4. Is hanged. 4. Is sacrificed at the altar of
Saturn; or sacrifices himself.
5. Is guessed to represent (_a_) a 5. Represents Saturn.
Tammuz god, or (_b_) the king
of Babylon; or both.
6. Has a pseudo-resurrection. 6. Has no known
pseudo-resurrection.
7. Lies with (_a_) the royal 7. Does not lie with royal
concubines, (_b_) with a sacred concubines or with a sacred
harlot. harlot.
8. In a period of topsy-turvy 8. In a period of topsy-turvy
licence to slaves and free. licence to slaves and free.
9. Which is supposed to 9. Which is supposed to
commemorate a victory over the commemorate the Golden Age of
Sacæ. Saturn.
Under A, number 5--the item that the Sacæan mock-king represents
the king of Babylon, or Tammuz, or both--number 6, the mock-king's
pseudo-resurrection, and number 7 (6), his amour with the sacred
harlot, are all conjectures of Mr. Frazer's. The real points of
resemblance between the Sacæan and the Mœsian victim are (1) their
mockery of royalty, (2) their death, occurring in very different
circumstances, (3) during a period of licence, including the pretence
of lordship by slaves in each household at Babylon; by free men at Rome.
The points of difference are numerous and essential, and the dates and
durations of the Babylonian and Roman festivals vary widely.
Thus, I think, the Sacæan and Mœsian cases do not explain the meaning
of what is a religious rite in Mœsia: a secular custom (as I believe)
in Babylon. Again, the differences make it hard to conjecture, with MM.
Cumont and Parmentier, that the Mœsian rite was introduced by Oriental
soldiers of Rome, accustomed to the Babylonian Sacæa. But to suppose a
native Roman survival or recrudescence is also difficult, because Greek
and Roman poets, historians, antiquaries, and essayists, all writing
on the Saturnalia, know of no such survival. Again, if originally
Italian mock-kings were sacrificed yearly in many places, did they
die as proxies for real local Italian kings, who would otherwise have
been sacrificed? This, as we have seen, is impossible: men would never
have accepted the crown on such conditions. Or did they die, like the
Mexican victims, as man-gods slain for a real god Saturn? But the
Mexican victim was a captive: free men would hardly draw lots for death.
There is no trace in Roman folk-custom of any mock slaying of the
actual Roman Saturnalian kings of the brawls in each household. The
Saturnalia were so remote in Lucian's day from cruelty, that Dickens
might have written, as Christmas papers, Lucian's essays and letters
on the subject. Universal kindness--the Scrooges feasting the Trotty
Vecks of the period--universal giving of presents, and family games
of forfeits and of chance (played for nuts) were the features of the
Saturnalia. Wine flowed like water; but as to amorous licence at the
Saturnalia, we only hear the complaint of the rich that the poor guests
make too free with the ladies of the house.
The connection of the Saturnalia with Saturn, recognised by the Romans
as 'that old savage' the Greek Cronos, may, or may not, have been
original. The Saturnalia were not 'saturnine.' Was the theory of a
golden age under Saturn not a reflection from the festive period, 'the
best day in the year,' says Catullus, which had become associated with
the name of Saturn?
Our evidence for sacrifice or hanging of a mock-king is so meagre
and shadowy (in one case the dubious Dasius legend; in the other
what Athenæus cites from Berosus, coupled with what Dio puts into
the mouth of Diogenes, and with what Strabo tells about the Sacæa)
that the ground will not bear the weight of Mr. Frazer's high-piled,
eighteen-storied castle of hypotheses. I do not, even so, absolutely
impugn the truth of the two tales of the deaths of mock-kings;
the undesigned coincidence of testimony I am willing to take for
presumption of truth, though of four ancient witnesses who speak of
the Sacæa, only one, Dio, alludes to the crowning, robing, stripping,
scourging, and hanging of the mock-king of the festival.[1]