quando ita maiores voluerunt, utere; narra.’
[826] The democratic character of the feast is brought out in the νόμοι put by Lucian (Luc. Opp. ed. Jacobitz, iii. 307; Saturnalia, p. 393) in the mouth of the divinely instructed νομοθέτης, Chronosolon, and in the ‘Letters of Saturn’ that follow.
[827] According to Tacitus, Ann. xiii. 15, Nero was king of the Saturnalia at the time of the murder of Britannicus. On the nature of this sovereignty, cf. Arrian, Epictetus, i. 25; Martial, xi. 6:
‘unctis falciferi senis diebus,
regnator quibus imperat fritillus.’
Lucian, Saturnalia, p. 385, introduces a dialogue between Saturn and his priests. Saturn says ἑπτὰ μὲν ἡμερῶν ἡ πᾶσα βασιλεία, καὶ ἢν ἐκπρόθεσμος τούτων γένωμαι, ἰδιώτης εὐθύς εἰμι, καὶ τοῦ πολλοῦ δήμου εἷσ· ἐν αὐταῖς δέ ταῖς ἑπτὰ σπουδαῖον μὲν οὐδὲν οὐδὲ ἀγοραῖον διοικήσασθαί μοι συγκεχώρηται, πίνειν δὲ καὶ μεθύειν καὶ βοᾶν καὶ παίζειν καὶ κυβεύειν καὶ ἄρχοντας καθίσταναι καὶ τοὺς οἰκέτας εὐωχεῖν καὶ γυμνὸν ἄδειν καὶ κροτεῖν ὑποτρέμοντα, ἐνίοτε δὲ καὶ ἐς ὕδωρ ψυχρὸν ἐπὶ κεφαλὴν ὠθεῖσθαι ἀσβόλῳ κεχρισμένον τὸ πρόσωπον, ταῦτα ἐφεῖταί μοι ποιεῖν; and again: εὐωχώμεθα δὲ ἤδη καὶ κροτῶμεν καὶ ἐπὶ τῆ ἑορτῆ ἐλευθεριάζωμεν, εἲτα πεττεύωμεν ἐς τὸ ἀρχαῖον ἐπὶ καρύων καὶ βασιλέας χειροτονῶμεν καὶ πειθαρχῶμεν αὐτοῖσ· οὕτω γὰρ ἂν τὴν παροιμίαν ἐπαληθεύσαιμι, ἥ φησι, παλίμπαιδας τοὺς γέροντας γίγνεσθαι. The ducking is curiously suggestive of western festival customs, but I do not feel sure whether it was the image of Saturn that was ducked or the rex with whom he appears to half, and only half, identify himself. Frazer, iii. 140, lays stress on the primitive sacrificial character of the ‘rex,’ who is said still to have been annually slain in Lower Moesia at the beginning of the fourth century A.D.; cf. Acta S. Dasii, in Acta Bollandiana, xvi. (1897), 5; Parmentier et Cumont, Le Roi des Saturnales, in R. de Philologie, xxi (1897), 143.
[828] Frazer, iii. 144, suggests that the Saturnalia may once have been in February, and have left a trace of themselves in the similar festival of the female slaves, the Matronalia, on March 1, which, like the winter feasts, came in for Christian censure; cf. Appendix N. No. (i).
[829] Preller, R. M. i. 64, 178; ii. 13; C. Dezobry, Rome au Siècle d’Auguste (ed. 4, 1875), ii. 169; Mommsen and Marquardt, vi. 545; vii. 245; Roscher, Lexicon, ii. 37; W. W. Fowler, 278; Tille, Y. and C. 84; M. Lipenius, Strenarum Historia in J. G. Graevius, Thesaurus Antiq. Rom. (1699), xii. 409. The last-named treatise contains a quantity of information set out with some obsolete learning. The most important contemporary account is that of Libanius (314-†95) in his είς τὰς καλάνδας and his καλανδῶν ἔκφρασις (ed. Reiske, i. 256; iv. 1053; cf. Sievers, Das Leben der Libanius, 170, 204). In the former speech he says ταύτην τὴν ἑορτὴν εὔροι τ’ ἂν τεταμένην ἐφ’ ἅπαν, ὅσον ἡ Ῥωμαίων ἀρχὴ τέταται, in the latter, μίαν δὲ οἶδα κοινὴν ἁπάντων ὁπόσοι ζῶσιν ὑπὸ τὴν Ῥωμαίων ἀρχήν. Under the emperors, who made much of the strenae and vota, the importance of the Kalends grew, probably at the expense of the Saturnalia; cf. Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 2. 1 ‘adsunt feriae quas indulget magna pars mensis Iano dicati.’
[830] Preller, i. 180; Mommsen and Marquardt, vi. 14; vii. 245; W. W. Fowler, 278; Tille, Y. and C. 84, 104. Strenia was interpreted in the sense of ‘strenuous’; cf. Symmachus, Epist. x. 15 ‘ab exortu paene urbis Martiae strenarum usus adolevit auctore Tatio rege, qui verbenas felicis arboris ex luco Streniae anni novi auspices primus accepit.... Nomen indicio est viris strenuis haec convenire virtute.’ Preller calls Strenia a Sabine Segensgöttin.
[831] Mommsen and Marquardt, vii. 245; Lipenius, 489. The gifts were often inscribed ‘anno novo faustum felix tibi.’ It is probable that the sweet cakes and the lamps like the verbenae had originally a closer connexion with the rites of the feast than that of mere omens. The emperors expected liberal strenae, and from them the custom passed into mediaeval and Renaissance courts. Queen Elizabeth received sumptuous new year gifts from her subjects. For a money payment the later empire used the term καλανδικόν or kalendaticum. Strenae survives in the French étrennes (Müller, 150, 504).