![]() Nevertheless, eventually the church settled on 25 December as the date of Christ’s nativity. The big day in the Christian religious calendar was Easter. It wasn’t until the late fourth century that the church fathers could agree on the date of Christ’s birth – unlike the pagan Romans, Christians tended to give no importance to anyone’s birthday. Not among the Romans! Seneca (who died in AD 62) complained that the mob went out of control “in pleasantries”, and Pliny the Younger wrote in one of his letters that he holed up in his study while the rest of the household celebrated.Īs might be expected, the early Christian authorities objected to the festivities as well. Invention or adaptation: what did the Romans really do for us?. ![]() These were sometimes hung in greenery as a form of decoration, and people would bring in holly and berries to honour Saturn. The candles signified the increase of light after the solstice, while the sigillariae were little ornaments people exchanged. But a couple of gifts that were given were white candles named cerei and clay faces named sigillariae. Saturnalia was more about a change in attitudes than presents. Were gift-giving and decorations part of Saturnalia? ![]() The festivities fell on the winter solstice, and helped to make up for the monotony of the lull between the end of the harvest and the beginning of the spring. The writer Columella notes in his book about agriculture ( De Re Rustica, published in the early first century AD) that the Saturnalia came at the end of the agrarian year. #Saturnalia holiday plus#
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