The Roman Saturnalia and the Survival of its Traditions among Christians (original) (raw)

Winter Solstice Celebrations: Roman Saturnalia and Modern Christmas by Rick Doble

2016

The Romans had a very different way of calculating the winter solstice and also a different perception of its meaning. Nevertheless customs from the Roman Saturnalia festival have been passed down and are part of modern Christmas traditions. This paper examines Roman science and understanding of the winter solstice and also how traditions from its Saturnalia festival were incorporated into modern day Christmas.

The Upside-Down World of the Saturnalia: A Carnival or a Pilgrimage?

The Indian Review of World Literature in English, 2021

Pilgrimage has been defined variously for multiple decades by several scholars, critics and researchers alike. The primary problem that arises in course of theorizing pilgrimage is that the distinction between a pilgrim and a tourist tends to blur out owing to the diverse nature of the discourses surrounding what constitutes a proper pilgrimage. This paper explores the construction of civic identity within the context of the Roman Saturnalia, one of the most ancient pagan agricultural festivals. Through an analysis of certain seminal discourses on sacred travel, rites of passage and pilgrimage, it tries to determine to what extent the Roman Saturnalia, which has often been perceived as a carnival of decadence and debauchery, qualifies as a pilgrimage.

2012 - Public and publicity: long-term changes in religious festivals during the Roman republic

2012

Looking at the Roman Republic we are confronted with a wealth of very different complex rituals that each attracted a multitude. If I take 'complex ritual' and 'popularity' as some of the elements for defining a 'festival', the evidence would be too scanty to allow clear-cut borderlines between festivals and other rituals. Usually, neither the complexity of the ritual, nor the number of persons involved, whether participants or spectators, are attested with any sufficient degree of certainty. Thus, I am more interested in the variety of phenomena and the different strategies or implications of the selected place and time, in relation to human agents or the gods addressed. The typological interest is, however, combined with a historical one. As is commonly known, the mixture of Roman festivals altered from the fifth and fourth to the second and first centuries BC, with a 'long' third century BC being the turning point. How is this change related to the religious and political development of the Republic? I contend that the ritual changes are linked to the changing role of the senate and the nobility, which reflects the evolving notion of 'public' in the term res publica. As most of our sources stem from the last century BC of the Republic, the exceptions being Imperial, reconstructing historical change remains a notorious problem. And yet an attempt has to be made, helped by historico-critical approaches in relation to those texts available, non-textual evidence and models informed from OUP CORRECTED PROOF -FINAL, 14/8/2012, SPi

THE 25 SEPTEMBER COMMEMORATION OF MARTYR ROMANUS IN SLAVIC AND OTHER MENOLOGIES

Starobŭlgarska literatura 67-68: 81–106, 2023

The subject of the article is a menology commemoration on 25 September for a St. Romanus who is identified only as a martyr. The commemoration appears in the earliest extant Slavic menologies, and in a number of later South and East Slavic menologies up through the 14 th century. The article traces the commemoration back to its earliest extant Slavic witnesses, looks at earlier Greek witnesses and Latin and Syriac sources, and examines the implications of its careful preservation for our understanding of the compilation and preservation of calendars of saints, not only in the Slavic tradition, but in the Greek, Latin, and Syriac traditions also.

The festival of Saint Demetrios, the Timarion, and the Aithiopika

Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 2016

The description of the festival for Saint Demetrios in Thessaloniki in the Timarion has long been used as a source for regional and liturgical history. It is in fact a literary rewriting of a festival at Delphi in Heliodoros’ Aithiopika. This paper demonstrates how the description of the Demetria represents a moment in Byzantine humanism as well as a reflection on the process of literary composition itself. An explanation is also proposed here for why Heliodoros’ festival at Delphi in particular, out of all descriptions of festivals in ancient literature, appealed to the author of the Timarion.

A Feast of Harsomtus of Khadi on Mesore 29

in Landgráfová, R. – Mynářová, J. (eds.), Rich in Years, Great in Victories: Studies in Honour of Anthony J. Spalinger on the Occasion of his 70th Feast of Thoth, Prague: Charles University in Prague 2016, 29–38. A brief study on a lesser known feast taking place in the wabet of the temple of Hathor at Dendara: the “feast of extending the mnx.t-cloth” (Hb Ssp mnx.t) to Ra-Harsomtus, the lord of Khadi, and to the ennead of Dendara on the penultimate day of the year – Mesore 29.