Historia de Grecia y Roma

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  • Adequate number of diners at banquet

    One of the most important social events since ancient times is the banquet or symposium. Participate in the same food at the same table identifies people, according to the elemental adage “you’ll have what you eat” , in an elementary exercise in logic, who eat the same, reared in the same.

    It is one of the most ritualized social events at all times. There are certain rules of protocol to organize banquets and distribute the diners in the appropriate tables. The tables can be square, rectangular, oval, round, large or small, depending on the needs and objectives to be.

    A plausible objective is to pretend that all diners a table participate in a single conversation.

    Somewhere, I do not remember, I read that the correct number for this according to an English manual is the maximum eight diners, from this number several outbreaks of conversation and no one shows. Experience has shown me that this indeed happens.

    Interestingly, as so often, this already warned the ancients, for whom to invite or be invited to a wedding is a social event of great importance.

    The famous scholar Ausonius, professor of Emperor Gratian, has a pamphlet, opusculum or small work, (that  is what the word “opusculum” means), called Ephemeris (Journal or, equivalently, a full day occupations)

    Note: ephemeris derived from lat. Ephemerides, and this  from Greek  ἐφημερίς,-ίδος (from ἐπί on in and ἡμέρα day), description  or commentary of the facts or occupations of each day from morning till evening.

    Well, in this booklet Ausonius has a little poem , the number 5, which titled: Time for the invitation, which reads:

    And now the time for inviting my friends draws
    on. So, that no fault of mine may make them late
    for lunch, hurry at your best pace, boy, to the neigh-
    bours' houses you know without my telling who
    they are and back with you before these words are
    done. I have invited five to lunch ; for six persons,
    counting the host, make the right number for a
    meal : if there be more, it is no meal but a melee.
    Ah, he is off! And I am left to deal with Sosias.
    (Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn White, M.A.)

    Ephemeris,  id est totius diei negotium
    Locus invitationis

    Tempus vocandis namque amicis adpetit;
    ne nos vel illis demoremur prandium,
    propere per aedes curre vicinas, puer.
    scis ipse, qui sint: iamque dum loquor, redi.
    5quinque advocavi; sex enim convivium
    cum rege iustum: si super, convicium est..
    abiit; relicti nos sumus cum Sosia.

    There is a reference to the number of diners in Historia Augusta, Verus (Iuli Capitolini) V, 1, where  we read about an inordinate banquet offered by Lucius Verus, co-emperor with Marcus Aurelius, both adopted sons of Antoninus Pius:

    One such banquet, indeed, became very notorious. This was the first banquet, it is said, at which couches were placed for twelve, although there is a very well-known saying about the proper number of those present at a banquet that "seven make a dinner, nine make a din".Text and translation are transcribed from the Loeb Classical Library edition. (Ttranslation  by David Magie)

    Et notissimum eius quidem fertur tale convivium, in quo primum duodecim accubuisse dicitur, cum sit notissimum dictum de numero convivarum : "Septem convivium, nevem vero convicium;"

    Gellius attributes to Varro a practical, cultured and erudite proposal. Gellius tells us in  XIII 11:

    Marcus Varro's opinion of the just and proper number of banqueters; his views about the dessert and about sweetmeats

    That is a very charming book of Marcus Varro's, one of his Menippean Satires, entitled You know not what the Late Evening may Bring, 5 in which he descants upon the proper number of guests at a dinner, and about the order and arrangement of the entertainment itself. Now he says 6 that the number of the guests ought to begin with that of the Graces and end with that of the Muses; that is, [p. 439] it should begin with three and stop at nine, so that when the guests are fewest, they should not be less than three, when they are most numerous, not more than nine. “For it is disagreeable to have a great number, since a crowd is generally disorderly, 1 and at Rome it stands, 2 at Athens it sits, but nowhere does it recline.

    And he  gives  us advice to the  success of the banquet:

    Now, the banquet itself,” he continues, “has four features, and then only is it complete in all its parts: if a nice little group has been got together, if the place is well chosen, the time fit, and due preparation not neglected. Moreover, one should not,” he says, “invite either too talkative or too silent guests, since eloquence is appropriate to the Forum and the courts, but silence to the bed-chamber and not to a dinner.” He thinks, then, that the conversation at such a time ought not to be about anxious and perplexing affairs, but diverting and cheerful, combining profit with a certain interest and pleasure, such conversation as tends to make our character more refined and agreeable. “This will surely follow,” he says, “if we talk about matters which relate to the common experience of life, which we have no leisure to discuss in the Forum and amid the press of business. Furthermore, the host,” he says, “ought rather to be free from meanness than over-elegant,” and, he adds: “At a banquet not everything should be read, 3 but such things as are at once edifying and enjoyable.” (Translation by John C. Rolfe )

    Quem M. Varro aptum iustumque esse numerum convivarum existimarit; ac de mensis secundis et de bellariis
    Lepidissimus  liber est M. Varronis ex Satiris Menippeis, qui inscribitur Nescis Quid Vesper Serus Vehat, in quo disserit de apto convivarum numero deque ipsius convivii habitu cultuque.  Dicit autem, convivarum numerum incipere oportere a Gratiarum numero et progredi ad Musarum, id est proficisci a tribus et consistere in novem, ut, cum paucissimi convivae sunt, non pauciores sint quam tres, cum plurimi, non plures quam novem. “Nam multos,” inquit, “esse non convenit, quod turba plerumque est turbulenta et Romae quidem stat,  sedet Athenis, nusquam autem cubat.
    Ipsum deinde convivium constat,” inquit, “ex rebus quattuor et tum denique omnibus suis numeris absolutum est, si belli homunculi conlecti sunt, si electus locus, si tempus lectum, si apparatus non neglectus. Nec loquaces autem,” inquit, “convivas nec mutos legere oportet, quia eloquentia in foro et aput subsellia, silentium vero non in convivio, set in cubiculo esse debet.” Sermones igitur id temporis habendos censet non super rebus anxiis aut tortuosis, sed iucundos atque invitabiles et cum quadam inlecebra et voluptate utiles, ex quibus ingenium nostrum venustius fiat et amoenius.  "Quod profecto" inquit "eveniet, si de id genus rebus ad communem vitae usum pertinentibus confabulemur, de quibus in foro atque in negotiis agendis loqui non est otium. Dominum autem" inquit "convivii esse oportet non tam lautum quam sine sordibus", et "In convivio legi non omnia debent, sed ea potissimum, quae simul sint βιωφελῆ ( biophele)  et delectent". Neque non de secundis quoque mensis, cuiusmodi esse eas oporteat, praecipit. His enim verbis utitur: "Bellaria" inquit "ea maxime sunt mellita, quae mellita non sunt; πέμμασιν ( pemmasin ) enim cum pepsei  πέψει (pepsei)   societas infida". Quod Varro hoc in loco dixit "bellaria", ne quis forte in ista voce haereat, significat id vocabulum omne mensae secundae genus. Nam quae πέμματα (pemmata)      Graeci aut τραγήματα    (tragemata) dixerunt, ea veteres nostri "bellaria" appellaverunt. Vina quoque dulciora est invenire in comoediis antiquioribus hoc nomine appellata dictaque esse ea "Liberi bellaria".

    It seems that in ancient Rome was the most frequent diners were nine, precisely the number of the Muses.

    Note: The Graces and the Muses are frequently associated. The Graces, symbolizing the glamor, sexy, beauty, nature, are three daughters of Zeus and Oceánide Eurynome (there are other genealogies): Aglaia (the Resplendent), Euphrosyne (the Beautiful soul) and Talia (The Flourishing).

    The Muses were nine daughters of Zeus and Titaness Mnemosyne (Memory) (there are other genealogies), all sponsor and promote the arts and beauty, but then they are specialized in any of them: Clio (glorious), of History, Euterpe (Delicious) of music, Thalia (Flowering) of comedy, Melpomene (Held at hymns and poems) of the tragedy, Terpsichore (Delicious Dancer) of dance, Erato (Adorable) of lyric poetry, Polyhymnia (hymns Singer) of chants and sacred poetry, Urania (Celestial) of astronomy and science and Calliope (Beautiful Voice) of eloquence and epic poetry.
     

  • Writ of habeas corpus

    “Habeas corpus” is part of a broader Latin phrase: habeas corpus ad subiiciendum et recipiendum. Its literal translation would be “keep the body to put it in hand (of law) and re-take it.

    Usually the sentence is translated as “bring the body here”,  "you can have your body", “You own your body”  almost unintelligible sentences precisely because they are   obvious .

    Given its Latin form, you may think your origin  is in Roman law, so important to the West, but actually it has little or nothing to do directly with the Roman law, in which  it is not as such a phrase, but in it we can trace some remote and distant precedent.

    Habeas corpus is actually the name of a famous English law, Habeas Corpus Act of May 26, 1679 issued by Charles II, and then  the Habeas Corpus Amendment Act;  it is specific for  the English  common law, and it is also an essential pillar in the defense of the English civil liberties and countries in which is applied the "common law." Precedents are some provisions of the Magna charta libertatum  of 1215.

    In Spain there  is a precedent in the Aragonese law, with the Manifestation of people  which was sanctioned  by Alonso III in 1287. The Manifestation of people was a guarantee of personal liberty with a procedure that was pending before the Justice of Aragon, jurisdiction very similar to the current Constitutional Court. Its existence is dated in the Jurisdiction of Aragon since  1428, but then it disappeared when  the absolutism of kings was implanted.

    The phrase is applied in law to demand the right of the detainee to be brought immediately before a judge or into court to decide on the appropriateness or otherwise of the detention. Therefore it is an instrument or mechanism to ensure freedom of individuals against the acts of public authorities.It was an instrument to avoid the injustices of the feudal lords against their subjects.

    It regulates,  therefore, the right  to not to be arbitrarily detained without cause and therefore anyone who is arrested has the right to know why he was arrested and what he is accused.

    Actually the phrase "habeas corpus ad subiiciendum" is an order or command that  is directed to jailer or authority who has arrested a person for the submission of him to the competent authority, to brought before a judge or into court, but it is not directed to the detainee, as often is interpreted.

