SATURNALIA. A festival held on December 17 in honour of the Roman god Saturn (q.v.). Sacrifices were offered and a banquet was held in the open air. " The festival was also celebrated in private society; schools had holidays, law-courts were closed, all work was stopped, war was deferred, and no punishment of criminals took place for seven days from December 17 to 23 " (O. Seyffert). It was a kind of Christmas. People presented gifts to one another, especially wax tapers and dolls, and gave themselves up to every kind of amusement and entertainment. An ancient account of the Saturnalia was discovered and published some years ago by Franz Cumont of Ghent. " From that account we learn that down to the beginning of the fourth century of our era, that is, down nearly to the establish ment of Christianity by Constantine, the Roman soldiers stationed on the Danube were wont to celebrate the Saturnalia in a barbarous fashion which must certainly have dated from a very remote antiquity. Thirty days before the festival they chose by lot from among them selves a young and handsome man, who was dressed in royal robes to resemble the god Saturn. In that character he was allowed to indulge all his passions to the fullest extent; but when his brief reign of thirty days was over, and the festival of Saturn was come, he had to cut his own throat on the altar of the god he personated " (J. G. Frazer). In 303 A.D. a Christian
soldier, St. Dasius, was put to death for refusing to play the part of Saturn at the Saturnalia. Saturn was the god of seed, and the Saturnalia was the festival of sowing celebrated in December, " when the autumn sowing was over and the husbandman gave himself up to a of jollity after the long labours of summer and autumn " (Frazer). J. G. Frazer thinks that formerly the part of the god Saturn was played by the Roman king himself, and that in the licence accorded to the human representa tives of Saturn may perhaps be detected a trace of the Sacred Marriage. In some ways the festivals of the new yams, celebrated by the Ashantees early in September, resembles the Saturnalia. So also does the festival of the new fruits celebrated by the Caffres of Natal and Zululand at the end of December or the beginning of January (G.B., Pt. v. vol. ii., 1912). See O. Seyffert, Diet., 10th ed. 1908; J. G. Frazer, G.B., Pt. I., vol. ii., 1911.