Pig-chickens, beavers’ tails and turtle soup: 8 weird foods through history

History Extra

A Plantagenet king of England dining. (Credit: Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

From the Romans to the Normans, through the medieval period and up to the reign of Elizabeth I, our foods were influenced by European trends, and heavily affected by the seasons. In the 17th century, glasshouse technology [the use of glass to control temperature and humidity for the cultivation or protection of plants] enabled the rich to buck the seasons, and products from the New World began to be imported. The rich could choose to eat almost anything they fancied, and the range of animals and birds consumed in Georgian Britain was astounding – nothing that moved was safe from the cooking pot.
With that in mind, here is a selection of foods from history at which we might balk today…

 1) Dormice

Yes, the Romans really did eat dormice. At least, some people did, but we don’t really know how many, or how popular dormice were. The dormice the Romans ate weren’t the tiny, huge-eyed things we are familiar with today, but a much larger type called – unsurprisingly – the edible dormouse. They are common across the Mediterranean and most of Western Europe, and there’s a British colony around Tring in the Chilterns – they escaped from a Victorian gentleman’s menagerie and have procreated there ever since.
The Romans would capture the mice and fatten them for the table, much in the same way turkeys are fattened up for Christmas today. They would either keep them in pens or in large jars studded with airholes and feed them walnuts, chestnuts and acorns. They were then either roasted with honey or stuffed with pine nuts, pork and spices and baked – this was a fiddly job.
As with so many of the dishes eaten by the rich in history, the show-off factor lay, not in consuming vast quantities of meat or food in general, but by taking something apparently pointless to eat, and making it delicious. Lavishing time and expense on something so small showed that the person serving it had the money to find, keep, and prepare the mice, as well as the good taste to showcase a delicate titbit instead of a gargantuan mountain of flesh.

2) Cockentryce

The rich in medieval England would have eaten a wide variety of animals and birds, usually served intact, with heads, feet and tails all indicating what the meat was, and adding to its visual appeal. A decapitated roast bird would probably have seemed as strange to the average 15^th-century knight as one with its head intact to us today.
Medieval feasts could comprise tens of different dishes, roughly grouped together into courses that could be interspersed with entertainment, including amazing edible concoctions. Sotelties, as they were called, were often sugar work, but there was another type of extravagant medieval culinary diversion: fantastic beasts.
The cockentryce is probably the best known of these, and comprised half a pig sewn to half of a capon (a castrated and fattened chicken). Modern recreations often involve the front of the bird and back of the pig, but both were done. Once sewn and stuffed, it was roasted and covered with batter. It was almost certainly then decorated richly with anything the inventive medieval cook could lay his (and professional medieval cooks were always men) hands on.
There are also recipes in medieval manuscripts for capons  [a castrated domestic cock] riding suckling pig steeds, and ‘yrchouns’ (hedgehogs) made of pigs’ stomachs stuffed with spiced pork, with almonds to resemble spines. Again, these dishes would have been time-consuming to make and required a lot of skill (and space).

3) Beavers’ tails

Until the Reformation in 1533, many of England’s eating habits were dictated by the rules laid down by the Catholic Church. For Catholics in the Middle Ages – that is, most of western Europe – around half of the year was set aside as fast days. This included, as we might imagine, Lent, but it also included Advent, along with Fridays, Wednesdays and various other days.
Fast days didn’t simply mean no eating – it meant no animal products. Fish was acceptable, however, and some exquisite fish recipes were served on fast days. However, there also developed some extremely broad definitions of fish, with beavers’ tails among them. They were scaly, often in the water, and the flesh was also said to taste like fish.

_{An antique print of a beaver from the illustrated book The Natural History of Animals, 1859. (Credit: Graphica Artis/Getty Images)}

4) Tansy

Common garden plants such as scabious [aka the butterfly blue or the pincushion flower], comfrey [a popular herb], hawthorn [a shrub] and tansy [a plant with yellow, button-like flowers] were all eaten in previous centuries, both for their taste and their perceived medicinal value.
Tansy, which is today usually seen as an invasive weed, was in the 17^th century used as an insect repellent and as a ‘strewing herb’ to freshen the air in musty rooms. If you smell the crushed leaf, you can see why: it is a bitter herb with a very distinctive smell.
In the 17th century it was popular to add flavour to a set of dishes called ‘tansies’, which were usually either a sort of baked sweet omelette, a boiled or baked biscuit, or bread-based pudding. Spinach juice was also often added, to give the final dish a green tinge – something we’d probably find very off-putting today.
Tansy is mildly toxic, or can be (the same applies to comfrey), and too much of it can add an eye-watering flavour to the final dish. Tansy was also said to aid the digestion of salt fish.