    In this sense the phrase is fully intelligible and explanatory translation of the phrase would be: "Take  the detainee's body to brought him into court and get him back."

    The far  and no absolutely equivalent Roman precedent is found in the famous " interdictum de homine libero exhibendo" , which orders a man who unlawfully holds a free man as a slave to produce this man in court..

    It is born from  the fact that a creditor debt was charged with by the debtor by reducing it to the status of slave; before the claim of the debtor or his family, the creditor must "submit"  the debtor before the praetor for  he  decide whether detention it was legal or not. The interdictum or injunction was saying by the Praetor, "if you have  the man, show me, submit him and  I can decide whether he should be deprived of liberty or not".

    Digest, 43.29.0 About showing a free man

    Dig. 43.29. 1pr. … Praetor said: show me the free man whom  you hold with bad intent

    Dig. 43.29.1.1 … This injunction intends to defend freedom, ie, that free men are not held by anyone.

    Dig. 43.29.0. De homine libero exhibendo.

    Dig. 43.29.1pr. … Ait praetor: " quem liberum dolo malo retines, exhibeas".

    Dig. 43.29.1.1 … Hoc interdictum proponitur tuendae libertatis causa, videlicet ne homines liberi retineantur a quoquam:

    And it explains what is the meaning of “exhibere”  Provide public (ie in court) so that you can see and touch him."

    Dig. 43.29.3.8 … The praetor said: show me him. To show means  present him to the public and provide an opportunity  for the man to be seen and touched:  exhibit means to have him beyond concealment.

    Ait praetor " exhibeas". exhibere est in publicum producere et videndi tangendique hominis facultatem praebere: proprie autem exhibere est extra secretum habere.

    As you see, it's not exactly like the concept of  Anglo-Saxon "habeas corpus", but its similarity allowed Niceto Alcalá Zamora say that the "habeas corpus" is an Anglo-Roman creation.

    There are also other phrases in law with the component 'habeas corpus. "thus:

    Habeas corpus ad respondendum: bring him into court to answer
    Habeas corpus ad testificandum: bring him into court to testify
    Habeas corpus ad prosequendum: bring him into court to continue
     

  • Place of Care of the Soul: ψυχῆς ἰατρείον (psychés iatreíon)

    Libraries are “points of care of the soul.” This is a curious phrase, full of content, and that we like. It is originated on the label that allegedly existed in the “Sacred Library” of the temple and tomb of Pharaoh Ramses. But perhaps what is really behind the famous phrase is a historical misunderstanding.

    A Greek philosopher and historian, Hecataeus of Abdera,  fourth century BC, visited, like many other people, Egypt, in this moment now ruled by Grecomacaedlonian pharaohs,  precisely by Ptolemy Soter.

    He visited Thebes and the Valley of the Kings and the Ramesseum, temple and tomb of Ramses. His book  Aegyptiaca or On the Egyptians  (Egyptian Curiosities), a kind of guidebook currently not preserved, but we  have the transcript that  Diodorus Siculus (Diodorus of Sicily) made two half-century after.

    Diodorus also visited Egypt and Thebes. Interestingly he described the Ramesseum like really he visited it, but in reality is surprisingly using the description  that Hecataeus had made.

    In any case, although it is a bit long, I transcribe the part of the story that interests us and that the philologist s Luciano Cánfora includes  in his interesting little book about  the Library of Alexandria entitled The vanished library:

    “Here is Hecataeus’s account:

    The three passages led into a colonnaded hall, built on the plan of the Odeon and sixty yards in length. The room was filled with wooden statues of litigants, their eyes turned towards the judges whose figures were carved along one wall. There were thirty  of these judges, and they had no hands. The supreme judge was placed in the middle. Truth hung about his neck, his eyes  were shut, and scrolls lay piled around him on the floor. I was told that the bearing of these figures was intended to show that judges must not take gifts and that the supreme judge should have eyes only for the truth.

    Moving on, we entered covered walk which gave access to chambers of every kind, decorated  with reliefs showing a wealth of choice foods. Coloured bas-reliefs surrounded us as we advanced; one showed the king offering to the divinities the  gold and silver that flowed into his treasury each year from all the mines of Egypt. The total sum, thirty-two million minae of silver, was indicated below the bas-relief. There then followed the sacred library, above which were written the words: THE PLACE OF THE CURE OF THE SOUL. There followed images of all the Egyptian divinities, to each of which the king was offering some suitable gift, as if he wished to show Osiris and the lesser gods that he had lived in piety and justice towards men and gods all his life.

    There was also a sumptuously built hall, the wall of which was contiguous  with this library. Here there was a large table with twenty triclinia or couches, and statues of Zeus, Hera, and –once again- the king.It seems that the king’s body had been buried here. All around the hall, they said, was a remarkable series of chambers, with splendid images of all the sacred animals  of Egypt. By climbing up through these chambers, one might have reached the entrance of the tomb. This was on the roof of the building. There, too, a gold circle was to be seen, three hundred and sixty-five cubits long and one cubit high. Images for each day of the year were set out around this circle, one for every cubit: the rising and setting of the stars were  recorded for each day, together with the signs with which those astral movements furnished the Egyptian astrologers. This frieze, the said, had been plundered by Cambyses when he made himself master of Egipt.” (Translated by Martin Ryle (University of California Press), pag. 8 ss)

    However, despite many archaeologists , who have excavated the area and the temple,  have been especially interested in locating the famous library, this or  some archaeological remains of it have  never appeared. No doubt because the library, conceived as a single space or great room for reading and storing books,  never existed. The Greek word βιβλιοθήκη (composed of βιβλίον, biblion, book and θήκη Theke "box, deposit) Bibliotheke actually designates the shelf or cabinet to contain the books,  that would surely attached or embedded in the wall of one of rooms that describes in a somewhat confusing Hecataeus (he gives the impression that speaking from hearsay and not due to a direct view).

    Moreover, the sacred books, whose existence is also attested in other temples, there would be not hundreds of rolls or volumes but a few.

    In the great complex described by Hecataeus would be the body of Ramses, if it is not hidden better elsewhere safe from grave robbers, irreparable misfortune for an Egyptian. Now the Pharaoh's body or soma is animated by the Ka, spirit or life force. In the same way that the body of the deceased must be served, so must be its Ka or spirit.

    And this is where Cánfora  disrupts all the traditional interpretation of the famous phrase "this is the place of soul care" ψυχῆς ἰατρείον, psykhes iatreion (from ψυχῆς ,psyche, soul,  and ἰατρείον , medical care) because according to the famous Hellenist, the phrase does not refer to the room-library that does not exist, but to the Ka care room.

    Also reproduce his words in that book, Pg 164-165:

    The Ka is the “vital forcé” – the soul, one might say –of the sovereign, a force with which the gods, and a few chosen mortals, are endowed.  In Egyptian religious thought, its task was to preserve the pharaoh alive after his death (see P. Kaplóny, sub voce Ka of Lexikon der Aegyptologie, 111, 1980, column 276).

    Egyptian funerary mausolea generally contain a place set apart for it, closely connected with the sancta sanctorum. In the Ramesseum, the dwelling-place of the Ka was probably in the hall with the triclinia. This can be inferred from the much-discussed inscription psyches iatreion. Iatreion means (see Thesaurus Graecae Linguae) officinal medici, locus ubi medicus artem suam exercet (the workshop of a physican, the place where a physician practices his art”), and if psyche   is a translation of Ka, then we may well conclude that the phrase psyches iatreion denotes, precisely, the dwelling or (better) the workshop, where the Ka resides and where it operates

    If, moreover, the wall with the bookshelves in the Ramesseum opened into the hall with triclinia, then  the inscription psyches iatreion should be taken to designate not the shelf below, but the room the visitor was about to enter: the hall with the triclinia, which was the officina or workshop ot the Ka. The soul referred to is Rameses’Ka. Scholars have been mistaken in taking the inscription as an allusion to the benefit the human soul can derive from reading of good books, an anachronistic interpretation consistent with their belief that the Ramesseum contained a library with the inscription psyches iatreion.

    In the dwelling of the Ka (Maspero called it the maison de l’ame, the house of the soul), there were usually a statue representing the dead king. Diodorus, who tells us that such a statue was indeed found in the hall with the triclinia, was not speaking at random when he added: “It seems that the king’s body han been buried here”.

    It is vanished so the certainly valuable, but  wrong, origin of a famous phrase that has had  remarkably successful because certainly books and libraries are the necessary food for the spirit. Since then philological accuracy Cánfora not prevent further using a certainly pleasant and inviting sentence  for all those who love books and booksellers, libraries and librarians,  who are often most women in the office.

    As evidence of the suggestive and evocative power of the phrase, I  transcribe a small piece of article that the writer Rosa Montero published in El País, 7 June 2011 in his column, titled Thank you. She   modifies intelligently the original sentence to give the sense that she wants to express:

    In the middle of the Madrid Book Fair, while I sign  in the booth again and again,  I  think  only booksellers. In those special people who dedicate their lives to something that certainly is not going to make them millionaires, and work  during  endless hours reading, watching, recommending, inflaming the will of his parishioners. The good bookseller knows his regular readers  with fine love , he offers appropriate readings, he is creating generations of readers, accompanies the children of clients in their literary growth. In many areas the library is the only center of cultural revitalization, a role that no one has them in mind. Bookstores are nests of dreams and booksellers are medical doctors of the soul. No predictors booksellers, only we would read best sellers. For all this, thanks. Thank you very much.
     

  • All that shines is not gold; lapis specularis

    The Iberian Peninsula was rich in minerals in Antiquity. Since ancient times minerals were prospected, found and exploited by Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians and Romans.

    The fame of Hispania about this is summarized in the famous quote by Strabo referring to Turdetania (the south of the Peninsula, essentially present-day Andalusia) in Book III of his Geography, 2.8:

    To the great wealth of this region adds mineral abundance. This is cause for admiration; because,  although the whole land of the Iberians is full of them, not all regions are so fertile and so rich at the time, and especially those regions that are abundant in minerals, because they rarely happen both at the time, and it is also rare to be able to find all kinds of metals in a small region. But Turdetania and neighboring regions abound in both things, and there aren´t enough suitable words to evaluate precisely this wealth. So far, neither native gold, nor silver, nor copper, nor iron has been found anywhere else on earth so abundant and of such a high quality.

