Ancient Roman Feasts and Festivals

We're Doing it Wrong
--by Amy Barr (blog 011)

Romans really knew how to party, I mean they really knew all about it. If you look through the list of Ancient Roman holidays and festivals, you can see why nobody thought to invent “weekends” back then. They didn’t need them. To be a Roman was to be perpetually engaged in holidays, observances, and food-filled festivals. One seldom had to wait long before a new event was on the calendar. Sometimes Romans would pause one holiday to celebrate a different one.

When people snort and claim that modern holidays, especially Christian holidays, are just this Roman event or that one, don’t take it to heart. In Rome, almost every day of the year was a celebration or observance of something. Good luck fitting in a new event without hitting another Roman festival, if not two or three.

Are there any holidays that the Romans observed in such a way that we moderns observe it still today? Not really. Compared to the Romans we moderns are super bad at this holiday thing. We now have very few nationally observed holidays and very few in which we all share similar activities and traditions. Look over Rome’s annual event calendar to see how many days off, how much feasting, how much drinking, how many competitions, races, plays, mock sea battles, productions, parades, and barbeques (sacrifices to the gods with tasty side dishes). Today we really aren’t “doing it right” with our paltry handful of puny celebrations. We should marvel that Rome ever got anything done at all! Celebrations fueled Roman productive days that much more.

New Year’s Day – the Romans had a tough time deciding when the year started. While they had a month called Januarius, it wasn’t always considered the start of things. Even when Januarius was marked as the calendar’s start, March kicked off the active year as soldiers headed off to a campaign. Much of January was tied up in festival events as was March with five major events celebrated in each month.

Valentine’s Day – strictly speaking, there was no event in which Romans doled out cheap drug store chocolates and stuffed toys to their loved ones. The saint for whom the holiday was named was a physician who was beheaded for helping Christians in the third century. Waxy chocolates and cards are a purely modern addition. The Roman holiday Lupercalia held on February 15, was celebrated by running 2 teams of young men dressed as goats who competed to make a disgusting a mess by smearing everything with milk and blood. Winners got goat bragging rights, I guess.

Also celebrated in Rome in middle February was the Parentalia, a 9-day event in which one primarily drank heavily while remembering one’s parents. Some still observe this festival year-round.

Halloween—Lemuria was celebrated on February 21^st, an event marked by again drinking heavily when remembering relatives. Lemuria is as close as we get to a ghost focused event and it was marked by bringing one's dearly departed dead a selection of food offerings so they wouldn’t roam Rome. Nobody likes hangry ghosts.

Thanksgiving—many if not most of Rome’s festivals centered around thankfulness for various events (victories), resources (fire, water, safety, peace), foods (grapes, goats, sheep, and grain), or drinks. The Ludi Romani, September 5-19 tied up most of the month with parades, feasts, theater events, and horse races. For obvious reasons, this event stuck around for centuries, until AD 549. This makes our one morning a year parades and green bean casserole a bit disappointing. The . Plebian games in honor of Jupiter were celebrated for much of November (4-17) just to remind everyone how much fun weeks-long events could be.

Christmas—Some love to state, and usually with a knowing expression, that our modern Christmas is just the Roman event Saturnalia, celebrated on December 17 each year. Eventually, Saturnalia would become a 5-day holiday centered around the winter solstice (Latin for sol+sto/stare, meaning the “sun stands”). The whole event was marked by gambling, roast pork, wine, silliness, goodwill, and especially gift-giving. Buildings were decorated with evergreen boughs and copious candles since it was, after all, the very dead of winter. Ancient writers used to complain about the horrible shopping crowds as they longed for peace and quiet. This event was like many other world solstice-focused events that lift the spirits in the darkest days of the year. 

A connection with the birth of Christ with our December 25^th date did not happen until at least 273 AD. Even then, it was very controversial since in the ancient world birthdays were not typically celebrated. In hopes of giving a better reason for the yearly season of light, good-will, and gift-giving, early Christians supplanted the ancient Roman origins and repurposed an already well-loved holiday with better reasons for hope and joy.

The Romans celebrated SOMETHING almost every odd day of the year and not a few even days (it was considered bad luck to start a holiday on an even day). So, may all your odd days be merry and bright and your even days even more.