5) Ambergris

A solid, waxy, dull grey substance produced in the digestive system of sperm whales, ambergris only reaches the table after it’s been either vomited or excreted out. It then has to survive months or even years in the sea, before being washed up on shore or recovered by a lucky passing boat.
Ambergris has a delicate, musky flavour, and is incredibly scarce. Like most rare and relatively tasty, edible products, it gained a reputation as an aphrodisiac and a much-sought-after food for the super-rich in the 17^th century. Charles II was said to enjoy ambergris with eggs, and it was used to flavour pies and cakes.
Ambergris is largely banned today, as part of attempts to curb the exploitation of whales for human consumption. Where it is sold, it commands extortionate prices.

6) Mock turtle soup

Turtle soup became popular in Britain in the 18th century. Most recipes start with instructions on how to kill and butcher the turtle, which would have been brought in live from the West Indies. The most elaborate way to serve it was as calipash and calipee: two soups, served in the upper and lower shell, one with the upper (green) and the other with the lower (yellow) meat. It was popular for banquets, and became something of a craze in late Georgian Britain. It was incredibly time-consuming and expensive to prepare, and by the 19th century tinned or dried turtle was often used instead.
Another 19^th-century alternative was the peculiarly British mock turtle soup, which used a calf’s head. The character of the mock turtle in Alice in Wonderland, which has the body of a turtle and the head of a calf, sums this up nicely.
It was an ingenious substitute for turtle – affordable, available, and not dissimilar in flavour – and was typical of the way in which British cookery book writers at the time democratised haute cuisine. By the end of the 19th century, mock turtle soup was so closely associated with the upper and middle classes that French cooks called it turtle soup ‘à l’anglaise’.

_{A close-up of a tin of Heinz ready-to-serve mock turtle soup in 1961. (Credit: Chaloner Woods/Getty Images)}

7) Medlars

The range of fruit and vegetables we eat today is tiny compared to that available at various times in the past. The Victorians, especially, were avid plant-breeders. There were around 1,500 varieties of apples alone available to the late Victorian gardener – compare that to the five or so commonly on sale in shops today. The Victorians were also more adventurous when it came to fruit – much of which would be unsellable in the modern world.
Medlars, which are related to the rose and the apple, were known to the Greeks and Romans, but were really exploited by the Victorians. The fruit is small, brown, and open at the bottom – the French call it cul de chien, or ‘dog’s bottom fruit’. It’s rock hard and inedible unless it’s left to ‘blet’, or partially rot, either on the tree or in bran. The Victorians would serve them in the bran and scrape out the flesh to eat with sugar and cream. They would also make tarts and fruit cheese with it.
You can still buy medlar jelly and it is exquisite.

8) Vegetarian ham

Vegetarianism has a long history, though the word itself is comparatively new. Early vegetarians were called pythagoreans, after the Greek mathematician Pythagoras (b 571 BC).
Until the 19^th century, giving up meat voluntarily was largely associated with religious belief. It was often said by non-meat eaters that those who ate meat ingested with it notions of slaughter and blood-letting, and that meat-eating contributed to wars and violence. For some, giving up meat was a form of protest against societal norms, which valued meat eating as prestigious and as a mark of the ruling elite.
In the late 19th century, vegetarianism finally became a movement, associated closely with animal welfare. Its proponents were often women and, for that reason, it became associated for a while with suffrage. Vegetarian restaurants opened to cater for the growing numbers of non-meat eaters, and provided a safe haven for women wishing to meet in socially acceptable surroundings.
There was in the Victorian period a leap forward in developing vegetarian food, which was delicious and creative in its own right, and not merely a collection of side dishes or meat-based dishes with the meat removed. Furthermore, those who ate them were proud to show their adherence to a vegetarian diet.

To Victorians, our modern ideas of making protein into something that looks and tries to taste like meat would probably seem decidedly weird.
Dr Annie Gray is a research associate at the University of York and a freelance food history consultant.

History Trivia - Battle of Pydna

June 22

 168 BC Battle of Pydna: Romans under Lucius Aemilius Paullus defeated and captured Macedonian King Perseus ending the Third Macedonian War.
 