    Not only the shiny silver from Cartagena or the shiny gold from the Northwest were sought. There is a nonmetallic mineral seemingly less noble but very important that the Romans exploited with relish, the selenite, a transparent plaster they called "lapis sepecularis" (speculate stone), eyeglass, similar to a mirror.

    Its laminar configuration allowed its exfoliation in sheets of various thicknesses, cut to size, which served to cover windows or openings in the walls allowing the light to pass through them and protecting from the inclement weather. That is, the lapis specularis (speculate stone) served as crystal or glass, whose use would gradually catch on in the buildings.

    The Latin author who gives more references about this is the naturalist and scientist Pliny the Elder, author of a kind of encyclopedia of Nature then called “Naturalis Historia” (Natural History). This Pliny is a science martyr because, during the eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii, Herculaneum and other nearby points in the year 79 AD, in his effort to better understand the phenomenon, he not only didn´t run away in the fleet he precisely ruled, but approached the coast, where he was found dead the next morning suffocated by the lethal gases the volcano emanated.

    With regard to this, Pliny says: III, 30:

    "Almost the whole Hispania is abundant in lead, iron, copper, silver and gold metals; the Citerior is rich in selenite (lapis specularis), the Baetica is abundant in cinnabar. There are also quarries of marble"(Pliny the Elder: Naturalis Historia, Book III, 30).

    metallis plumbi, ferri, aeris, argenti, auri tota ferme Hispania scatet, citerior et specularis lapidis, Baetica et minio. sunt et marmorum lapidicinae

    And referring to lapis specularis in XXXVI, 162, he says:

    Black stone is sometimes also found, but the wonderful feature of the white stone, despite its well-known softness, is that it resists the sun and cold.

    invenitur et niger aliquando, sed candido natura mira, cum sit mollitia nota, perpetiendi soles rigoresque,

    To measure the importance of this material that allows the light to pass through it, let´s think of the construction and urban zeal that characterizes the Roman culture and that was imposed wherever the Roman legions reached to dominate.

    Well, the most important mines or quarries of this plaster in the Roman Empire, both in quantity and quality, were in Citerior Hispania, in a circle of a hundred thousand steps around the city of Segóbriga, as Pliny the Elder explicitly tells us in his famous work, Naturalis Historia , XXXVI, 160:

    "These (the stones he speaks about) can be cut; but the “speculate stone”, because this one is also called stone, is separated into as thin as desired sheets by its own nature, much more manageable. A long time ago, only Citerior Hispania provided it, and not in the whole province, but in a space of a hundred thousand steps around Segóbriga city. Nowadays Cyprus, Cappadocia and Sicily also provide it and it has recently been found in Africa too, but all of them have to be postponed to that of Spain; in Cappadocia they are produced very large, but they are dark."

    Et hi quidem sectiles sunt, specularis vero, quoniam et hic lapidis nomen optinet, faciliore multo natura finditur in quamlibeat tenues crustas. Hispania hunc tantum citerior olim dabat, nec tota, sed intra centum millia passuum circa Segobrigam urbem, iam et Cypros et Capadocia et Sicilia et nuper inventum Africa, postferendos tamen omnes Hispaniae, Cappadocia amplissimos magnitudine, sed obscuros."

    Segóbriga is next to the current Saelices, in the province of Cuenca (Spain). By the way, the name of this city (Segóbriga) is a Celtic term which comes to mean "city" (briga; related to burg, element which forms the name of hundreds of cities and towns in Europe) and “victory” (Sieg, Seg; related to the current German substantive Der Sieg  = victory).

    The 100,000 steps Pliny determines are the equivalent of about 150 kilometers and certainly in that radius they are numerous the places which were rich in lapis specularis in the province of Cuenca, such as Osa de la Vega, Torrejoncillo del Rey, Torralba, Huete, … as it is confirmed by the archeology, which locates in the area 25 deposits in 15 municipalities, although this magnitude or number is not closed.

    They began to be used like glass in the first century AD, at the end of the Republic, and especially systematically in the Empire, from Augustus.

    It was extracted from deep wells up to 30 meters and galleries, because it is underground. Pliny the Elder tells us in Book XXXVI of his Natural History, 161:

    In Hispania it is extracted from very deep wells, and it is often located underground embedded in the rock and it has to be extracted or cut, but the greatest part of it, due to  its fossil nature, is found loose or released itself as a fragment, but the “speculate stones” are never greater in length than five feet. puteis in Hispania effoditur e profunda altitudine, nec non et saxo inclusus sub terra invenitur extrahiturque aut exciditur, sed maiore ex parte fossili natura, absolutus in se caementi modo, numquam adhuc quinque pedum longitudine amplior

    Thus this material was extracted from the mine, in blocks of up to 1.5 meters of thickness, then it was outlined and cut in standardized pieces and at last it was finished or finally prepared in several sheets adapted to the window or opening in the placement site. The slides were encrusted or inlaid into a wood or metal frame as we do now with our current windows.

    There were other stones with some similar feature, such as the one they called “lapis penghites”, marbled or mottled harder material produced in Cappadocia, but far from the qualities of transparency of the speculate stone= lapis specularis (Pliny, Nat. Hist. XXXVI, 163). Perhaps with that name they are referring to some sort of onyx or alabaster, translucent but not transparent.

    The stone itself and its waste or remains had also other uses, as an ornamental and decorative stone to cover walls and floors because of the reflection it produced; as Pliny the Elder for example tells us again: Nat. Hist. 36, 162:

    A different use was also found for it such as shavings and flakes to adorn the Circus Maximus in the Circus Games to make it a pleasant whiteness.

    invenere et alium usum in ramentis squamaque, Circum maximum ludis Circensibus sternendi ut sit in commendatione candor.

    Known is the passion of the Roman people for the horse and chariot races that were held at the circus, where teams competed identified by the color of their uniform and badge. The passions that these races originated are comparable only with the ones modern soccer or football raises, sport or show that it has many similarities sociologically with, which I will discuss at another time.

    As Pliny tells us himself, the best plaster is the one coming from the lapis specularis, so its disposal, waste or remains served as forging plaster to manufacture stucco, moldings, castings, plastered walls, floors, domes, ceilings, etc. Nat. Hist. Book XXXVI, 182:

    However, the best of all though is done of speculate stone and of that having such flakes.

    omnium autem optimum fieri compertum est e lapide speculari squamamve talem habente.

    Without further detail we can think about and reflect on the complexity of any mining or mineral exploitation of these dimensions in the ancient world: land survey, sample or tasting realization, determination of the mine which happens to be "ager publicus" or state land; operating and exploitation system, usually through a concession or lease upon payment of an amount, realization of technical works to open wells generally square of 2 x 2 meters and up to 30 meters deep, and horizontal galleries or with ramps, extraction of the material with the appropriate tools (picks, hammers, pointers, pliers, chisels, saws, etc.), aeration and ventilation, use of ropes, baskets and panniers of esparto, waterproofed baskets for water extraction, lamps and chandeliers usually of oil (fuel lasted about five hours), the transfer of the mineral to the surface, the preparation in the entrance or mouth of the mine.

    Once the material was prepared, it was transported with carts, pulled by oxen rather than horses, to Carthago Nova, the largest and most important port in the Levant, by the main road which was precisely called "via spartaria" (esparto path or road) from Ercavica (near modern Cañaveruelas, close to Opta, the current Huete) to Segóbriga and Cartagena through Cuenca, Albacete and Murcia. Naturally, the important Roman road network is the infrastructure that partly explains and simultaneously is the effect of the efficient extraction of the Romans. Numerous milestones, milliarium,  (similar to our current kilometer signals) that have appeared on the road and are commemorative of the High Empire period (first part of the Empire) give us an idea of its importance.

    From Carthago Nova it is exported to other parts of the Empire, especially to Rome, Massalia (Marseille), Piraeus (Athens), Antioch, Leptis Magna and Karthago (in Tunisia), Alexandria…

    It is likely that, as the mines were affected to the “fiscus” or imperial treasury or finances, the army itself collaborated on technical and organizational issues, as it also happened in the peninsular Northwest gold mines.

    Although mines of Segóbriga are the most important ones, others were also exploited in Almería, area otherwise rich or abundant in other minerals and metals such as copper, silver, lead or marbles that were exploited since the second century BC.

    The evolution in the manufacture or factoring of glass and its increasing or growing application ended with this “lapis specularis” (speculate stone) mining.

  • The ancient Romans computed and digitized over two thousand years ago.

    Few words are of more contemporary use than “compute, computer, and digital”. Well, “compute, computing” are Latin words meaning of course calculating, counting, computing.

    The word "digital" derives from the Latin "digitum", meaning "finger". "Fingerprints" (like digital-prints; in Spanish “huellas” (prints) “digitales” (digital, finger) ) are the signs or marks that your fingers leave on the objects they touch and which so much help they offer to the police because they are unique of each person or individual.

    The Romans, like other ancient people and not so ancient (we still do it sometimes if only to highlight our diction) counted on the fingers. So we call the first nine numbers "digits" which strictly speaking means "fingers" and if the amount increases from nine we say that it has got two or more digits.

    The hand is the oldest counting and calculating machine that exists. With a hand or two hands at the same time the Egyptians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans could express the numbers up to 9,999 with a language similar to deaf-mute people´s language.

    The Irish monk of the seventh century Bede the Venerable in his work De ratione temporum (About time division), in the first chapter entitled De computo vel loquela digitorum (About the count or language on the fingers) describes us the system. Pointing to other parts of the body with the hands it is possible or we are able to count up to a million, quantity that is expressed, according to the monk, crisscrossing the fingers of both hands.

