The Orthodox Church in the Eastern (Byzantine) half of the Roman Empire fixed the date of Christmas at January 6th, commemorating simultaneously Christ’s birth, baptism and first miracle. Provincial schisms soon resulted in different Christian calendars. The earliest known reference to it commemorating the birth of Christ on December 25th is in the Roman Philocalian calendar of AD 354. This suggests it had by then become just another popular carnival.Ĭhristmas apparently started – like Saturnalia – in Rome, and spread to the eastern Mediterranean.
The Christian calendar of Polemius Silvus, written around AD 449, mentions Saturnalia, recording that ‘it used to honour the god Saturn’. Classicists date the work to between AD 383 and 430, so it describes a Saturnalia alive and well under Christian emperors. The poet Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius wrote another Saturnalia, describing a banquet of pagan literary celebrities in Rome during the festival. Dr David Gwynn, lecturer in ancient and late antique history at Royal Holloway, University of London, says that, alongside Christian and other pagan festivals, ‘the Saturnalia continued to be celebrated in the century afterward’. But Christianity did not become the Roman Empire’s official religion overnight. The conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity in AD 312 ended Roman persecution of Christians and began imperial patronage of the Christian churches. Shows with fighting dwarves and female gladiators were illuminated, for the first time, into the night. The poet Statius (AD 45- 95), in his poem Silvae, describes the lavish banquet and entertainments Domitian presided over, including games which opened with sweets, fruit and nuts showered on the crowd and featuring flights of flamingos released over Rome. He curbed Saturnalia’s subversive tendencies by marking it with public events under his control. Pagan Roman authorities tried to curtail Saturnalia Emperor Caligula (AD 12-41) sought to restrict it to five days, with little success.Įmperor Domitian (AD 51-96) may have changed Saturnalia’s date to December 25th in an attempt to assert his authority. The Roman state cancelled executions and refrained from declaring war during the festival. Changes to the Roman calendar moved the climax of Saturnalia to December 25th, around the time of the date of the winter solstice.įrom as early as 217 BC there were public Saturnalia banquets. By the time Lucian described the festivities, it was a seven-day event. During the reign of the Emperor Augustus (63 BC-AD 14), it was a two-day affair starting on December 17th. Saturnalia grew in duration and moved to progressively later dates under the Roman period. Numerous archaeological sites from the Roman coastal province of Constantine, now in Algeria, demonstrate that the cult of Saturn survived there until the early third century AD. Saturnalia originated as a farmer’s festival to mark the end of the autumn planting season in honour of Saturn ( satus means sowing). Drinking and being drunk, noise and games of dice, appointing of kings and feasting of slaves, singing naked, clapping … an occasional ducking of corked faces in icy water – such are the functions over which I preside.’ ‘During my week the serious is barred: no business allowed. The poet Lucian of Samosata (AD 120-180) has the god Cronos (Saturn) say in his poem, Saturnalia: Family households threw dice to determine who would become the temporary Saturnalian monarch. The wealthy were expected to pay the month’s rent for those who couldn’t afford it, masters and slaves to swap clothes. Saturnalia saw the inversion of social roles. The first-century AD poet Gaius Valerius Catullus described Saturnalia as ‘the best of times’: dress codes were relaxed, small gifts such as dolls, candles and caged birds were exchanged. But was Christmas, Western Christianity’s most popular festival, derived from the pagan Saturnalia? This was Saturnalia, the pagan Roman winter solstice festival. A time for feasting, goodwill, generosity to the poor, the exchange of gifts and the decoration of trees. It was a public holiday celebrated around December 25th in the family home.
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