I counterweighted my own internal gloom with saturnalian energy and verve.
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Kara Walker's "Virginia's Lynch Mob" (1998) seems to present a Saturnalian procession of oppressors and the oppressed as they take turns murdering each other and themselves, though nothing can be certain in this enigmatic work.
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While Hill channels his gothic side with Tom G. Warrior inflected singing in "Walk With Me in Nightmares" and "Saturnalian," it's the cutting back and forth between harsh rasps and haunting croons in "Old Wounds" that benefits most greatly from the clarity and sharpness of the album's production.
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In the Cretan city of Cydonia, the festival had a more Saturnalian character, as the social order was inverted and masters waited on their slaves.William Smith (editor). "Hermaea" , Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1870), p.604.C. Daremberg & E. Saglio.
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The practice might have varied over time. Saturnalian license also permitted slaves to disrespect their masters without the threat of a punishment. It was a time for free speech: the Augustan poet Horace calls it "December liberty".Horace, Satires 2.7.
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In the Cretan city of Cydonia, the festival had a more Saturnalian character, as the social order was inverted and masters waited on their slaves.William Smith (editor). "Hermaea", Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1870), p.604.C. Daremberg & E. Saglio.
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The emperor Nero himself played the role of the king as a youth.Tacitus, Annales 13.15. Cumont (1897) doubted that the claim that the sacrifice of the Saturnalian "king" reflects historical practice. He found it more likely that the king would be required to sacrifice to Saturn.
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This was the first of many large festivals organized by David for the republic. He went on to organize festivals for martyrs that died fighting royalists. These funerals echoed the religious festivals of the pagan Greeks and Romans and are seen by many as Saturnalian. Denon.
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In Italy, former Saturnalian traditions were attached to Advent. Around the 12th century, these traditions transferred again to the Twelve Days of Christmas (December 25 – January 5); a time that appears in the liturgical calendars as Christmastide or Twelve Holy Days. The prominence of Christmas Day increased gradually after Charlemagne was crowned Emperor on Christmas Day in 800.
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Scholars have speculated that Shakespeare's original intention was to have Antony appear in Cleopatra's clothes and vice versa in the beginning of the play. This possible interpretation seems to perpetuate the connections being made between gender and power. Gordon P. Jones elaborates on the importance of this detail: > Such a saturnalian exchange of costumes in the opening scene would have > opened up a number of important perspectives for the play's original > audience. It would immediately have established the sportiveness of the > lovers.
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IV.8, Donarem pateras grataque commodus... – In Praise of Poetry – This ode was written to C. Marcius Censorinus and probably sent as a Saturnalian gift. Horace would give bronze vases, or tripods, or gems of Grecian art, but he does not have these. What he has to give instead is the immortality of a poem. IV.9, Ne forte credas interitura quae... – In Praise of Lollius – As in IV.8, Horace promises immortality through his verses, this time to Lollius, a man of wisdom and integrity.
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In ancient Rome, from 17 to 23 December (in the Julian calendar), a man chosen to be a mock king was appointed for the feast of Saturnalia, in the guise of the Roman deity Saturn; at the end of the festival, the man was sacrificed. This hypothesis has been heavily criticized by William Warde Fowler and as such, the Christmas custom of the Lord of Misrule during the Christian era and the Saturnalian custom of antiquity may have completely separate origins; the two separate customs, however, can be compared and contrasted.
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Role-playing was implicit in the Saturnalia's status reversals, and there are hints of mask-wearing or "guising".At the beginning of Horace's Satire 2.3, and the mask in the Saturnalia imagery of the Calendar of Philocalus, and Martial's inclusion of masks as Saturnalia gifts No theatrical events are mentioned in connection with the festivities, but the classicist Erich Segal saw Roman comedy, with its cast of impudent, free-wheeling slaves and libertine seniors, as imbued with the Saturnalian spirit.Segal, Erich, Roman Laughter: The Comedy of Plautus (Oxford University Press, 1968, 2nd ed. 1987), pp.
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172 The official rituals were carried out according to "Greek rite" (ritus graecus). The sacrifice was officiated by a priest,The identity or title of this priest is unknown; perhaps the rex sacrorum or one of the magistrates: William Warde Fowler, The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic (London, 1908), p. 271. whose head was uncovered; in Roman rite, priests sacrificed capite velato, with head covered by a special fold of the toga. This procedure is usually explained by Saturn's assimilation with his Greek counterpart Cronus, since the Romans often adopted and reinterpreted Greek myths, iconography, and even religious practices for their own deities, but the uncovering of the priest's head may also be one of the Saturnalian reversals, the opposite of what was normal.
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The practice may have varied over time. Macrobius (5th century AD) describes the occasion thus: > Meanwhile the head of the slave household, whose responsibility it was to > offer sacrifice to the Penates, to manage the provisions and to direct the > activities of the domestic servants, came to tell his master that the > household had feasted according to the annual ritual custom. For at this > festival, in houses that keep to proper religious usage, they first of all > honor the slaves with a dinner prepared as if for the master; and only > afterwards is the table set again for the head of the household. So, then, > the chief slave came in to announce the time of dinner and to summon the > masters to the table.Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.24.22–23Mary Beard, J.A. North, > and S.R.F. Price, Religions of Rome: A Sourcebook (Cambridge University > Press, 1998), vol. 2, p. 124. Saturnalian license also permitted slaves to enjoy a pretense of disrespect for their masters, and exempted them from punishment.
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