9 of history's best quotes

History Extra

Queen Victoria, who reportedly said "We are not amused". (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Neil Armstrong: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”

 

On 20 July 1969, as Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon, he marked the momentous event with this iconic statement. 

 

After jumping more than three feet down from his spacecraft Apollo 11 onto the moon’s surface and issuing his immortal words, Armstrong explored the moon’s surface for two-and-a-half hours along with fellow American astronaut Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin. The pair made their mark by planting an American flag and a plaque that read, "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon. July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind".

 

Interestingly, though, the words uttered by Armstrong in that historic moment are in fact a misquote. After a safe journey home Armstrong told the press that what he had actually said – or intended to – was, “That’s one small step for a man”. The indefinite article was lost over the crackling audio connection – a small omission that led to a significant change in the quote’s meaning. Armstrong acknowledged this, saying that “The ‘a’ was intended. I thought I said it”. Yet since the misquote had already been repeated the world over, Armstrong was forced to concede “I can’t hear it when I listen on the radio reception here on earth, so I’ll be happy if you just put it in parentheses”.

 

^{American astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon as commander of the Apollo 11 lunar mission. (MPI/Getty Images)}

 

Marie Antoinette: “Let them eat cake!”

 

According to popular legend, this flippant remark was Marie Antoinette’s response to being told that the French people were starving and they could not afford bread. The quote, widely attributed to her, has become a symbol of the callous decadence of France’s monarchy on the eve of the French Revolution (1789–99).

 

Antoinette was famed for her extravagant lifestyle, and her exclamation of “Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" (which actually translates more literally to ‘let them eat brioche’ or a enriched, egg-based bread) was seen as damning mockery of the plight of her people. 

 

It is now generally accepted, though, that Antoinette most likely never uttered these famous words. Instead they are thought to have been attributed to her by revolutionary propaganda keen to portray her as ignorant, distant and uncaring. Writing for History Revealed magazine, Emily Brand has suggested that the expression in fact pre-dates Antoinette. It is first referenced as the words “of a great princess” in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s 1766 treatise Confessions, written when Antoinette was only 11 years old. Brand argues the saying was only linked to Antoinette 50 years after her execution in 1793. 

 

But while this quote may not in reality have been uttered by Antoinette, the phrase had sticking power because of the popular perception, whether justified or not, of the French queen as outrageously extravagant and insensitive to the struggles of her people.

 

^{Marie Antoinette in a 1775 portrait by Jean-Baptiste Gautier Dagoty. (Universal History Archive/Getty Images)}
 

Winston Churchill: “We shall fight on the beaches… we shall never surrender”

 

Over the course of his political career, Winston Churchill delivered many iconic speeches in the face of war and hardship. From “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few” (1940) to “An iron curtain has descended across the continent” (1946), Churchill has been recognised as one of history’s most inspiring speakers.

 

Churchill’s “We shall fight on the beaches” quote was part of a grave yet rousing speech given by the prime minister in the aftermath the 1940 Dunkirk evacuation. Churchill’s words were arguably fundamental in transforming the event in the popular imagination from a humiliating defeat into a miraculous triumph of bravery and determination. Indeed, Churchill’s words – which are often misquoted as “we shall fight them on the beaches” – have been immortalised as an example of Britain’s plucky ‘Blitz spirit’ in the face of adversity.

 

A frequently misremembered fact about the “We shall fight on the beaches” speech is that Churchill did not originally read it out over the nation’s airwaves. He delivered the speech unrecorded to the House of Commons and sections of it were later read out by a BBC radio announcer. The famous recording we recognise today was not actually made until nine years later in 1949, when it was thought that Churchill's words should be set down for posterity. 

 

^{Churchill delivering his “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat” speech over BBC radio in 1940. (Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)}

 

Queen Victoria: “We are not amused”

 

The story goes that this famous line was Queen Victoria’s retort to a risqué anecdote told by a tactless guest at a Windsor dinner party. In this version of events the “we” is intended, not as the royal “we”, but as a reference to all the ladies present who were unimpressed by such vulgar behaviour. Disappointingly, though, it is not clear whether this story stems from historical fact or just appealing urban legend. 

 

“We are not amused” has perhaps had such sticking power because it is emblematic of the public image of Victoria in her later years – a po-faced, dumpy woman dressed in black. The quote fits neatly with this straitlaced portrayal of her and also provides a handy epithet for popular ideas about Victorian society being stuffy and uptight.

