Sub sole nihil novi
Fed up with Christmas and all its excesses? Such woes have an ancient provenance. The following manuscript was recently unearthed during building work in Rome. Written in colloquial, even chatty, Latin (our translation can only be an approximation), the text is a first-century guide to etiquette during Saturnalia, the pagan festival which Christmas replaced. Such guides were popular among imperial Rome’s workaholic middle class
SATURNALIA is the most wonderful time of the year, and also the worst. You want to enjoy yourself, but every December you end up exhausted, hungover and broke. All that shopping! All those presents! All that food! All those children and slaves running riot all over the house!
This article appeared in the Christmas Specials section of the print edition under the headline “Sub sole nihil novi”
Christmas Specials December 18th 1999
From the December 18th 1999 edition
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