    The Egyptians and Persians would know the system of counting on the fingers and, of course, it was also known in Greece. Aristophanes (444 BC. – 385. BC) refers to it, for example, in his comedy The Wasps (look it up at pages 655-663): (satire against the politician Cleon and the malfunctioning of the courts):

    Bdelycleon (the one who hates Cleon).-
                          Listen to me, dear little father, unruffle that frowning brow and reckon, you can do so                            without trouble, not with pebbles, but on your fingers,

                   Βδελυκλέων:   ἀκρόασαί νυν ὦ παππίδιον χαλάσας ὀλίγον τὸ μέτωπον•      
                                              καὶ πρῶτον μὲν λόγισαι φαύλως, μὴ ψήφοις ἀλλ᾽ ἀπὸ χειρός,

    The Romans also counted on the fingers. Testimonies are numerous, such as for evidence the abundant numerical tessera (tesserae in Latin) or small tokens made of bone or ivory, sort of tickets or receipts that Roman collectors delivered to taxpayers for the amount of money they had given them first; on one side they showed the corresponding digital figure and on the other side they showed the value in Roman numerals.

    Numerous authors witness it too:

    Plautus in his comedy Miles Gloriosus, 204 (The braggart soldier):

    He counts on the fingers of his right hand

    dextera digitis rationem computat

    Cicero in a letter to his friend Atticus, Epistulae ad Atticum, V, 21.13 says:

    if I know your fingers (that is, your ability to count on the fingers.

    “si  tuos digitos novi”

    Or the poet Juvenal in his Satire X, 246 251, referring to Nestor, famous in Antiquity for his longevity:

    The king of Pylos (Nestor), if any credibility you give to the great Homer,
    was an example of life as long as that of the crow.
    Hugely lucky he who avoided his death for so many centuries
    and already counts his years with the right hand
    and has drunk the new wine so many times!

    Rex Pylius, magno si quicquam credis Homero,
    exemplum uitae fuit a cornice secundae.
    felix nimirum, qui tot per saecula mortem
    distulit atque suos iam dextra conputat annos,
    quique nouum totiens mustum bibit.

    It is clear from this testimony that the units and tens were counted on the left hand and the hundreds were counted on the right hand.

    Very expressive is the following text by Apuleius in his "Apology, 89", intelligible only if we know how the way to express the numbers with the fingers works:

    "If you had said thirty years old instead of ten, we may have thought that you had made a mistake in the act of numbering and you had opened the fingers you should have had in a circle shape. But forty, which are easier than any other to be expressed with the opened palm, which you increase in a half, cannot be an error in the gesture of the fingers, unless, thinking that Pudentilla is thirty years old, you have counted them double because of the two consuls there are every  year".

    Si triginta annos pro decem dixisses, posses uideri computationis gestu errasse, quos                    circulare debueris digitos aperuisse. Cum uero quadraginta, quae facilius ceteris  porrecta palma significantur, ea quadraginta tu dimidio auges, non potes[t]  digitorum gestu errasse, nisi forte triginta annorum Pudentillam ratus binos cuiusque  anni consules numerasti.

    And the famous Quintilian in his method to train speakers or orators Institutio Oratoria, Institutes of Oratory , I, 10, 35:

    In the processes some tasks or questions to check the participants ´skills on the use of numbers are very common and in them they are considered ignorant not only those ones who hesitate or doubt on the sums, but those who fail on the account by the wrong or clumsy gesture of the fingers as well.

    In causis vero vel frequentissime versari solet: in quibus actor, non dico si circa summas trepidat, sed si digitorum saltem incerto aut indecoro gestu a computatione  dissentit, iudicatur indoctus .

    Testimonies are therefore numerous.

    It seems that St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376-444) in his Liber de computo (Calculating, Computing or Counting Book), chapter CXXXVIII, entitled De flexibus digitorum, III, 135 (about the positions of the fingers) provides us the earliest description of the system; Saint Isidoro of Seville shows it again in his great encyclopedia Etymologies in the sixth century, and monk Bede the Venerable inspires in him, whose description was longer present during the Middle Ages and well into modern times.

    This art of counting or expressing numbers with the fingers and the hands is technically called dactylonomy, from the Greek δάκτυλος (dáktulos: finger).

    Illustration taken from the book published in Venice in 1494 by Luca Pacioli entitled Summa de Arithmetica, geométrica, proportioni et proportionalita (in English the title of this book would be: Sum of Arithmetic, geometry, proportions and proportionality).

    All this has been going on for a long time, certainly during the Middle Ages and also the sixteenth century and even after we still find some remains.

    But there is also another art, the dactylology or art of talking with your fingers and hands, like the deaf peoples’ language, which was also practiced in Antiquity.

    We will quote Ovid´s testimony, but obviously the system was previously known, as it is evidenced by some authors like Ennius:
                    
    There´s no need of fingers to say secrets with  (Ars amatoria, I, 137; Loving Art):

    Nihil opus est digitis, per quos arcana loquaris

    And in Lib. I Amorum (Book I Love), elegy  4, 

    You will read words on my fingers and words written in wine.

    verba leges digitis, verba notata mero.

    To this art Bede also refers in his De Loquela per Gestum Digitorum (About the language by the gesture of the fingers) which he explains matching the expression of each one of the letters of the alphabet, in their order, with the digital and manual gesture corresponding to the numbers, also in their order; that is, the gesture of number 1 for letter a, the gesture of number 2 for letter b, and so forth.

    If you want to express the first letter of the alphabet, represent number one with your hand; if you want the second, represent number two; if you want to express the third letter of the alphabet, then represent number three and,  this way, the others in sequence.

    cum primam alphabeti literam intimare cupis, unum manu teneto; cum 
    secundam, duo. cum tertiam, tria. et sic ex ordine ceteras

    So rightly we said at the beginning that the Romans digitized; they did it with the numbers and the language or voice; they digitized numbers and words.

    Precisely from "digiti" comes the English word "digit" to mean "figure, number". Modern computers or computing machines work with "binary" base or code (from the Latin bini = two). From the contraction of these two words, binary and digits comes the word "bit" or minimum unit of information in modern computing. So these modern machines digitize too, but differently.

    It is also worthy knowing that another very primitive and widespread counting system consisted on adding or removing pebbles from a pile, small stones which in Latin are called "calculi" (“calculus”, calculations, from the Greek χάλις, kalis = limestone, from which it derives the Spanish word "cal”, “lime”, “piedra de cal” = “limestone” and as a result of it derives the word “calculate”, count, compute). Therefore it is also called "calculus" (=stones) the stony concretions that are formed in the kidneys or bladder or other organs of the body and cause so much pain to be expelled. From this system arose the art of calculating and later the abacus as a suitable instrument to do this activity.

  • Did the Romans know the sources of the Nile?

    The man’s innate curiosity has led him to countless undertakings, assignments and ventures. The desire to know the world in which he lives has pushed him over and over again in voyages and explorations of the most inaccessible places.

    Indeed, the planet exploration race increases after the discovery of America by Columbus to the late fifteenth century. In the early twentieth century there isn´t almost any place left to be discovered and once the Earth is already known, space exploration begins. The curiosity, the desire to know is the driving force that remains unstoppable.

    The ancient man was largely stopped by his fear to the unfathomable sea, unknown, dark, his fear to high seas, altum mare ("altus,-a,-um" means in Latin "high" and also "deep", which is the meaning that we will have to use when we speak of "high seas", altum mare).

    But this should not mislead us. The ancient Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans and other fishing villages traveled around the whole Mediterranean Sea, and they also went out to the Atlantic and Indian Ocean. What else is the "Odyssey" but the story of the difficult journeys of the Greeks through the Mediterranean Sea?

    There are several remarkable exploration voyages in ancient times of which we have news.
    One of the issues that most intrigued the Ancient World, the Pharaohs, the Greeks, and the Romans was the discovery of the so-called "sources of the Nile". Numerous ancient texts refer to the unknown sources of the Nile and its fertilizing summer floods. Herodotus, who also lived in Egypt, is the author of the famous phrase "(Egypt) is a gift of the Nile; δῶρον τοῦ ποταμοῦ (Stories, II, 5, 1)" and repeatedly he refers to the river and its floods in the already quoted Book II.

    Lucan, Ovid, Petronius, Martial also refer in numerous passages to this old topic. For example, Horace, singing exaggeratedly the power of Augustus, resorts to cliché and says in Odes, IV, 14, 45-46

    to you (obey) the Nile, which hides the source of its sources

    te, fontium qui celat origines
    Nilusque…venerantur…

    On several occasions they tried to explore the course of the river. The most important, at least the best documented expedition, took place during the reign of Emperor Nero. In it, the naturalist and philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca participated, Hispanic from Corduba (current Cordova), who spent part of his youth in Egypt, for health reasons. He was attracted no doubt, as the good naturalist he was, by the issue of the origin of the Nile, of the "sources of the Nile", of the header, "caput Nili” as it was called then.

    Several years later, Seneca was teacher and tutor of Emperor Nero (he lived from 37 to 68 AD). Nero has gone down in History, rightly, as a monster, but he was not always a monster nor was everything he did wrong. Seneca certainly made him be interested in the issue of the "sources of the Nile", and due to this he prepared an expedition commanded by two centurions around the year 60 AD. Seneca collected in Book VI of his “Quaestiones Naturales” ("Natural Questions") the story or report of the centurions, which I reproduce below in English and Latin:

    And don't you know that among the explanations given of the occurrence of the inundation of the Nile in summer, one is that it bursts forth from the ground, and is swollen not by rain from above but by water given out from within the earth?

    I have myself heard from their own lips the story told by the two non-commissioned officers sent to investigate the sources of the Nile by our good Emperor Nero, a monarch devoted to virtue in every form, but especially solicitous for the interests of truth. The King of Ethiopia had supplied them with assistance and furnished letters of introduction to the neighboring kings, and so they had penetrated into the heart of Africa and accomplished a long journey.

    "We came indeed," I give their own words, "to huge marshes, the limit of which even the natives did not know, and no one else could hope to know; so completely was the river entangled with vegetable growth, so impassable the waters by foot, or even by boat, since the muddy overgrown marsh would bear only a small boat containing one person. There," my informants went on, "we saw with our eyes two rocks from which an immense quantity of water issued."

