In The Calendar
Saturnalia was supposed to have been held on December 17 (ante diem xvi Kal. Ian.) from the time of the oldest Roman religious calendar, which the Romans believed to have been established by the legendary founder Romulus and his successor Numa Pompilius. It was a dies festus, a legal holiday when no public business could be conducted. The day marked the dedication of the Temple to Saturn in the Roman Forum in 497 BC.
By the late Republic, the celebration of Saturnalia had expanded to seven days, but during the Imperial period contracted variously to three to five days. Under Augustus, there was a three-day official holiday. Caligula extended it to five.
December 17 was the first day of the astrological sign Capricorn, the house of Saturn, the planet named for the god. Its proximity to the winter solstice (December 25 on the Julian calendar) was endowed with various meanings by both ancient and modern scholars: for instance, the widespread use of wax candles (cerei, singular cereus) may refer to "the returning power of the sun's light after the solstice".
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Famous quotes containing the word calendar:
“To divide one’s life by years is of course to tumble into a trap set by our own arithmetic. The calendar consents to carry on its dull wall-existence by the arbitrary timetables we have drawn up in consultation with those permanent commuters, Earth and Sun. But we, unlike trees, need grow no annual rings.”
—Clifton Fadiman (b. 1904)