Roses and medlars, cheesecakes, honeycombs, Grapes, turnips, pears and apples, witnesses, as Euripides says in his Cretan Women : and, as Eubulus said in his Rich Woman. Tartlets, and cheesecakes steeped most thoroughly Here's tender veal, and dainty dishes of goose,
#Saturnalia sacrifice full#
It is full of fish fresh from the sea, besides Is there with which it is not amply loaded? G Very often, then, as I have said, when such a dessert as this is set before us, one of the guests who were present would say -Ĭertainly, second thoughts are much the best And, in short, even to this day the Thessalians celebrate this as their chief festival, and call it Peloria.'
#Saturnalia sacrifice free#
On which account, they say that after the Pelasgians occupied the district, they instituted a festival as a sort of imitation of the feast which took place on that occasion and, sacrificing to Zeus Pelorios, they serve up tables admirably furnished, and hold a very cordial and friendly assembly, so as to receive every foreigner at the banquet, and to set free all the prisoners, and to make their slaves sit down and feast with every sort of liberty and licence, while their masters wait on them. Accordingly, Pelasgus, on hearing this statement, had a table loaded with every delicacy set before Pelorus and every one else received him with great cordiality, and brought whatever they had that was best, and placed it on the table before the man who had brought this news and Pelasgus himself waited on him with great cheerfulness, and all the rest of the nobles obeyed him as his servants as often as any opportunity offered. And these are his words: - 'When a common festival was being celebrated by all the Pelasgians, a man whose name was Pelorus brought news to Pelasgus that there had been some violent earthquakes in Haemonia, by which the mountains called Tempe had been rent asunder, and that the water of the lake had burst through the rent, and was all falling into the stream of the Peneus and that all the country which had formerly been covered by the lake was now laid open, and that, as the waters were now drained off, there were plains visible of wondrous size and beauty. G But Baton of Sinope, the orator, in his treatise on Thessaly and Haemonia, distinctly asserts that the Roman Saturnalia are originally a very Greek festival, saying that among the Thessalians it is called Peloria. For when they sacrifice to Hera, the slaves do not come to the entertainment on which account Phylarchus says -Īnd no slave may come near the sacred precincts.
But the Coans act in exactly the opposite manner, as Macareus tells us in the third book of his History of Cos. And Ctesias also mentions this festival in the second book of his History of Persia. And Berosus, in the first book of his History of Babylon, says that on the sixteenth day of the month Loüs, there is a great festival celebrated in Babylon, which is called Sacea and it lasts five days: and during those days it is the custom for the masters to be under the orders of their slaves and one of the slaves puts on a robe like the king's, which is called a zoganes, and is master of the house. For then there is a festival which lasts for many days, on one of which the slaves play at dice in common with the citizens, and the masters give a banquet to the slaves, as Carystius himself tells us. At all events, in Crete, at the festival of Hermes, a similar thing takes place, as Carystius tells us in his Historic Reminiscences for then, while the slaves are feasting, the masters wait upon them as if they were the servants: and so they do at Troezen in the month Geraestius.
G When Masurius had said this, the second course, as it is called, was served up to us which, indeed, was very often offered to us, not only on the days of the festival of Saturnalia, when it is the custom of the Romans to feast their slaves, while they themselves discharge the offices of their slaves. The chapter numbers in the translation are shown in green. The page numbers in the Greek text are shown in red. See key to translations for an explanation of the format. A few words and spellings have been changed.
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