    Now whether that is the real source or only an addition to the river; whether it rises there or merely returns to the surface after its previous course underground ; don't you think that, whatever it is, that water comes up from a great lake in the earth? The earth must contain moisture scattered in numerous places and collected at depth in order to be able to belch it out with such violence. (Translation by John Clarke, M.A.)

    Nescis autem inter opiniones, quibus enarratur Nili aestiua inundatio, et hanc esse, a terra illum erumpere et augeri non supernis aquis sed ex intimo redditis? Ego quidem centuriones duos, quos Nero Caesar, ut aliarum uirtutum ita ueritatis in primis amantissimus, ad inuestigandum caput Nili miserat, audiui narrantes longum illos iter peregisse, cum a rege Aethiopiae instructi auxilio commendatique proximis regibus penetrassent ad ulteriorem.
    Inde, ut quidam aiebant, peruenimus ad immensas paludes, quarum exitum nec incolae nouerant nec sperare quisquam potest: ita implicatae aquis herbae sunt et aquae nec pediti eluctabiles nec nauigio, quod nisi paruum et unius capax limosa et obsita palus non fert. Ibi, inquit, uidimus duas petras, ex quibus ingens uis fluminis excidebat.
    Sed siue caput illa siue accessio est Nili, siue tunc nascitur siue in terras ex priore recepta cursu redit, nonne tu credis illam, quicquid est, ex magno terrarum lacu ascendere? Habeant enim oportet pluribus locis sparsum umorem et in uno coactum, ut eructare tanto impetu possint.

    From this story we can deduce that the centurions rallied the White Nile and arrived in the area of Sudan, called "Sudd" which means "barrier". It is a marshy area also in our days, occupying thousands of square kilometers and therefore impassable in the ancient world.

    There is still a more intriguing fact. The geographer, astronomer and mathematician Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria (who lived about 100 to 170 AD), wrote a Geography with detailed descriptions. Maps made by him have not been preserved, but with the detailed instructions of the manuscript appeared around the year 1300 AD, cartographers have drawn his maps. Interestingly, in it, both arms of the Nile River and its origin in some large lakes appear. Ptolemy had collected some information of the cartographer Marinus of Tyre, which contained the story of a Greek merchant, Diogenes, who traveled around year 100 AD from the African coast of the Red Sea to the region of the Great Lakes Victoria and Albert, from which the Nile grows up of. The "Mountains of the Moon" he speaks of would be the current Ruwenzori.

    He would have anticipated in 1700 years to Richard Burton, Speke and Stanley ´s famous voyage. The news was picked by Ptolemy, the Arabs translated it. In the Middle Ages it was believed that the Nile was born because of a few lakes generated by the snow which came from the “Mountains of the Moon" and thus it is reflected in the mapping since the fourteenth century when Ptolemy's Geography appeared.


    In the seventeenth century the Spanish Jesuit Pedro Páez (1564-1622), who was trying to create a Jesuit mission in an area of great difficulty, found the sources of the Blue Nile. But this was forgotten.

    In the nineteenth century the mentioned British explorers, after several scans and many discussions, rediscovered the "sources" of Diogenes and they have gone down in History as their "discoverers". Their work has not been forgotten instead, at least until now.

  • Catullus and Safo

    Catullus was a poet born in Verona in the year 84 BC, in a wealthy family friend of Julius Caesar. He went young to Rome, like many others, with the intention to enter politics, but what was devoted to poetry

    He fell in love with a noble Roman cheerful and frivolous, Clodia, who played with the young poet whim. Catullus died young, at thirty years. Often death calls early poets, especially lovers. Indeed Verona should be good country for sweethearts, there lived and died for love Romeo and Juliet.

    Among many poems in which no doubt he reflects his physical reaction and their personal feelings, Catullus wrote this famous which then I transcribe, which has the number 51 of his poems.

    He seems to me to be equal to a god,
    he, if such were lawful, to surpass the gods,
    who sitting across from you again and again
    gazes on you, and listens to you
    sweetly laughting, which snatchs away
    from sombre me my every sense:
    for the instant I glance on you, Lesbia,
    nothing is left to me [of voice],
    but my tongue is numbed,
    a keen-edged flame spreads through my limbs,
    with sound self-caused my twin ears sing,
    and my eyes are enwrapped with night.
    Leisure, Catullus, to you is hurtful:
    in leisure beyond measure do you exult and pass your life.
    Leisure first ruined rulers and prosperous cities.
           (Leonard C. Smithers, Ed.)

    Ille mi par esse deovidetur
    ille, si fas est, superare divos,
    qui sedens adversus identidem te
                spectat et audit
    dulce ridentem, misero quod omnis
    eripit sensus mihi: nam simul te,
    Lesbia, aspexi, nihil est super mi
                vocis in ore,
    lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus
    flamma demanat, sonitu suopte
    tintinant aures, gemina teguntur
                lumina nocte.
    otium, Catulle, tibi molestum est,
    otio exultas nimiumque gestis:
    otium et reges prius et beatas
                perdidt urbes.

    The poem, for the simple reader, seems simply express their physical and psychological reactions in the presence of the beloved. It turns out that the poem is directly inspired, almost a translation of Sappho's poem reproduced by Longinus in On the Sublime, 10.2

    Peer of the gods, the happiest man I seem
    Sitting before thee, rapt at thy sight, hearing
    Thy soft laughter and thy voice most gentle,
    Speaking so sweetly.

    Then in my bosom my heart wildly flutters,
    And, when on thee I gaze never so little,
    Bereft am I of all power of utterance,
    My tongue is useless.

    There rushes at once through my flesh tingling fire,
    My eyes are deprived of all power of vision,
    My ears hear nothing but sounds of winds roaring,
    And all is blackness.

    Down courses in streams the sweat of emotion,
    A dread trembling o'erwhelms me, paler am I
    Than dried grass in autumn, and in my madness
    Dead I seem almost.
                           (Translated by Edwin Marion Cox)

    Φάινεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θέοισιν
    ἔμμεν ὤνερ ὄττις ἐνάντιός τοι
    ἰσδάνει καὶ πλασίον ἆδυ φωνεί-
         σασ ὐπακούει

    καὶ γελαίσας ἰμέροεν. τὸ δὴ ᾽μάν
    καρδίαν ἐν στήθεσιν ἐπτόαισεν,
    ὢς γὰρ εὔιδον βροχέωσ σε, φώνας
         οὖδεν ἔτ᾽ εἴκει,

    ἀλλὰ κὰμ μὲν γλῳσσα ϝέαγε, λέπτον
    δ᾽ αὔτικα χρῷ πῦρ ὐπαδεδρόμακεν,
    ὀππάτεσσι δ᾽ οὖδεν ορημμ᾽, ἐπιρρόμ-
         βεισι δ᾽ ἄκουαι.

    ἀ δέ μ᾽ ίδρως κακχέεται, τρόμος δὲ
    παῖσαν ἄγρει χλωροτέρα δὲ ποίας
    ἔμμι, τεθνάκην δ᾽ ὀλίγω ᾽πιδεύης
         φαίνομαι ἄλλα•

    ἀλλὰ πᾶν τόλματον, ἐπεὶ +καὶ πένητα
                       
    Sappho is the most famous poetess of Antiquity. She was born in Lesbos and lived approximately between 650 and 610 BC. She is the most important archaic lyric poetess; She is among the lyric poets  fixed and consecrated forever by ancient literary canon. Her love for the girls, who sings in her poems, has given  name to the female homosexual love, which is called sapphic or lesbian. Logically this is the origin of the term "lesbian".

    Well, the poem in question was well known in Rome. So the simple initial interpretation is complicated somewhat. Why Catullus  uses Sappho’s  poem  to express his love for Lesbia, the name under which hides a real woman, Clodia? Does it have something to do  the name of the beloved Lesbia with Lesbos, Sappho's homeland? Is it possible to transpose the female feelings  to male love, making true the popular saying "what matter the sex if love is pure"? Catullus’s verses are a mere translation of the poet, a mere inspiration or original creation of the poet? .

    In this regard, it should be noted how the goal of a former literary author is to emulate and if possible surpass the master. But of course, once the poet or writer publishes his work and delivers to the knowledge and enjoyment of the reader, who  recreates and assumes it as its own, of who is the spiritual property ?  is it of the author  or  of the reader identified whit him? . Of course, the ancients did not have the modern concept of intellectual property.

    But anyway, let’s these issues as prosaic and let’s reread the poem in both versions. Let's enjoy them and check them to coincide, but only partly.

  • The three wise men (the three Magi)

    The birth of Jesus is celebrated in the West December 25. That birth is celebrated for a long time in Christendom and still currently in the Orthodox Church on January 6. But in the Catholic Church is celebrated now on January 6 the day of “epiphany” or manifestation of Jesus. According to the Gospel of St. Matthew 2: 1-12, some wise men came from the East to offer the newborn baby Jesus gold, frankincense and myrrh. Hence comes the custom in some countries, as in Spain, of gave gifts to children on the night of January 5.

    But who are the "wise men"? Magi, Greek  μάγοι ,  is a Iranian or Persian word that  had a great success among the Greeks.

    For a long time, classical philology despised or disregarded the many evidences of the oriental influence in the Greek world trying to assert a supposed “hellenic” peculiarity. As  common sense and numerous historical and philological evidences demonstrate,  the Greeks don’t  were an only people, nor came all at once in the Greek peninsula nor  were isolated from other peoples and cultures.

    The things happened on the contrary.By its very geographical situation, a point of contact between East and West, between the Europe and Egypt and Africa,  what we call Greek culture is an important component of other cultures, mainly Mesopotamian and Egyptian and Oriental, despite the classicist disregard of the importance and influence of oriental Persian and  Egyptian cultures.

    The dependence of the Greeks from  Eastern cultures became soon clear  in astronomy, especially in some cosmogonic myths, in some religious cults, but some relationships are also evident in the early literary poems (Homer, Hesiod) with the Sumerian epic poems  Giglamesh, Enki …

    Then, from the sixth century and for two centuries, Persia occupied one third of the Greek territories and the influence, of course, was mutual.

    A proof of evidence of this relationship is the term “magicians”, magus, μάγοι,(wizard), that as I said, is not from Greek but Iranian origin.