 

The association of Victoria with the humourless quote arguably portrays the monarch in an unfair light. Writing for the Washington Post, historian Kate Williams has suggested that “dour” photos of Victoria, (the first photographed monarch) – taken before people learned how to pose – “unfairly colour our view of her”. Williams claims that Victoria was “full of passion for life, forgiving of moral peccadilloes” and “always loved laughter and jokes”. She was, in fact, often amused.

 

^{A photograph of Queen Victoria c1887. (Alexander Bassano/Spencer Arnold/Getty Images)}

 

Julius Caesar: “I came, I saw, I conquered”

 

Translated from the Latin “Veni, Vidi, Vici”, this line is attributed to Roman emperor Julius Caesar, who supposedly used it to boast of his military success.

 

According to ancient accounts, Caesar sent the three-word message to Rome in 47 BC to report on his victory over Pharnaces II of Pontus in the battle of Zela. Despite being significantly outnumbered at Zela, Caesar managed to crush the Pontic forces. His five-day campaign proved a swift, decisive victory that saw Pharnaces subdued by Caesar’s military might. 

 

According to Roman historian Suetonius’s The Twelve Caesars (AD 121) the “Veni, Vidi, Vici” slogan was also inscribed on placards during the ‘Pontic triumph’ – a public procession in celebration of Caesar’s return to Rome following his military victory.

 

In his Life of Caesar, Greek biographer Plutarch (c46–120 AD) writes that “In Latin the words have the same inflectional ending, and so a brevity which is most impressive”.  

 

^{Bust of Julius Caesar. (National Museum in Naples/Bettman/Getty)}

 

FDR: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”

 

These famous words were spoken during Franklin D Roosevelt’s first inaugural address, delivered at the United States Capitol, Washington DC on 4 March 1933. Following an election victory over republican Herbert Hoover in 1932, Roosevelt became the 32nd president of the United States. Known as ‘FDR’, he went on to become the first president to serve a total of four terms. 

 

Elected during the depths of America’s Great Depression, Roosevelt made his 20-minute address a solemn and resolved affair. It tackled head-on the nation’s economic crisis and unemployment, blaming the “callous and selfish wrongdoing” of bankers and businessmen. This quote, which goes on to describe “fear itself” as the “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyses needed effort to convert retreat into advance” appeared near the very beginning of Roosevelt’s address. Contemporaries understood it as a pointed attack on the damaged and pessimistic American mindset of the time, which had been dealt a heavy blow by the economic crash.

 

Broadcast to tens of millions of Americans over national radio networks, FDR’s speech was generally accepted as a dynamic and inspiring promise to get America back on track. 

 

^{President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers his first inaugural address at the Capitol in 1933. (George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images)}

 

Oscar Wilde: “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about”

 

This remark, from Oscar Wilde’s 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, is just one example of reams of quotable material from the celebrated writer, conversationalist and wit. 

 

Wilde’s comic plays made a satire of the contradictions and petty manners of polite Victorian society. Works including The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) and An Ideal Husband (1895) are full of the wry observances and witty aphorisms for which Wilde is best known. Dozens of his phrases, including “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”; “Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much” and “I have nothing to declare but my genius” have proven enduringly popular.

 

In 2007 Wilde was voted Britain’s greatest wit in a poll of more than 3,000 comedy fans, beating to the top spot Spike Milligan, Winston Churchill and Noel Coward. The Irish-born Wilde was wisecracking until the very end, reportedly quipping on his Parisian deathbed in November 1900, “Either those curtains go, or I do”.

 

^{Colourised photograph of Oscar Wilde from around 1870. (Roger Viollet Collection/Getty Images)}

 

Queen Elizabeth I:  “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too”

 

This assertion of royal power from Elizabeth I was part of a rousing speech delivered by the queen in one of England’s darkest moments, as the nation faced the threat of imminent attack from the Spanish Armada. Elizabeth’s rallying cry was intended to motivate the English troops assembled at Tilbury in August 1588 as they awaited the arrival of an unprecedented Spanish invasion force. Through her words the queen clearly portrayed herself as a warrior ready to fight for her nation.

 

Accounts portray Elizabeth addressing her troops atop a white steed, wearing a helmet and cutlass. Despite the threat to her safety, the queen allegedly refused to return to London, instead resolving to stay at the English army camp at Tilbury. She reportedly declared that she would “not think of deserting her army at a time of danger”. 

