In Rome itself and other great towns
the growth of civilisation had probably mitigated this cruel custom
long before the Augustan age, and transformed it into the innocent
shape it wears in the writings of the few classical writers who
bestow a passing notice on the holiday King of the Saturnalia. But
in remoter districts the older and sterner practice may long have
survived; and even if after the unification of Italy the barbarous
usage was suppressed by the Roman government, the memory of it would
be handed down by the peasants and would tend from time to time, as
still happens with the lowest forms of superstition among ourselves,
to lead to a recrudescence of the practice, especially among the
rude soldiery on the outskirts of the empire over whom the once iron
hand of Rome was beginning to relax its grasp.
The resemblance between the Saturnalia of ancient and the Carnival
of modern Italy has often been remarked; but in the light of all the
facts that have come before us, we may well ask whether the
resemblance does not amount to identity.
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