Classical Studies
Saturnalian Violence in Imperial Greek and Latin Literature
In my project, I discuss literary representations of the ancient Roman festival of Saturn, the Saturnalia. Every December, those celebrating the Saturnalia gambled, feasted, drank, and exchanged gifts. One of the festival’s defining features was its temporary transformation of social hierarchies, particularly of enslavement: during the Saturnalia, enslavers purportedly granted the enslaved an opportunity to dine alongside them (something normally impermissible at the rigidly hierarchical Roman table) and to speak candidly without consequence. As treatments of the festival have emphasized, by offering an illusory and temporary respite from the cruelty of enslavement, the Saturnalia functions as a site of control.
I examine how the Saturnalia festival, and its circumscribed freedom, is represented in imperial Latin and Greek literature, such as Martial’s Epigrams, Pliny the Younger’s Letters, Suetonius’ Divus Augustus, and Lucian’s Saturnalia. I suggest that these literary Saturnalias display the violent enforcement of hierarchies, from poet vs. patron, emperor vs. subject, enslaver vs. enslaved, poor vs. rich, and Roman vs. non-Roman. In doing so, these elite authors appropriate the Saturnalia, a festival associated with the freedom of sub-elites, into a mode of discussing elite political concerns. These authors use literary Saturnalia to call attention to circumscribed freedom under empire while themselves participating in the silencing and erasure of those centered by the real-world festival. This study expands upon treatments of individual literary Saturnalia to suggest the existence of a broader ‘Saturnalian discourse’ that describes, while enacting, circumscribed freedom and which is constantly being redefined and renegotiated across genre, space, and time.