Or How Did the Peacock Get Its Tail?

Last week's Myth Monday gave the basics on the legends about the founding of Rome. One of the people closely associated with Rome's founding was the hero Aeneas.

Today's installment continues with the topic, tying the Italic people back to Argos, in the Peloponnese.

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On this day in Ancient History, the Saturnalia festival continued for the Romans, with merriment, gambling, and role reversals. This is also one of the days in which the Roman chthonic goddess Ops was honored with a festival named for her. Ops was the goddess of abundance, who came to be associated with Rhea/Gaia (Earth mother-titan), Demeter/Ceres (grain goddess), and her daughter Kore/Persephone/Proserpina. She was often paired with the god Consus at whose festival, in the early legends of Rome, the Sabine women were seized by the lusty young bachelors of the recently-founded city of Rome. She was also paired with Saturn perhaps because of their festivals' overlap.

• Rhea
• Ceres/Demeter
• Consualia

"This day in ancient history" caveat: please see Unreliability of Dates.

Today's term comes from looking at pictures of the Oxyrhyncus Papyri at the National Library of Wales (Papyri Photos). The first item shown is labeled the obverse and the second, the reverse. This means that the first papyrus photo is the front and the second is the back. Often the terms recto and verso are used for front and back of documents, while obverse and reverse are commonly seen in connection with coins.

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Wondering which holiday greeting you should offer people you don't know too well? How about "Io, Saturnalia!"?

Saturnalia is finally here. Today (a.d. XVI Kal. Ian.) is the first day of the very popular Roman's winter solstice celebration. In Cicero's day, the festival lasted 7 days. The author of a work called Saturnalia, Macrobius, says the festival originally began on the 19th, but was pushed back to the 17th with the calendar reform by Julius Caesar. Although it was a festival for Saturn (and Ops), with religious rites and a public banquet, it was also a private festival, with gift giving and role reversal. Slaves were allowed to gamble and didn't have to work.

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"This day in ancient history" caveat: please see Unreliability of Dates.