    This word has on Greek the double meaning of charlatans who dupe with his "magic", and  also of priests who have a special function.

    Primitive Persian religious beliefs and other of Zoroastrianism conceived own world full of spirits and daemons. The souls of the dead, separated from the body, ascend to heaven, or rather, to the heavens, because they are many. In that journey up the important ritual action and sacrifices of the "magi" are very important.

    Iranian ideas and beliefs helped to germinate on Greece the ideas of  separation of body from the  soul, of the soul's ascent to heaven, of the universe populated by many daemons and spirits. These ideas  helped also to grow the interests of the Ionian Greeks to explain the nature through rational observation; that marked the origin of science.

    The multiplicity of daemons or ubiquitous souls is a pre-Socratic doctrine, especially present in the Pythagorean thought. Diogenes Laertius (VIII, 32) tells us that Alexander Polyhistor claimed to have found on the " Pythagorean Comments", among other similar, these ideas:

    The whole air is full of souls which are called genii[22] or heroes; these are they who send men dreams and signs of future disease and health, and not to men alone, but to sheep also and cattle as well; and it is to them that purifications and lustrations, all divination, omens and the like, have reference.  (translated by Robert Drew Hicks)

    It is the same as Tales said   when he stated  that "everything is full of gods, daemons and souls" (A 22, 23 Diels-Kranz).

    Aristotle says about Democritus in “On the Soul” 404a:

    This is what led Democritus to say that soul is a sort of fire or hot substance; his ‘forms’ or atoms are infinite in number; those which are spherical he calls fire and soul, and compares them to the motes in the air which we see in shafts of light coming through windows; the mixture of seeds of all sorts he calls the elements of the whole of Nature (Leucippus gives a similar account);
    …
    The doctrine of the Pythagoreans seems to rest upon the same ideas; some of them declared the motes in air, others what moved them, to be soul. These motes were referred to because they are seen always in movement, even in a complete calm    . (Translated by J. A. Smith)

    Diogenes Laertius, on I, 6-9, describes the activity of the "wise men":

    while the Magi spend their time in the worship of the gods, in sacrifices and in prayers, implying that none but themselves have the ear of the gods. .. Further, they practise divination and forecast the future, declaring that the gods appear to them in visible form. Moreover, they say that the air is full of shapes which stream forth like vapour and enter the eyes of keen-sighted seers. ..
    Aristotle in the first book of his dialogue On Philosophy declares that the Magi are more ancient than the Egyptians; and further, that they believe in two principles, the good spirit and the evil spirit, the one called Zeus or Oromasdes, the other Hades or Arimanius.     (translated by Robert Drew Hicks)

    Herodotus in a famous passage (I, 131) says that the magoi worship the sky as supreme deity:

    but they call the whole circuit of heaven Zeus, and to him they sacrifice on the highest peaks of the mountains; A. D. Godley, Ed.

    Democritus, in a famous passage, describes the "teachers of the word" who, holding his hands to heaven, "called the universe by the name of Zeus." (Democritus, B 30 Diels-Kranz).

    In summary, we can conclude that wizards and Iranian doctrines became somehow to be part of the pre-Socratic  philosophical context. Rituals and speculation of magicians about daimones and souls , left their mark on the Greeks of the fifth century.  So far the word "magician", “magi”,  is the most successful Iranian word in Greek and we must keep in mind that the Greeks and Persians maintained a  physical and geographical connection  for several centuries.

    As a curious question about magicians, I can tell that already have long considered that the story of the Gospel of St. Matthew 2:1-12

    After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
    When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born.  “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
    “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
        are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
    for out of you will come a ruler
        who will shepherd my people Israel.’
    Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
    After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

    It is a replica or it is made or influenced by the visit of Tiridates, king of Armenia, made to Rome to pay homage to Nero. Tiridates, crowned on the year 66 in Armenia by Nero, was a wise man, “magus”,  and also all his companions and so the Romans called him,  “magus”.

    Nero had a passion of  music and poetry and also  of magic, which had to resign. Pliny the Elder  made reference to visit of Tiridates on Natural History, XXX, 16 s (VI):

    The magicians, too, have certain modes of evasion, as, for instance, that the gods will not obey, or even appear to, persons who have freckles upon the skin. Was this perchance the obstacle in Nero's way? As for his limbs, there was nothing deficient in them. And then, besides, he was at liberty to make choice of the days prescribed by the magic ritual: it was an easy thing for him to make choice of sheep whose colour was no other than perfectly black: and as to sacrificing human beings, there was nothing in the world that gave him greater pleasure. The Magian Tiridates was at his court, having repaired thither, in token of our triumph over Armenia, accompanied by a train which cost dear to the provinces through which it passed. For the fact was, that he was unwilling to travel by water, it being a maxim with the adepts in this art that it is improper to spit into the sea or to profane that element by any other of the evacuations that are inseparable from the infirmities of human nature. He brought with him, too, several other Magi, and went so far as to initiate the emperor in the repasts of the craft; and yet the prince, for all he had bestowed a kingdom upon the stranger, found himself unable to receive at his hands, in return, this art. We may rest fully persuaded then, that magic is a thing detestable in itself. Frivolous and lying as it is, it still bears, however, some shadow of truth upon it; though reflected, in reality, by the practices of those who study the arts of secret poisoning, and not the pursuits of magic. Pliny the Elder, The Natural History John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.

    sunt quaedam Magis perfugia, veluti lentiginem habentibus non obsequi numina aut cerni. an obstitit forte hoc in illo? nihil membris defuit. nam dies eligere certos liberum erat, pecudes vero, quibus non nisi ater colos esset, facile; nam homines immolare etiam gratissimum. Magus ad eum Tiridates venerat Armeniacum de se triumphum adferens et ideo provinciis gravis.
    navigare noluerat, quoniam expuere in maria aliisque mortalium necessitatibus violare naturam eam fas non putant. Magos secum adduxerat, magicis etiam cenis eum initiaverat; non tamen, cum regnum ei daret, hanc ab eo artem accipere valuit. proinde ita persuasum sit, intestabilem, inritam, inanem esse, habentem tamen quasdam veritatis umbras, sed in his veneficas artes pollere, non magicas.

    And Tacitus describes the submission of Tiridates, who decides to go to Rome in Annals XV, 29.

    Then the Roman commended the young prince for abandoning rash courses, and adopting a safe and expedient policy. Tiridates first dwelt much on the nobility of his race, but went on to speak in a tone of moderation. He would go to Rome, and bring the emperor a new glory, a suppliant Arsacid, while Parthia was prosperous. It was then agreed that Tiridates should lay down his royal crown before Cæsar's image, and resume it only from the hand of Nero. The interview then ended with a kiss. After an interval of a few days there was a grand display on both sides; on the one, cavalry ranged in squadrons with their national ensigns; on the other, stood the columns of our legions with glittering eagles and standards and images of deities, after the appearance of a temple. In the midst, on a tribunal, was a chair of state, and on the chair a statue of Nero. To this Tiridates advanced, and having slain the customary victims, he removed the crown from his head, and set it at the foot of the statue; whereupon all felt a deep thrill of emotion, rendered the more intense by the sight which yet lingered before their eyes, of the slaughter or siege of Roman armies. "But now," they thought, "the calamity is reversed; Tiridates is about to go, a spectacle to the world, little better than a prisoner." Alfred John Church, William Jackson Brodribb, Ed.)

    Exim Romanus laudat iuvenem omissis praecipitibus tuta et salutaria capessentem: ille de nobilitate generis multum praefatus, cetera temperanter adiungit: iturum quippe Romam laturumque novum Caesari decus, non adversis Parthorum rebus supplicem Arsaciden. tum placuit Tiridaten ponere apud effigiem Caesaris insigne regium nec nisi manu Neronis resumere; et conloquium osculo finitum. dein paucis diebus interiectis magna utrimque specie inde eques compositus per turmas et insignibus patriis, hinc agmina legionum stetere fulgentibus aquilis signisque et simulacris deum in modum templi: medio tribunal sedem curulem et sedes effigiem Neronis sustinebat. ad quam progressus Tiridates, caesis ex more victimis, sublatum capiti diadema imagini subiecit, magnis apud cunctos animorum motibus, quos augebat insita adhuc oculis exercituum Romanorum caedes aut obsidio: at nunc versos casus; iturum Tiridaten ostentui gentibus quanto minus quam captivum?

    It is possible that this episode of the wizard Tiridates´s visit served as a pattern to the three Wise Men´s visit to baby Jesus of Bethlehem. 

  • XENIA, APOPHORETA (gifts)

    Xenia and Apophoreta are the names of two of the books of Epigrams by Marcus Valerius Martial (40-104), specifically the books XIII and XIV.

    Marcial published approximately 1,500 epigrams, short compositions, usually satirical (not exclusively) where mental acuity is enclosed. Xenia has 127 and Apophoreta 223.

    XENIA is a Greek word which originally means "hospitality" and also refers to the gifts that are given to foreigners or visitors, and in first place to ambassadors from other cities. In the case of Martial refers to gifts given in banquets which participants take away as a souvenir.

    Apophoreta means "gift to take" (from the Greek ἀπό  apo- of, from and φορεῖν, to take) also refers to the custom of giving gifts to the guests of banquets that could be taken as a souvenir to mark the Saturnalia celebrations , which were held in December. These major parties were a mix of our current Christmas and Carnival. This is undoubtedly the origin of the still in force custom of exchanging gifts at the Christmas dinner.

    The Greek origin of the words reminds us of the importance of hospitality and symposium or banquet in the Old Greco-Roman World and the exchange of gifts as a tool to strengthen social relationships.

    Sometimes gifts in these banquets were obtained with a kind of lottery, pulling out a little note referring to the gift, often in an enigmatic riddle, that each guest had won; Therefore this was also an intellectual game. "Apophoreta" also stands for the notes that accompany those gifts.

