In these seven days is allowed only undertake serious and important, but getting drunk, cheering, playing dice, hold slaves, singing and dancing naked, face smeared with soot and let me throw this into the icy ... I can do it as long as I want!
Lucian, Saturnalia
During the ancient Rome, the Saturnalia was a festival dedicated to the god Saturn. Initially this festival was held only on December 17 but later, under Augustus, its duration was extended for another six days. During this festival, as well as in the course of so many others, took part in large banquets, invariably where the wine flowed freely, and often were exchanges of gifts. The most striking feature of the Saturnalia, however, was the subversion of order that prevailed during the days of "normal": the doors of the courts were closed and no justice was administered, he let the people go crazy or particularly noisy activities, in and out pilleus the street wearing the traditional headgear of the freedmen, as regards the slaves, they not only could act like free people, but they could also give orders to their masters; gambling, which was usually prohibited, was considered a legitimate (1).
Features of these holidays are historically well documented. What you can escape instead of their true meaning. Some, noting especially the aspect of "joy" that had this holiday, they wanted to see a reference to the mythical golden age. According to tradition, in fact, the golden age was dominated by the god Saturn, which in ancient times, was considered the god of agriculture and abundance - the Latin words satisfacere (content) and sator ( Sower, farmer) have indeed the exact same root Saturn - the Saturnalia would then be a quick and "symbolic" Happy return to an age that is gone now ... an evocation of an ancient era "abundance" of which we have only a vague memory.
This interpretation, however, fails to explain a fact: if the Saturnalia was really a "recovery" temporary splendor of an ancient tradition, why consisted, in fact, in a reversal of the same principles and in a subversion of traditional ' order "normal" things?
This can be understood only if we resort to another type of explanation. If it is true that in a very old Saturn was regarded as a god basically positive, but prevailed in later times his "dark side", so Saturn soon became a god of the beyond the grave, a god "hellish."
In the Greek tradition, this "change" is told in an excellent manner by the mythology. According to the myth of the god Cronus, comparable in every way to Saturn (2), was thrown into Tartarus with the Titans after losing the battle against Zeus (titanomachia).
what happened during the Saturnalia, was therefore not a point in when the god Saturn "positive" and could not even be a point of age gold. The interpretation at this point is more plausible is that the Saturnalia were the "safety valves" of the lower aspects of Roman society, which in those days (and only in those days) were free to manifest itself. Moreover, just as Rome was separated from the original (and conditions) of the Republican costumes, people felt a greater need for these parties that were able to express the "base instincts", so in imperial life the same Saturnalia was increased from one day to one week (or more precisely 17 to 23 December).
In medieval times, a feature remarkably similar to that of Saturnalia was held by the carnival celebrations. During Carnival, people could perform acts which would otherwise have been severely condemned by society ... even here, the wine flowed freely and often also the carnival parades taking grotesque features, "animalistic" (think of the many masks "animal") or even obscene, and no one remained shocked, you could also make small jokes or wrongdoing without being charged for this (hence the saying "every joke is a Carnival").
For an ancient society was however important that these parties have a fixed period and then life returned to be dominated by the order traditional ...
non semper Saturnalia ERUNT (not always there will be the Saturnalia, Seneca).
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Notes:
(1) In Rome, the gambling was banned forever, although the punishment consisted only a fine in cash, equal to four times the stake. The gambling debts were not legally recognized even then, that (as we today) could not take legal action to demand payment of such debt.
(2) Hesiod tells us that Cronus, like Saturn, was the first god of the age gold, and that in this era, the earth produces spontaneously an abundance of fruit.
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