Imagine being a poor Roman mother rushing about Walmartius looking for gifts for everyone thinking "I swear, Saturnalia comes about earlier each year!"
any holiday where you wear weird hats, party all night, gamble with nuts, exchange gifts and poems, shout jibberish at each other, and everyone drops their airs and visits with each other, sounds like a good time.
It was a festival to feed into your baser inhibitions, basically to sin, I wouldn’t be surprised if doing Saturnalia there were purges, mass orgies, public displays of drunken and high behavior.
"Everyone you ever met will come to your door demanding a gift and a personalised note. If you forget a single person, they'll hate you forever..." WELL FUCK.
The original Latin was: Quam mihi mittebas Saturni tempore lancem, / Misisti dominae, Sextiliane, tuae; / Et quam donabas dictis a Marte Kalendis, / De nostra prasina est synthesis empta toga. / Iam constare tibi gratis coepere puellae: / Muneribus futuis, Sextiliane, meis. i can't figure out if there was a special pun here or anything, but it seems to me that this is an ancient version of "Robbing Peter to pay Paul." the stuff that Sextilianus used to spend on Martial now goes to his mistress instead.
Hey, do you think the real reason the Senators assassinated Julius Caesar was because he forgot to give Brutus a gift? Maybe he accidentally bought a cheaper one.
@@jesseberg3271 Well it makes since,Caeser,Cicero and Labenus where competent and skillful in the face of defeat,Cato and Antony where incompetent and quite in the present and not the future
@@DeathBone4656 I'll grant you that, but Historia Civilis accepts that Cato acted out of conviction, whereas he doesn't give Antony the same courtesy. If you assume Antony was driven by his belife in the Populare cause, his actions come off looking a lot more like someone seeking revenge for Sulla's tyranny than the random actions of an out of control drunkard. But HC just accepts what was written about Antony by his enemies, seemingly without a second thought.
It’s incredible to see how much this holiday survives in Christmas, the gift giving spirit, the salutation to be given to everyone, the consumption of the whole month of December in the name of holiday, and the Scrooge’s that just hate them.
@@The_ZeroLinenope there is no proof of that at all just a bunch of lies made up by people who believe conspiracy theories and can’t be bothered to do one bit of research
One thing I came across in my Latin class was that perhaps the Romans didn't bet actual nuts in their betting dice games during the Saturnalia, a point that came up as we were translating Martial's epigrams actually, which is a nice coincidence to how this video ended. Nux did mean walnut, yes, but it was also used as a metaphors for "thing of little/no value", being used that way by Martial; the theory my teacher mentioned was that perhaps some people used some of those crappy gifts they kept around to give to random visitors in their bets; there is slim evidence for this, since it comes almost entirely from Martial using the metaphor of "nuts" as something of little value to refer to the presents during Saturnalia, but well, it is a possibility and it kinda makes more sense; then again lots of things about Saturnalia make little sense so who knows xD
Watching all of these videos, but especially this one, I’m always amazed at the fact that these people were no different than us. Easy to imagine your drunk uncle at the Saturnalia party instead of the Christmas party
Christmas is directly from Saturnalia. The now Christian Roman elites wanted to still keep some of their traditions and they needed to get the still pagan masses to join them in this new Christianity thing. What better way than to take an already existing pagan holiday and replace it with Jesus's supposed birthday.
what actually happened is that people started to do some of the stuff they did on saturnalia on the day of christmas after saturnalia ended i still don't understand people that say christmas came from saturnalia if saturnalia is not even on the same day, and besides its not really that similar, its just an average festivity, the only thing i found really similar here is the exchange of gifts
Flash forward to around 1000 AD, and the Norse festival of Jul (Yule/Yuletide) now had to be incorporated as well, since Harald Bluetooth was christening all of Denmark. Good thing having festivities around the winter solstice when the days become longer is a pretty universal idea. I don't know for certain if there are more influences to Christmas, but Jul and Saturnalia are definitely up there.
No, Because Christmas was not a holiday until the Romans started to practice Christianity. The elites wanted to convert the masses and absorbing holidays and traditions is a good way of doing it. It's not a new thing. The Arabs already had a tradition of fasting and holding festivities before Muhammed and Islam came around. In Latin America, Christianity absorbed some attributes of Native religions.
I went to a college that had a day much like the first day of Saturnalia. Students and professors all came together for a festival on the main quad and got super drunk. Classes were cancelled, tests foregone. It was awesome. Though I have heard the new president of the college is trying to get rid of the holiday altogether because he considers it immoral and a stain on the college's reputation.