    Petronius, in the famous Cena Trimalchio of his Satyricon, 56: presents a drawing of this type:

    He was just putting the philosophers out of business when lottery tickets were passed around in a cup.  A slave boy assigned to that duty read aloud the names of the souvenirs:

    "Silver s–ham," a ham was brought in with some silver vinegar cruets on top of it;
    "cervical"–something soft for the neck–a piece of the cervix–neck–of a sheep was brought in;
    "serisapia"–after wit–"and contumelia"–insult–we were given must wafers and an apple-melon–and a phallus–contus–;
    "porri"–leeks–"and persica," he picked up a whip and a knife; "passeres"–sparrows" and a fly–trap," the answer was raisins–uva passa–and Attic honey;
    "cenatoria"–a dinner toga–"and forensia"–business dress–he handed out a piece of meat–suggestive of dinner–and a note-book–suggestive of business–;
    "canale"–chased by a dog–"and pedale"–pertaining to the foot–, a hare and a slipper were brought out; "lamphrey"-
    -murena–"and a letter," he held up a mouse–mus–and a frog–rana–tied together, and a bundle of beet–beta–the Greek letter beta–.

    We laughed long and loud, there were a thousand of these jokes, more or less, which have now escaped my memory. (translation by W. C. Firebaugh)

    Iam etiam philosophos de negotio deiciehat, cum pittacia in scypho circumferri  coeperunt, puerque super hoc positus officium apophoreta recitavit.
    "Argentum sceleratum": allata est perna, supra quam acetabula erant posita.
    "Cervical": offla collaris allata est.
    "Serisapia et contumelia": xerophagiae ex sale  datae sunt et contus cum malo.
    "Porri et persica": flagellum et cultrum accepit.
    "Passeres et muscarium": uvam passam et mel  Atticum.
    "Cenatoria et forensia": offlam et tabulas accepit.
    "Canale et pedale": lepus et solea est allata.
    "Muraena et littera": murem cum rana alligatum fascemque betae accepit.
    Diu risimus. Sexcenta huiusmodi fuerunt, quae iam exciderunt memoriae meae.

    Well, Marcial wrote these two books, one similar to each other but also with some differences, in little poems of two verses (gr. δί-, two and στιχον, verse; we had then two verses , an hexameter and a pentameter).

    Although appearing in editions of Martial at the end of his work, they were actually written before, perhaps as order from employers to accompany banquets’ gifts. With these orders Martial would earn some money or get some recourse to pursue its nothing luxurious life; the poet spent twenty years of subsistence in the large Rome. It is thought that he published them for the Saturnalia in the year 84-85.
    About its literary value as custom poetry, have issued several judgments, although undeniable quality and sharpness of many of them. But in any case it should be recognized its value as a historical record of real-life time.

    The Xenia gifts are perishable goods (food and drink) and Apophoreta gifts are non-perishable goods.

    In Xenia epigrams are grouped by types of food: the first fifty concern plants (first the basics like beans, wheat, lentils, flour, barley …, then vegetables, fruits …); fifty seconds for dishes like poultry , quadruplets as a main dish, fish; twenty five for sauces, including the famous "garum" (sort of brine or vinegar prized throughout the Empire); and other twenty five dedicated to wines what constitutes a "wines’ guide" of the moment. Somehow the order of the epigrams corresponds to the order or sequence of presentation of food at the banquet. The last, the 127, refers to the custom of giving garlands of flowers to diners.
    In Apophoreta a huge variety of objects appears, grouped in sets: toiletries, cosmetics and perfumes, lighting, various balls, cookware and utensils, dresses like togas, capes …, bedding, furniture like tables, shelves, cases, game boards, perfumes, dresses like togas, capes … sculptures, paintings, books, animals and slaves, some with obvious sexual function. Interestingly he alternated valuable gifts and the cheap gifts, as no doubt happen at banquets.

    I will put a few examples of each book (the space of an article does not offer another possibility) to help make the decision to read them entirety.

    Note: translation based on Bohn's Classical Library (1897)

    XENIA

    XIV. Lettuce.

    Tell me why lettuce, which used to close the repasts of our forefathers, now commences our feasts?

    Lactucae
    Cludere quae cenas lactuca solebat avorum,
    Dic mihi, cur nostras inchoat illa dapes?

    XVI. Radishes

    These radishes which I present to you, and which are suited to the cold season of winter, Romulus still eats in heaven.

    Rapa
    Haec tibi brumali gaudentia frigore rapa
    Quae damus, in caelo Romulus esse solet.

    XVIII. Leeks

    Whenever you have eaten strong-smelling shreds of the Tarentine leek, give kisses with your mouth shut.

    Porri sectivi
    Fila Tarentini graviter redolentia porri
    Edisti quotiens, oscula clusa dato

    XXXIV. Bulbs.

    If your wife is old, and your members languid, bulbs can do no more for you than fill your belly.

    Note: The onion was regarded as an aphrodisiac

    Bulbi
    Cum sit anus coniunx et sint tibi mortua membra,
    Nil aliud bulbis quam satur esse potes.

    XXXV. Susage.

    Daughter of a Picenian pig, I come from Lucania; by me a grateful garnish is given to snow-white pottage.

    Note: Lucania produced famous cold meats, including "longaniza" word that derives from "lucanica" contaminated with "n" taken perhaps the word "longa" given the form of the longaniza.

    Lucanicae
    Filia Picenae venio Lucanica porcae:
    Pultibus hinc niveis grata corona datur.

    APOPHORETA

    XIII. Wooden coffers

    If there be anything still remaining at the bottom of my coffer, it shall be yours. There is nothing: then the coffer itself shall be yours.

    Loculi lignei
    Si quid adhuc superest in nostri faece locelli,
    Munus erit. Nihil est: ipse locellus erit.

    XXIV. A golden hair-pin

    That your oiled tresses may not injure your splendid silk dress, let this pin fix your twisted hair, and keep it up.

    Acus aurea
    Splendida ne madidi violent bombycina crines,
    Figat acus tortas sustineatque comas.

    XXXIX. A night-lamp

    I am a night-lamp, privy to the pleasures of the couch; do whatever you please, I shall be silent.

    Lucerna cubicularis
    Dulcis conscia lectuli lucerna,
    Quidquid vis facias licet, tacebo.

    XLIX. Dumb-bells

    Why do strong arms fatigue themselves with frivolous dumb-bells? To dig a vineyard is a worthier exercise for men.

    Halteres
    Quid pereunt stulto fortes haltere lacerti?
    Exercet melius vinea fossa viros.

    Note. Halters (ἁλτῆρες) are few objects of stone or metal that are used in gymnastic exercises of the Greeks and Romans. They are commonly used by jumpers carrying them on both hands, but is also often used simply to exercise the body, in the same way that our dumbbells or weights. Precisely from this Greek word derives "weightlifting" fondness for "halteres", sport consisting of lifting weights.

    As a curiosity, I will finally say that Xenia served as a model for a joint work of Goethe and Schiller, just call Xenien in German, who wrote against critics and mediocrity of the moment, by the way without much success.

     

  • The Roman Saturnalia parties and Christmas

    The word “Christmas” (“Navidad” in Spanish), with which we designate Christ´s birthday party, derives from the Latin word “nativitatem” which literally means “birth”, “nacimiento” in Spanish.

    In the early centuries of Christianity, the birth of Jesus and his baptism took place on the 6th of January, Epiphany Day (from the Greek επιφάνεια which means: "manifestation, apparition") and it is still held on that date in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

    In the West the sixth day of January we celebrate the curious feast of " The three Wise Men", who according to Saint Matthew´s gospel came to offer their gifts to the baby Jesus, who had just been born in Judea. To remember and imitate it, toys and many other kinds of presents are given to children on the 6th of January in some countries like Spain.

    The first written reference to Epiphany as a Christian feast appears in the year 361 in Ammianus Marcellinus, XXI, 2.5:

    And in order temporarily to conceal this (that he had renounced Christianity), on the day of the festival which the Christians celebrate in the month of January and call the Epiphany, he went to their church, and departed after offering a prayer to their deity in the usual manner.       
    (Ammianus Marcellinus, Rerum Gestarum John C. Rolfe, Ph.D., Litt.D., Ed.)

    In its Latin version:

    Et ut haec interim celarentur, feriarum die, quem celebrantes mense Ianuario Christiani Epiphania dictitant, progressus in eorum ecclesiam, sollemniter numine orato discessit.

    And Epiphanius of Salamis also concretes in his Panarion, LI, 27, 4 that the birth of Christ was on January 6th:

    (…) the Epiphany of the Lord, January 5th, at the dawn of January 6th, and the eleventh day of the Egyptian month Tybi

    On the other hand, the birth of the god Mithras, the Persian sun god, is held on December 25th, the day of winter solstice, because on that day the sun begins to appear sooner, that is, it is born again leading to a new solar year.

    The word "solstice" derives from the Latin solstitĭum, solis statum (stare or sistere, stop), because of the apparent stillness or slow movement of the sun as it reaches the tropics. Until that day, the day or light space has been decreasing but from that time on the day grows and grows like a newborn.

    Mithraism was a religion very widespread throughout the empire by the Roman legions and as a religion of salvation was clearly competing with Christianity. As in many other cases, the date became Christianized moving the celebration of the birth of Jesus to the date of the birth of Mithras.

    In many cultures the birth of the New Year is associated with the birth of a divine child, with the birth of a sun god.

    Moreover, the Roman calendar fixed the dates of the numerous religious festivals of the inhabitants of Latium in honor of their gods. In December, they celebrated several parties which are reflected in the current calendar precisely in our Christmas party.

    In fact, during the Roman Empire three parties were held in December and they were simultaneous in some of the seven days when they were celebrated: the Saturnalia, the Opalia and Sigillaria.

    The "sigillaria" are so called from sigilla, or oscilla, small ceramic figures. At this party, trading posts with ceramic figures to give children away as toys were mounted like a fashion market.

    These small clay images are memories of ancient sacrificial rituals in which the victim was replaced by the clay figurine.

    In these Roman celebrations thus we find different elements of our current Christmas and Carnival.
    In late December, they especially celebrated the "Saturnalia", the feast of Saturn, god to whom they attributed the introduction of agriculture and civilized life. Saturn is one of the ancient gods of Latium and his worship and celebration seems to have fallen and reborn several times during the Latin history.

