“lo Saturnalia!"

What was the 'Roman Christmas"?

- Jonathan Gordon

It’s the dark of midwinter but all around you are bright candles – gifts have been exchanged, you’re digging in to a hearty meal and you’re surrounded by friends and family, many of whom might be a little the worse for drink. The mood is jolly and relaxed, no one has to work today and everyone can enjoy themselves as they see fit. Outside, you can hear people walking up the street singing songs of the season, but they aren’t Christmas carols. No, this celebration is Saturnalia, the multi-day festival of the god of farming and the harvest and, as you can likely tell, a celebration that had a lot of influence on religious holidays that followed.

As the name implies, Saturnalia was a celebration of Saturn, the Roman god of farming and the harvest. It was originally honoured on 19 December each year, according to the old Roman calendar, to coincide with the end of the winter sowing season. Columella, a Roman soldier and farmer who wrote extensively about Roman agriculture, states that a farmer should be done with planting their autumn crops by the beginning of December. As such, this was a natural time to rest and relax in the lead up to the solstice, before the work of the farm would pick up once again.

Who was Saturn?

A quick guide to the god of the harvest

Saturn was the god of sowing and by extension the god of farmers and harvests for the ancient Romans. He was connected to the Greek Titan Cronus, who had been exiled from Olympus by Zeus. In Roman mythology he went on to a more peaceful life as the ruler of Latium, the region in which Rome was established, and taught the local people to cultivate the land.