Of this gloomy side of the god's religion there is little
or no trace in the descriptions which ancient writers have left us
of the Saturnalia. Feasting and revelry and all the mad pursuit of
pleasure are the features that seem to have especially marked this
carnival of antiquity, as it went on for seven days in the streets
and public squares and houses of ancient Rome from the seventeenth
to the twenty-third of December.
But no feature of the festival is more remarkable, nothing in it
seems to have struck the ancients themselves more than the license
granted to slaves at this time. The distinction between the free and
the servile classes was temporarily abolished. The slave might rail
at his master, intoxicate himself like his betters, sit down at
table with them, and not even a word of reproof would be
administered to him for conduct which at any other season might have
been punished with stripes, imprisonment, or death. Nay, more,
masters actually changed places with their slaves and waited on them
at table; and not till the serf had done eating and drinking was the
board cleared and dinner set for his master.
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