    Under Augustus times the feast was celebrated for three days, on the 17th, 18th and 19th of December. Someone, we don´t know who, added a fourth day, then Caligula added a fifth day which he called Iuvenalis (youth´s day), later confirmed by Claudio.

    Suetonius, Caligula, XVII:

    In the latter, he presented to the men forensic garments and to the women and children purple scarves. To make a perpetual addition to the public joy for ever, he added to the Saturnalia parties one day, which he called “juvenalis” [the juvenile feast]. (Alexander Thomson, Ed.)

    posteriore epulo forensia insuper uiris, feminis ac pueris fascias purpurae ac conchylii distribuit. et ut laetitiam publicam in perpetuum quoque augeret, adiecit diem Saturnalibus appellauitque Iuuenalem.

    In some texts it´s even spoken of seven days; for example, Martial, in one of the epigrams, the 72, Book XIV, which he devoted entirely to the gifts that were given in the banquet of the parties and therefore it is called Apophoreta that means "gift to take away" (from the Greek ἀπό, apo- from, away and φορεῖν, take), tells us:

    Black pudding

    this sausage which comes to you in mid-winter came to me before the seven days of the Saturnalia.

    Botulus

    Qui venit botulus mediae tibi tempore brumae,
    Saturni septem venerat ante dies

    .The grammarian Macrobius I, 10 (Macrobius is a Latin grammarian who lived between the IV and V centuries AD). His most important work is precisely “The Saturnalia”, in which a literary banquet is held in the framework of the Saturnalia in which several senators discuss about various historical and mythological subjects, antiques, grammar and especially about the poet Virgil. The first book is devoted to investigate the origin of the Saturnalia precisely.

    At the end of the year, once agricultural tasks were just over and they expected for the next sowing or seedtime (according to Varro Saturn he derives from satur and this one from sero, meaning sow), they held a kind of harvest festival, of irrepressible joy and relaxation of the rigid social mores.

    During this holidays businesses were paralyzed, children had school vacation, the courts were not working and wrongdoers could not be punished. It is especially interesting and curious the social order reversal or turnabout established between the slaves and the master in these days and that remembers us the legendary Golden Age when everything was abundance, equality and harmony.

    On that day the slaves talked to their masters with all freedom of expression and participated in a banquet or festival dressed like their masters, who served them at the table. They also wore the pileus, a hat of red felt that freedmen put on their heads as a symbol of freedom. The pileus is thus the symbol of the general freedom of these days.

    (Note: Probably the Phrygian cap of the participants in the French Revolution has its origin in this Roman pileus, used by the slaves during the Saturnalia).

    This way it is reflected, among numerous texts, in these ones by Martial and Horace: Martial, XI, 6:

    TO ROME, IN SATURNALIA

    In these festive days of the scythe-bearing old man (Saturn), when the dice-box rules supreme, you will permit me, I feel assured, cap-clad Rome, to sport in unlaboured verse. You smile: I may do so then, and am not forbidden. (From Bohn's Classical Library (1897))
    …..
    Unctis falciferi senis diebus,
    Regnator quibus imperat fritillus,
    Versu ludere non laborioso
    Permittis, puto, pilleata Roma.
    Risisti; licet ergo, non vetamur.

    …
    Hor. Sat. II, 7, 5;

    DAVUS:  I've listened long, and fain a word would say,
    But, as a slave, I dare not.
    HORACE: Davus, eh?
    DAVUS: Yes, Davus, true and faithful, good enough,
    But not too good to be of lasting stuff.
    HORACE. Well, take December's licence: I'll not balk
    Our fathers' good intentions: have your talk.
    (Translated by John Conington, M. A.)

    Iamdudum ausculto, et cupiens tibi dicere servus
    pauca, reformido. 'Davusne?' Ita. Davus, amicum
    mancipium domino, et frugi, quod sit satis ; hoc est,
    ut vitale putes. ' Age, libertate Decembri,
    quando ita majores voluerunt, utere : narra.' 

    The following epigrams of Martial collect several of the striking features of this holiday season: casual robes, wearing the pileus, allowed craps, prizes and gifts at the banquet, drunkenness and revelry.

    The citizens removed the toga and wore a loose, comfortable, homespun dress called “synthesis” and then they put the pileus on their heads, which reminds us of the Carnival costumes and masks.

    Martial, XIV, 1;

    TO THE READER, ABOUT THE SATURNALIA FESTIVITIES

    Now, while the knights and the lordly senators delight in the festive robe*, and the cap of liberty** is assumed by our Jupiter; and while the slave, as he rattles the dice-box***, has no fear of the Aedile, seeing that the ponds are so nearly frozen****, learn alternately what is allotted to the rich and to the poor*****. Let each make suitable presents to his friends. That these contributions of mine are follies and trifles, and even worse, who does not know? Or who denies what is so evident? But what can I do better, Saturn, on these wet ******days of pleasure, which your son himself has consecrated to you in compensation for the heaven from which he ejected you? ******* Would you have me write of Thebes, or of Troy, or of the crimes of Mycenae? You reply, "Play with nuts. But I don't want to waste even nuts.

    Notes:
    * Synthesis was an informal homespun garment which is the usual one on the Saturnalia.
    ** Even Domitian himself wore the pileus, symbol of the freedom of these days.
    *** These days gambling was allowed, banned the rest.
    **** A joke these days was to throw someone to the lake, to the iced pylon.
    ***** They alternated valuable gifts with the ridiculous at the banquet.
    ****** Because of the drunkenness.
    ******* Because Jupiter dethroned Saturn.

    Synthesibus dum gaudet eques dominusque senator
    Dumque decent nostrum pillea sumpta Iovem;
    Nec timet aedilem moto spectare fritillo,
    Cum videat gelidos tam prope verna lacus:
    Divitis alternas et pauperis accipe sortes:
    Praemia convivae dent sua quisque suo.
    'Sunt apinae tricaeque et si quid vilius istis.'
    Quis nescit? vel quis tam manifesta negat?
    Sed quid agam potius madidis, Saturne, diebus,
    Quos tibi pro caelo filius ipse dedit?
    Vis scribam Thebas Troiamve malasve Mycenas?
    'Lude,' inquis, 'nucibus'. Perdere nolo nuces.

    Martial´s references, who, as I already said, devoted a whole book to the Saturnalia gifts, Book XIV, in addition to the quoted ones, are many, all of them full of wit and poignancy. If anyone is curious, he or she can find them in 2.85 / 4.88 / 5.19 / 5.84/ 7.53 / 10.29 / 11.2 / 11.15 /12.81 / 14.182

    Festivals and holidays he usually celebrated very expensively, but sometimes only with merriment. In the Saturnalia, or at any other time when the fancy took him, he distributed to his company clothes, gold and silver; sometimes coins of all sorts, even of the ancient kings of Rome and of foreign nations; sometimes nothing but towels, sponges, rakes*, and tweezers, and other things of that kind, with tickets on them, which were enigmatical, and had a double meaning. He used likewise to sell by lot among his guests articles of very unequal value, and pictures with their fronts reversed; and so, by the unknown quality of the lot, disappoint or gratify the expectation of the purchasers. This sort of traffic went round the whole company, every one being obliged to buy something, and to run the chance of loss or gain with the rest. (Alexander Thomson, Ed.)

    Note: *rutabula (rakes) has a double meaning Augustus plays with, because it also means “penis, male member”.

    Festos et sollemnes dies profusissime, nonnumquam tantum ioculariter celebrabat. Saturnalibus, et si quando alias libuisset, modo munera diuidebat, uestem et aurum et argentum, modo nummos omnis notae, etiam ueteres regios ac peregrinos, interdum nihil praeter cilicia et spongias et rutabula et forpices atque alia id genus titulis obscuris et ambiguis. solebat et inaequalissimarum rerum sortes et auersas tabularum picturas in conuiuio uenditare incertoque casu spem mercantium uel frustrari uel explere, ita ut per singulos lectos licitatio fieret et seu iactura seu lucrum communicaretur.

    Other relevant references can be found in Seneca: Epistles to Lucilius. 18; Pliny: Epistles. IV 9; Servius: Ad Virgili Aeneidam, III, 407. ; Tacitus: Annales XIII, 15; Arrian: Dissertatines. Epictet. I, 25; Lucian of Samosata: Saturnalia, 4.

    Every social class participated in the festival and the streets were filled with people shouting "Io Saturnalia", "viva Saturnalia" and offered sacrifices bareheaded; friends exchanged gifts; among the humblest the most common gifts are wax candles (cerei), which were probably used like the moccoli or moccoletti are now used on the last night of the Italian carnival. The material value could be low, but their symbolic and religious meaning was obviously very important for the consolidation of society. Candles symbolized the light getting over with the darkness of Chaos and announcing a new light or new year.

    Catullus also refers to gifts and holiday in his poem 14:

    Great Gods! What horrid booklet damnable
    Unto thine own Catullus thou (perdie!)
    Did send, that ever day by day die he
    In Saturnalia, first of festivals.
    (Sir Richard Francis Burton, Ed.)

    Di magni, horribilem et sacrum libellum!
    Quem tu scilicet ad tuum Catullum
    Misti, continuo ut die periret,
    Saturnalibus, optimo dierum!

    In summary, in the Saturnalia we find elements of our current Christian Christmas and Carnival: the celebration of the end of the old year and the beginning of a new one; therefore time and life regeneration; burlesque party; uncontrolled environment that remembers the original Chaos; reversal of the social order in the family reversing the roles of master and slaves for just one day to finally go all again to the established order at the end of the party, when Chaos is again a Cosmos or organized space; the banquet or dinner; the gift exchange; the customs reversal typical of Carnival; the permissiveness to celebrate card games banned for a long time by more rigid customs (note, for evidence, such as Easter, next to the Carnivals, card games were allowed for just one day or they were more tolerant with the card game only that day piously arguing it was done in memory of the sharing of Jesus’ robe by the soldiers who kept him …); the market with ceramic figurines as a toy gift for children.

    And in their deepest sense, parties serve or play the important social function of permanently reopen the natural cycles of time and regenerate in annual coincidence the social established order.