribune of the plebs carried that nothing but wax candles should be sent to the richer."

Here Albinus Caecina added: "Such a change of sacrifice as you have now related, Praetextatus, I find afterward celebrated at the Compitalia, when games were held through the city at the crossroads, restored namely by Tarquinius Superbus to the Lares and to Mania from a response of Apollo, by which it was commanded that heads be sacrificed for heads. And that was for some time observed, that for the safety of the household boys were slaughtered to the goddess Mania, mother of the Lares. Which kind of sacrifice the consul Junius Brutus, when Tarquin had been driven out, established to be celebrated otherwise. For he ordered that there be sacrifice with heads of garlic and of poppy, so that the response of Apollo might be satisfied concerning the name of heads with the crime of the inauspicious sacrifice removed; and it was brought about that images of Mania hung before the doors of individuals expiated danger, if any threatened the households, and they called the games themselves Compitalia from the ways of the crossroads in which they were held. But continue the rest."

And Praetextatus: "Well and opportunely has a similar correction of sacrifices been related; but from these causes which have been related concerning the origin of this festival it appears that the Saturnalia are older than the city of Rome, so much so that Acccius in his Annals relates that before Rome this solemnity began in Greece, in these verses: 'The greatest part of the Greeks to Saturn, and especially Athens, accomplish the rites which are repeated by them as the Cronia, and they celebrate that day: through fields and cities nearly all they hold joyful feasts and each provides for his own servants. And to us likewise that custom has been handed down from there, that servants feast in the same place with their masters.'"