Janus and Saturn left a great impression on the later population of Italy. So he called the whole country where he was king ‘Saturnia ', built an altar in honour of the god Saturn and made some rituals for the god that he called the Saturnalia.
When Saturn suddenly left Janus took some measures to honour Saturn. Social discrimination, there was not, on the contrary, everyone was equal and people had no private property. The period under King Saturn was called ' golden years '. Janus was one and all admiration for Saturn and proposed to govern the Kingdom together. Saturn learnt the inhabitants of the land of King Janus the art of agriculture, taught them writing and the use of coins.
Janus was also called the god of the passages because every deity had to be called through him. One looking to the past and one watching the future. Therefor Janus was punished by Jupiter with two faces. Mythological stories told us that Saturn, on the run for Jupiter, had found accommodation in the Kingdom of Janus in Italy. The Romans did have some good reasons for honouring this god. Photo 3: Bust of Janus 2ĭuring the late Kingdom a Festival in honour of the god Saturn was established in Rome, the Saturnalia. Also from this festival several traditions have survived in our Christmas celebration. These festivities, originally connected with the Roman god Saturn remained still popular for a very long time in the Christian world. This also happened with the Saturnalia, probably the biggest Roman festivals of all. Temples were not dismantled or destroyed but stripped of pagan symbols and adapted to the new religion, in which many old customs just took place, albeit in a new religious context. To switch to another religion, in this case to facilitate Christianity, many ' pagan ' customs were not prohibited or eliminated, but implemented with a Christian sauce into the new faith. How could so many ' pagan ' traditions enter our Christmas experience? And than we haven't talked about the influences of the topic we like to discuss in this article, the Saturnalia. The Isis culture was extremely popular in the Roman world. The image of Maria with child is clearly retrieved from the Egyptian goddess Isis with her child the god Horus. The Christmas tree would come from the pagan Mid-winter-festival. The date, December the 25th, would among other things be borrowed from the birthday of the god Mithras, originally from Persian and also born out of a virgin, who, at the time of the birth of Christ was immensely popular in the Roman Empire for already many years (see ' the last Mithras shrine ' ). The corresponding expressions of this feast often go much further back and seem based on religions and traditions that even remotely had nothing to do with today's Christianity, not even with the birth of Jesus.
Our current Christmas of course has everything to do with the birth of Christ 1. Photo 1: Nativity scene from Napels (photo Howard Hudson)