Imagine something like the Oktoberfest, the one in Munich is the real deal but in other places in Germany and the world it gets celebrated as well in a smaller scale.
I love the spirit of this festival, for a short time there was no distinction between elite, commoner and slave. All were equal under Saturn and it was marked with food, wine, games and all sorts of fun. Seems like a great festival.
Every year you give us the gift of us not having to read your comment but now you give us the gift of having to read your comment!? I am insulted by this gift! Hmph!
I didn't know Christmas was also based on Saturnalia. Knowing this, my favorite holiday now really feels like a European holiday because both Saturnalia and Yule are the ancestors of christmas. So christmas is were Southern European culture meets Northern European culture... Love it.
how tf Yule is ancestor of Christmas, the scandinavians only had contact to Christian Europe by the 8th century and Christmas is celebrated since at least 354 and some people might have passed one or other aspect of Saturnalia to the day of Christmas (like the exchange of gifts) to replace saturnalia after it ended, but it doesn't really mean saturnalia is "ancestor" to Christmas, its not even on the same day.
Rasputin Russia's greatest love machine Well at first christmas was introduced to turn Saturnalia in a Christian holiday. When Germanic lands were christianized they would take some elements of the Yule feast. OR do you think christmas trees and the lights decoration already existed at the beginning of Christianity?
if there is one or other thing they used to celebrate in yule and now celebrate on christmas because the yule was ended, it doesn't mean Christmas was based on yule at all, as i already said, Christmas was commemorated since at least 354, who were the scandinavians at this time period? we have no idea
Rasputin Russia's greatest love machine And as this video made clear, christmas was celebrated since 354 because of Saturnalia. And later on it was greatly influenced by Germanic paganism.
great to hear about the small cultural quirks of the Roman republic. I love the big battles but sometimes we get lost in the political sphere. More videos like this! :)
I have 2 things to say. One is bad, and other is good. 1. This video is like christmas present, I loooooove your work. 2. My toaster broke down ( yes, again, to those who are following it's story) so this video lifted my mood up. Thanks and good christmas to you! merry christmas!
I knew Christmas and it's gift giving were derived from Saturnalia, but I didn't expect Christmas cards and those custom fancy candles shops that pop up in malls around Christmas to have their origins in it too!
we out here partyrocking on this saturnalia. my 5 homies and me, with our cone hats, crouching in an alley shootin dice, sipping heavy, and shouting at fools. we found a crazy bird from parthia or somethin, called a mina bird. it squawks out human words sometimes so we made it king for the day and do whatever it says. after dice and drinks; we're going to stumble into the fighting pits and watch a zebra fight a regular horse in a cage match. maybe swing by a certain temple and try and siphon some of that sacred olive oil out of a certain god's statue. u know just get turnt.
Merry 12th night! I just did a video talking about the evolution of this holiday...of course, it wasn't as awesome as yours. Always glad to see new work from you!
@Alex F Personally, I just celebrate Yule with prayers and offerings to Odin Yulefather and the ancestral mothers of my line and ignore the whole Jesus nonsense.
@@ExInvaderRay Oh Christians and their silly insistence that their God is the only God. Might as well say there is only one star, or one blade of grass. You're just angry that your religion is dying and mine is blossoming again in the garden of your ruin. Deus does not volt, keyboard crusader.
Gambling? Fights between dwarves and females? Partying all night? Bring Saturnalia back! Chrismas are just a lame copy with a lot of formalities and lame songs without any style. #bringsaturnaliaback
Hey, thanks for doing this video! I’m doing a Latin project on this festival so it was nice to see it all condensed. One little thing though, Io is pronounced yo since that’s how they did their i’s in the old days. Thanks either way.
i love the meaning of it all its better than Christmas because it temporary suspended the class system and i dont imagine romans in this way ,it adds humanity to them and makes it that much more sad that there gone from history
Maybe next year you can make a video about the Roman holiday of "Dies Natalis Solis Invicti", the birthday of the Roman sungod, which takes place on the 25th December (winter solstice in Julian Calendar).
Damn, too bad Christmas isn't more like Saturnalia and instead we're stuck to hanging out with family and being drunk on eggnog for a day. A frat-level week long bender sounds epic
Kronia,the celebration was held in ancient Greece in honor of Titan Kronos and Titaness Rhea. it took place on the night of the 12th day of Hecatombaion,(at the beginning of summer). On the day of the feast the slaves had a holiday, they could sit at the same table with their masters and in general they had more freedom, in memory of the Golden Age of the human race, when there was no slavery and heavy work. From the adoption of the celebration by the Romans as Saturnalia, in honor of the Roman Saturn ,Kronia became a noisy festival and days of debauchery.
