Despite its importance to the Romans, we do not have a full accounting of the festival from beginning to end. Saturnalia was the holiday in ancient Rome like Mardi Gras or Carnival are for many people now, it was the most popular holiday in the Roman Empire. In fact, many households had a Saturnalicius princeps (Ruler of Saturnalia) who oversaw the general mayhem and was chosen by lot from among the servant class-often by hiding a coin inside of a cake, whoever found the coin would become princeps for the holiday, which may be the origin of the Mardi Gras king cake. Public drunkenness wasn’t the only permissible behavior: gambling, servants and slaves were relieved of duty (and often served by their *shudders* masters-I hate that word), bawdy jokes, insulting guests, chasing people around, and scandalous entertainment were all common parts of Saturnalia. and you’re up to something.” Though, in this case, you’re not always up to Grizzard’s implied “something.”). In fact, public drunkenness was not looked down upon during Saturnalia, which is good considering it was not uncommon to see folks dancing and singing in the street while nekkid (as Lewis Grizzard said, “’naked’ means you don’t have any clothes on ‘nekkid’ means you don’t have any clothes on. Honeyed wine flowed during the holiday and there was no small amount of shenanigans during the week of Saturnalia that were likely attributable to the wine. And what better way to celebrate your harvests and the god who makes the harvest possible than with a feast! So, celebrating Saturnalia at the end of the fall, around the time of the winter solstice, was, in part, to honor the god of agriculture who would have influence over the next year’s harvest. The agricultural year began in the fall: the harvests of summer and fall crops came in while seeds for the following year’s crops were sown. There is no small part of what we consider traditional observations of Christmas and New Year’s that derive from the ancient celebration of Saturn, Rome’s god of agriculture. While I know all of that must sound like you’re back in a world history class just before winter (or summer, for y’all in the Southern Hemisphere) holidays, I promise this chunk of history is going to be fun! So, strap in, we’re going to learn about ancient Rome! Interestingly, it is theorized that the cheer “Io, Io, Io” may very well be the roots of Santa’s “Ho, Ho, Ho!” Rome had a tradition of borrowing from other cultures and, after that defeat, they began integrating Greek rites into Saturnalia in hopes of gaining the favor of Kronos-Saturn’s Greek counterpart-who might bring additional strength to the Roman army. Such was the common greeting during Saturnalia “Io” was borrowed from the Greeks after Rome suffered a major defeat at the hands of Carthage during the Second Punic War.
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