 

Writing for History Extra in 2015, Robert Hutchinson revealed that although the speech elsewhere pledges that “shortly we shall have a famous victory over these enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people’’, in reality it was probably not delivered in a moment of imminent danger. Hutchinson suggests that Elizabeth’s stirring words only reached her men after the Armada was already in retreat. The words were recorded by royal courtier Lionel Sharp and later repeated to the army.

 

^{Elizabeth I of England is depicted riding a horse as she reviews her troops at Tilbury, c1560. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)}

 

Eleanor Roosevelt: “Women are like teabags – you don’t know how strong they are until you put them in hot water” 

 

While her husband, Franklin D Roosevelt, was serving as US president between 1933 and 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt redefined the role of first lady through her active engagement in politics. An outspoken social campaigner and early ambassador of the United Nations, Eleanor was also engaged in human rights work, playing a significant role in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

 

Many inspirational quotes have been attributed to Eleanor, including “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent”; “Do one thing every day that scares you” and “It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself”.


 

Her “Women are like teabags” quote seems to draw on several older variations of the idea, including “A man is like an egg, the longer he is kept in hot water the harder he is when taken out”, which appeared in an 1858 Boston newspaper, and “Men are like potatoes; they do not know how soon they may be in hot water”, from an 1870 Dublin newspaper.

 

While there is little concrete evidence that Eleanor spoke the original quote, it is now widely attributed to her. The adage is reportedly a favourite of presidential candidate Hilary Clinton, who herself recently ascribed it to Eleanor.

 

^{Eleanor Roosevelt listening through headphones during a UN conference in New York. (Keystone/Getty Images)}

7 surprising facts about the history of medicine

History Extra

Ancient Egyptian childbirth scene: the mother is helped by her handmaidens and the midwife. Reconstruction of a Theban painting from the Dynasty XIX. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Maintaining a comfortable state of health is a goal shared by much of the world's population past and present, thus the history of health and medicine weaves a thread connecting us with our ancestors' human experiences. Yet it's easy to assume that studying it involves either celebrating the ‘eureka moments’ of well-known heroes or laughing at outdated therapies. But, as I set out to show in my new book, medicine's past features plenty of lesser-known but equally fascinating episodes…

 1) Some of the earliest named doctors were women

Saqqara is a huge archaeological site about 20 miles south of present-day Cairo. Five millennia ago it was the necropolis for the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis, and remains home to one of the oldest surviving buildings in the world – the step pyramid of Djoser.
A nearby tomb reveals the image of Merit Ptah, the first female doctor known by name. She lived in approximately 2,700 BC and hieroglyphs on the tomb describe her as ‘the Chief Physician’. That's pretty much all that's known about her career, but the inscription reveals that it was possible for women to hold high-status medical roles in Ancient Egypt.
Some 200 years later another doctor, Peseshet, was immortalised on a monument in the tomb of her son, Akhet-Hetep (aka Akhethetep), a high priest. Peseshet held the title ‘overseer of female physicians’, suggesting that women doctors weren't just occasional one-offs. Peseshet herself was either one of them or a director responsible for their organisation and training.
Although the barriers of time and interpretation make it difficult to reconstruct the day-to-day practice of Merit Ptah and Peseshet, female doctors appear to have been a respected part of ancient Egyptian society.

  2) Cataract surgery was possible in the sixth century BC

One of the oldest known medical textbooks is the Sushruta Samhita, written in Sanskrit in India. Its exact date is tentative, as no original version survives and it is only known from later copies, but the current consensus is that it was written in around 600 BC. Sushruta is thought to have been a physician and teacher working in the North Indian city of Benares (now Varanasi in the state of Uttar Pradesh). His Samhita – a compilation of knowledge – provides detailed information on medicine, surgery, pharmacology and patient management.
Sushruta advises his students that however well read they are, they are not competent to treat disease until they have practical experience. Surgical incisions were to be tried out on the skin of fruits, while carefully extracting fruit seeds enabled the student to develop the skill of removing foreign bodies from flesh. They also practised on dead animals and on leather bags filled with water, before being let loose on real patients.
Among its many surgical descriptions, the Sushruta Samhita documents cataract surgery. The patient had to look at the tip of his or her nose while the surgeon, holding the eyelids apart with thumb and index finger, used a needle-like instrument to pierce the eyeball from the side. It was then sprinkled with breast milk and the outside of the eye bathed with a herbal medication. The surgeon used the instrument to scrape out the clouded lens until the eye “assumed the glossiness of a resplendent cloudless sun”. During recovery it was important for the patient to avoiding coughing, sneezing, burping or anything else that might cause pressure in the eye. If the operation were a success, the patient would regain some useful vision, albeit unfocused.


