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Speaker 1: Hey, history fans, here's a rerun for today, brought to

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Speaker 1: you by Tracy V. Wilson. We hope it makes previous

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Speaker 1: episodes for this date easier to find in the feed.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to this Day in History Class from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com and from the desk of Stuff you

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Speaker 1: Missed in History Class. It's the show where we explore

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Speaker 1: the past one day at a time with a quick

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Speaker 1: look at what happened today in history. Hello, and welcome

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Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and I'd like

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Speaker 1: to thank Christopher Haciotis for filling in for me for

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Speaker 1: the previous seven episodes. Today is December seventeen, and the

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Speaker 1: summer seventeenth marks the beginning of saturn Alia. Although we

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Speaker 1: don't know exactly what year the ancient Romans observed Saturnalia

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Speaker 1: for the first time, this was though a very popular

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Speaker 1: Roman holiday honoring the god's Saturn. It was probably the

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Speaker 1: most popular of all the Roman festivals, and one of

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Speaker 1: the things that Saturn was associated with was agriculture, both

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Speaker 1: sewing and harvest sting, and this festival happened at the

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Speaker 1: end of the autumn harvest in the beginning of the

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Speaker 1: winter planting cycle. Originally this was just a single day

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Speaker 1: observance on thee and by the reign of Emperor Augustus,

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Speaker 1: which lasted from twenty seven b C until he died

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Speaker 1: in fourteen CE, it had become a two day event.

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Speaker 1: People had been celebrating it at that point for at

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Speaker 1: least two hundred years. Over time, Saturnalia got longer and

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Speaker 1: longer and more elaborate. It started overlapping the winter solstice.

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Speaker 1: It was lasting for seven entire days, although some emperors

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Speaker 1: tried to rein it in a little bit cut it

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Speaker 1: down to maybe a more manageable five days instead of seven.

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Speaker 1: This was not just a time for drinking and feasting.

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Speaker 1: People shut down their businesses, including for this entire seven

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Speaker 1: day stretch, took a break from all their work. Various

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Speaker 1: codes of proper behavior became more and more relaxed. For example,

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Speaker 1: people were allowed to gamble, which wasn't acceptable, and a

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Speaker 1: lot of other circumstances. Enslaved people were temporarily given more freedoms,

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Speaker 1: and some folks have made connections to today's observances of

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Speaker 1: Marti Gras in terms of what the atmosphere was like.

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Speaker 1: There was a lot of partying, and revelry. At the

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Speaker 1: end of this festival, there was also a presentation of gifts,

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Speaker 1: usually of candles and of wax figures and wax models

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Speaker 1: of fruit. People also decorated their homes with greenery. The

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Speaker 1: statue of Saturn and his temple in Rome was typically

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Speaker 1: bound with woolen rope, but during Saturdayalia those bonds would

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Speaker 1: be cut during the festival. Saturdayalia continue to be observed

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Speaker 1: after the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, which happened in

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Speaker 1: the year three twelve. That made the Roman Empire at

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Speaker 1: least officially a Christian empire, but pagan religions did continue

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Speaker 1: to be observed and pagan observances continued to happen, So

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Speaker 1: for a time, Christian holidays and Pagan holidays and festivals

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Speaker 1: were really being observed at the same time. So a

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Speaker 1: lot of people point to Saturnalia as the origin point

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Speaker 1: for Christmas in the Western Church, and including both the

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Speaker 1: dates that it celebrated and some of the traditions involved

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Speaker 1: in celebrating it. And this, I mean it makes a

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Speaker 1: lot of logical sense. Saturnalia and Christmas were both being

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Speaker 1: observed and the Roman Empire, because of the shifting of

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Speaker 1: Saturnalia and the lengthening of it that put it right

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Speaker 1: up against December. But there were also other pagan celebrations

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Speaker 1: happening on the December as well, some of them with

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Speaker 1: closer parallels to Christianity than Saturnalia had. The Roman civic

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Speaker 1: holiday of Soul in Victa was also observed on December twenty,

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Speaker 1: and the cult of Mithress celebrated the birth of their

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Speaker 1: God on December, and the story of the birth of

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Speaker 1: Mithress has a lot of parallels to the story of

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Speaker 1: the birth of Jesus Christ. So while Saturnalia may have

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Speaker 1: had some influence on the timing of Christmas or some

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Speaker 1: Christmas traditions, especially in the Western Church, it's also really

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Speaker 1: likely that other celebrations happening in the early centuries of

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Speaker 1: the religion played their own part as well. You can

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Speaker 1: learn a little bit more about Saturnalia in the December

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Speaker 1: two thousand nine episode of Stuffy Miss In History Class.

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Speaker 1: Thanks very much to Casey Pigraham and Chandler Mayze for

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Speaker 1: their audio work on this show. You can subscribe to

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Speaker 1: the Stand History Class on Apple Podcasts, Google podcast, the

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, and We're Real to get your podcasts.

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Speaker 1: You can tune in tomorrow for a Discovery, if you

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Speaker 1: could call it that