Although without meaningful military experience, he was popular with the Roman troops ... He added an extra day to the Saturnalia, the popular festival during which gifts were exchanged and ...

Contrary to what a first generation of scholarship suggested, the church did not respond to Saturnalia by arbitrarily creating the date of Christ’s birth to compete with it or the Roman feast of ...

Story continues below this ad Saturnalia was a weeklong Roman midwinter festival dedicated to Saturn ... appointing masters of the revels, feast the servants, sing stark naked, clap and shake, and ...

The favored décor for ancient winter solstices? Evergreen plants. Whether as palm branches gathered in Egypt in the celebration of Ra or wreaths for the Roman feast of Saturnalia, evergreens have long ...

Like for many of us, the 25th of December was a major feast day for followers of ... shows him being born from a rock. Saturnalia was an annual Roman Pagan festival, named after the god of ...

the feast (also called Il Cenone or La Vigilia) is a call to arms for fish and seafood lovers, a bivalve bacchanalia, a crustacean celebration, a shrimp, squid and scallop saturnalia. But how much ...

In Greek tradition, the figure of the gift-bearing bearded old man is identified as Saint Basil, instead of Saint Nicholas; he is thus believed to bring gifts on New Year’s Day, which in Greece is ...

A Roman Feast (Saturnalia), by Roberto Bompiano (1821-1908). Saturnalia was a December festival in Nero’s Rome (Photo: Fine Art Images/Heritage Images via Getty) Saturnalia was a December ...

Maybe. Another candidate might be the feast of Saturnalia, celebrating the god Saturn, but it is clear that this feast was celebrated earlier, from Dec. 17-23. The Romans did decorate their temples ...

The progenitor of the modern American Santa was born in the Mediterranean during the Roman Empire ... toast of celebrations centered around his feast day, December 6. The strict saint took ...

Another ancient festival that was eventually absorbed into Christmas is the Roman holiday of Saturnalia ... the unbought feast, the lavish streams of wine? Ah! now I faint, and drunken with ...

Roman time and Saturnalia What about the year-end Roman celebration of ... in the temple of Saturn, at a riotous feast. Now, however, during the celebration of the Saturnalia, this day is allotted to ...