_{Roman civilization, a relief portraying an ophthalmologist examining a patient. (Photo By DEA/A DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)}

3) A ‘tree of life’ tackled scurvy

Trapped in ice near Stadacona (the site of present-day Quebec City) in 1536, Jacques Cartier's ships weren't going anywhere. The crews, holed up in a makeshift fort with little access to fresh food, came down with a disease so gruesome that “their mouth became stincking, their gummes so rotten, that all the flesh did fall off, even to the rootes of the teeth, which did also almost all fall out.” They had scurvy, now known to result from a deficiency of vitamin C. Cartier had no idea what to do.
During his first voyage to Stadacona in 1534, Cartier had kidnapped two young men, Dom Agaya and Taignoagny, taking them back to France as proof that he had discovered a new territory. Now that they were home, the men and their community had every reason not to trust Cartier – an attitude that he interpreted as “treachery” and “knavery”.
In spite of this tension, Dom Agaya showed Cartier how to make a decoction from a tree called Annedda and, although the Frenchmen wondered if it were a plot to poison them, a couple of them gave it a go and were cured within days. After that, there was such a rush for the medicine that “they were ready to kill one another”, and used up a whole large tree.
The identity of Annedda is not certain but there are several candidates including eastern white cedar and white spruce. Whatever it was, its nutritional benefits resulted in the sailors' complete cure.
Cartier repaid Dom Agaya by kidnapping him again along with nine other people. By the time of Cartier's next voyage – to Canada in 1541 – most of the prisoners were dead, but Cartier informed their relatives that they were living in style in France. The scurvy cure did not gain widespread recognition and the disease continued to claim the lives of sailors for more than 200 years.

 4) If you want a cure for everything, try theriac

Being a king in ancient times was exhaustingly dangerous; there was always someone plotting to get rid of you. So, according to legend, Mithradates (aka Mithridates) VI of Pontus (on the shores of the Black Sea in Turkey) attempted to become resistant to poisons by taking gradually increasing doses. He was also reputed to have conducted toxicological experiments on condemned prisoners, culminating in the creation of mithridate – a medicine that combined all known antidotes in one potent formula.
It didn't work against Roman armies, however, and when Mithradates was defeated by the military leader Pompey in 66 BC, the recipe supposedly arrived in Rome. Emperor Nero's physician Andromachus developed it into a 64-ingredient composition, which became known as theriac. Most of the ingredients were botanical (including opium), but viper's flesh was a notable component.
In spite of early scepticism, theriac took off as a prized (and expensive) cure-all. By the 12th century Venice was the leading exporter and the substance had a high profile in European, Arabic and Chinese medicine alike. Its fortunes waned after 1745, however, when William Heberden debunked its alleged efficacy and suggested that enterprising Romans had exaggerated the Mithradates story for their own gain.
Even so, theriac remained in some European pharmacopoeias until the late 19th century.

_{Tin-glazed Italian pharmacy jar (or albarello) from Rome or Deruta, used by the Jesuits and intended for storing theriac, 1641. (Photo by SSPL/Getty Images)}

5) General anaesthesia helped cancer patients at the beginning of the 19th century

Kan Aiya, a 60-year-old woman, had lost many loved ones to breast cancer. She had seen her sisters die of the cruel disease, so when a tumour formed in her left breast she was well aware of the likely outcome. For her, however, there was a chance of survival – an operation. It was 1804 and she was in the best possible place for surgery – feudal Japan.
Seishu Hanaoka (1760–1835) studied medicine in Kyoto and set up a practice in his hometown of Hirayama. He became interested in the idea of anaesthesia owing to stories that a third-century Chinese surgeon Houa T'o had developed a compound drug enabling patients to sleep through the pain. Hanaoka experimented with similar formulae and produced Tsusensan, a potent hot drink. Among other botanical ingredients it contained the plants Datura metel (aka Datura alba or ‘devil's trumpet’), monkshood and Angelica decursiva, all of which contain some potent physiologically active substances.
Tsusensan had quite a kick and if you glugged it down willy-nilly you would probably die, but in the correct dosage it rendered patients unconscious for between six and 24 hours, allowing ample time for surgery.
On 13 October 1804, Hanaoka excised Kan Aiya's tumour while she was under general anaesthesia, going on to operate on at least 150 more breast cancer patients and people with other conditions. Sadly, Kan Aiya is thought to have died of her disease the following year, but had been spared the agony that still characterised surgery in the West.

