SATURNALIA • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Saturnalia

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noun

Saturnalia n. pl.

(Rom. Antiq.) The festival of Saturn, celebrated in December, originally during one day, but afterward during seven days, as a period of unrestrained license and merriment for all classes, extending even to the slaves.

Hence: A period or occasion of general license, in which the passions or vices have riotous indulgence.

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Etymology of 'Saturnalia'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Saturnalia" Quotes from Famous Books

... under a fresh supply of wine, leading in the boisterous mirth. One after another, attracted by the gayety and laughter, joined the group, until it numbered fifteen or twenty half-intoxicated young men and women, who lost themselves in a kind of wild saturnalia. ...

— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur

... quote from memory—"in honest faith, believe me, than in half the" systems of philosophy, or words to that effect. The victor had a slave at his ear during his triumph; the slaves during the Roman Saturnalia, dressed in their masters' clothes, sat at meat with them, told them of their faults, and blacked their faces for them. They made their masters wait upon them. In the ages of faith, an ass dressed in sacerdotal robes was gravely conducted to the cathedral choir at a certain season, ...

— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... wealth had intoxicated this people, lifting them from the level of the commonplace into a saturnalia of extravagance. Poverty, the only restraint many of them had ever felt, was gone. Money had made them lawless, whimsical, bizarre. It had developed all-conquering personalities, potent individualities. They were still playing with it, wondering at it, ...

— The California Birthday Book • Various

... saturnalia of love into which I had these few weeks been plunged tapped, it seemed, my subliminal consciousness, maybe my ...

— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... three years there was neither settled peace nor open war. The consuls were Q. Cloelius and T. Larcius. They were succeeded by A. Sempronius and M. Minucius. During their consulship a temple was dedicated to Saturn and the festival of the Saturnalia instituted. The next consuls were A. Postumius and T. Verginius. I find in some authors this year given as the date of the battle at Lake Regillus, and that A. Postumius laid down his consulship because the fidelity of his ...

— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius

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