festival
Saturnalia
December festival of Saturn marked by feasting and licence; the satire jibes that Claudius kept its misrule all year, a 'Saturnalian prince'.
Reading notes
- Moral Letters to Lucilius §2.18.1 Saturnalia
The midwinter festival of Saturn (17 December and the days following), Rome's most riotous holiday: feasting, gambling, role-reversal between masters and slaves, and the wearing of the freedman's cap. By Seneca's day its license had spread across much of December.