  6) A ‘leech craze’ hit 19th-century Europe

The medicinal leech has been in use for thousands of years, and is even today considered to be a way of restoring venous circulation after reconstructive surgery. But it was in the early 19th century that the leech really soared in popularity. Led by French physician François-Joseph-Victor Broussais (1772–1838), who postulated that all disease stemmed from local inflammation treatable by bloodletting, the ‘leech craze’ saw barrels of the creatures shipped across the globe, wild leech populations decimated almost to extinction, and the establishment of prosperous leech farms.
Leeches had advantages over the common practice of bloodletting using a lancet – the loss of blood was more gradual and less of a shock for those of delicate constitution. And because Broussais's followers used leeches in place of all the other medicines at the 19th-century physician's disposal, patients were spared some harsh remedies that might otherwise have made them feel worse. In 1822, a British surgeon called Rees Price coined the term sangui-suction for leech therapy.

 7) Ugandan surgeons developed life-saving caesarean operations

In 1884, the caesarean section was not a new idea. It dated from the time of the Caesars, for a start, when Roman law required the procedure to be carried out in the event of a woman's death in childbirth.
Over the centuries, reports occasionally surfaced of caesarean sections saving the lives of both mother and baby, but even after the introduction of antiseptic methods and anaesthesia, caesareans remained a dangerous last resort. So Edinburgh surgeons were surprised to hear a lecture by Robert Felkin, a missionary doctor, about a successful operation that he had witnessed in the African kingdom of Bunyoro Kitara five years earlier.
The operation, Felkin reported, was carried out with the intention of saving both lives. The mother was partially anaesthetised with banana wine. The surgeon also used this wine to wash the surgical site and his own hands, suggesting awareness of the need for infection control measures. He then made a vertical incision, going through the abdominal wall and part of the uterine wall, before further dividing the uterine wall enough to take the baby out. The operation also involved removing the placenta and squeezing the uterus to promote contraction.

_{The first surgical treatment of breast cancer performed under general anaesthetic by Seishu Hanaoka (1760-1836) in 1804 (colour litho), Japanese School (19th century). (Private Collection/Archives Charmet/Bridgeman Images)}
The means of dressing the incision was also highly developed: the surgeon used seven polished iron spikes to bring the edges of the wound together, tying them in place with bark-cloth string. He then applied a thick layer of herbal paste and covered this with a warm banana leaf held in place with a bandage. According to Felkin's account, the mother and her baby were still doing well when he left the village 11 days later.
Although caesarean operations had been performed in Africa by white surgeons before this date, the procedure appeared to have been developed independently by the Banyoro people – a somewhat discomfiting realisation for a British audience familiar with colonial tales of ‘savages’.

Caroline Rance blogs at www.thequackdoctor.com about the history of medical advertising and health fraud. Her latest book, The History of Medicine in 100 Facts (Amberley Publishing, 2015), explores medicine's history in bite-sized topics, from prehistoric parasites to the threat of antibiotic resistance.

7 surprising Ancient Rome facts

History Extra

The Intervention of the Sabine Women, painting by the French painter Jacques-Louis David, 1799. Musee Du Louvre, Paris, France. (Photo by Exotica.im/UIG via Getty Images)

 

1) The Roman’s couldn’t decide on their origins

The legend of Romulus and Remus tells the story of twin brothers raised by wolves who become the founding fathers of Rome.

The boys’ mother, Rhea Silvia, had been forced into becoming a Vestal Virgin (priestesses who attended to the sacred fire of Vesta) by the usurper Amulius. Rhea Silvia then had a miraculous conception, either by the god Mars or by Hercules (there are variations on the myth). When Amulius heard of this, he ordered the infant twins to be taken to the river Tiber where they were left to die.

