This winter festival originated as a farmers' festival dedicated to Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture and the harvest. Roman celebrations were part of a religious festival called Saturnalia. Over 2000 years ago Romans were celebrating the New Year in much in the same way that we do today with parties, drinking, gifting and, of course, with hopes for the year ahead. Romans would make prayers and sacrifices to the gods, sometimes even human, in the hope of gaining the gods’ favourīefore being moved to 1st January in 153 BC, the Roman New Year began on 1st March. Kevin Butcher, Professor of Roman history at the University of Warwick says that it was a time of the year known for inclusivity and role-reversal as well as riotous partying and the exchange of weird and wonderful gifts as New Year presents. If you've been watching our Tudor Society Advent Calendar videos, you'll know that I mentioned Saturnalia in the talk I did on the Lord of Misrule tradition, and this article is interesting because the Tudor monarchs and nobility followed the Roman tradition of gift-giving at New Year.Īncient Romans celebrated the start of the New Year as part of a winter festival called Saturnalia – with sausages, sponges and silver given as gifts, alongside human sacrifice. Following on from yesterday's article Io! Io! Io! Modern Christmas vs Roman Saturnalia, we have another article from Kevin Butcher, Professor of Roman History at Warwick University.
0 kommentar(er)
