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Happy Saturnalia—2019!

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93Regina
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Happy Saturnalia—2019!

Post by 93Regina »

December 17

The Encyclopedia Romana has a helpful description of Saturnalia:

During the holiday, restrictions were relaxed and the social order
inverted. Gambling was allowed in public. Slaves were permitted to use
dice and did not have to work. . . Within the family, a Lord of
Misrule was chosen. Slaves were treated as equals, allowed to wear
their masters' clothing, and be waited on at meal time in remembrance
of an earlier golden age thought to have been ushered in by the god.
In the Saturnalia, Lucian relates that "During My week the serious is
barred; no business allowed. Drinking, noise and games and dice,
appointing of kings and feasting of slaves, singing naked, clapping of
frenzied hands, an occasional ducking of corked faces in icy
water—such are the functions over which I preside."

https://reason.com/2019/12/17/happy-saturnalia-2019/

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