In the event they were saved and nourished by a she-wolf and later taken in by a shepherd and his family until they grew to manhood, unaware of their origins. Eventually they heard the story of the treachery of Amulius, after which they confronted and killed the tyrant. Then, because Romulus wanted to found their new city on the Palatine Hill and Remus preferred the Aventine Hill, they agreed to see a soothsayer. However, each brother interpreted the results in his own favour. This led to a fight in which Romulus killed Remus, and that founded the new city of Rome in 753 BC.

What’s stranger still is that there was a later ‘founding of Rome’ story. Written around the 8th century BC, Homer’s Iliad recalls the story of the Trojan War but Rome's origins are linked to the second telling of this same story by another giant of ancient writing, Virgil, in his book The Aeneid. As well as enhancing Homer’s earlier story, The Aeneid also postdates the tale of Romulus and Remus. This is important because, according to Virgil, Troy’s population wasn’t completely destroyed. Instead, a prince called Aeneas escaped with a small group of Trojans and sailed the Mediterranean until he found an area he liked the look of. So this ancient and noble civilisation transplanted itself in Italy and founded Rome.

Both tales are revealing. The first shows us that the Romans were explaining where their predatory and argumentative attitudes came from: they are all the children of wolves. The second story was created at the time of emperors, so there is a demand for respectability and heritage. The Trojan War was as famous then as now, so why not connect this new empire to a very old and familiar tale?

_{A stone plate of Rome's founders, Romulus and Remus, suckled by a female wolf, seen at the National Historical Museum, Sofia, Bulgaria, in April 2011. (Photo by Nikolay Doychinov/AFP/Getty Images)}

2) Rome was a bad neighbour

By the 5th century BC, Rome was one of many tiny states on the Italian peninsula. If you were a gambler in 480 BC you would probably have put your money on an eventual Etruscan empire. The Etruscsns were after all the biggest power on the Italian peninsula at that time. Over the centuries the realm had grown substantially, and while Rome’s central and southern towns had thrown off Etruscan dominance, it was still the largest power in an area populated by numerous other Italic peoples, many of their names barely remembered by history.

It's a forgotten fact that the Romans had to conquer the rest of Italy, and one of the first tribes to fall was the Sabines. According to a famous legend, oft repeated in ancient texts (and a popular subject with Renaissance artists), the Romans abducted the Sabine women for breeding purposes, in order to increase the population of Rome. Whether this was true or not is impossible to say, but the Romans were consistently avid slavers, and what is uncontested is that by the dawn of the 4th century BC the Sabine kingdom had been absorbed into Roman lands.

10 things you didn't know about the Romans

Romans and Italians were never the same thing. It’s just that the Roman city state was more aggressive, with a better army, or luckier than the other kingdoms of Italy.  It wouldn’t have taken much to snuff out Rome at this time, in which case this article you are reading could have been about the empire of the Frentani, yet another Italic people then located on the east coast of the peninsula.

Although geographically close to each other, these realms were so diverse that they didn’t even speak the same language. Etruscan is still, frustratingly, one of the languages that has yet to be satisfactorily translated. The Sabines, similarly, were not Latin speakers. The Hellenic colonies in the toe of Italy spoke Greek. To these people the Romans were not fellow countrymen carrying out a hostile takeover that was always inevitable and perhaps a tiny bit yearned for. Instead, this was an invasion by a foreign nation of terrifying men who spoke an alien tongue.

3) The first sacking of Rome nearly finished the city

The traditional date for the first sacking of Rome is 390 BC, but modern historians agree that a date of 387 BC is more likely. When a tribe of Gauls, called the Senones, came over the Alps into Italy in search of lands to settle, the first people they met were the Etruscans. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t want to cede any of their lands to these foreigners, so they asked for military assistance from the rising military power of Rome.

Rome gathered together a large army and sent it north to help its neighbour fight this alien threat. Meanwhile, the diplomacy wasn’t going well. Even in this ancient era there was a general rule that ambassadors and messengers were to be left unharmed, but one of the Roman diplomats killed one of the Gaulish chieftains. The Gauls (not unreasonably) demanded that the perpetrators be brought to justice, and some in Rome agreed. However, the Roman masses did not, and this provocation led to the meeting of both sides at the Allia River, both ready for battle.

The Romans had amassed a mighty army; the Senones had an army of about half the size. However, as battle ensued, the Gauls shattered the two flanks of the Roman army and surrounded the elite central force. Now outmanoeuvred and tired from fighting, this Roman army was completely annihilated. The road to Rome was open to the Gauls, who were led by the terrifying figure of Brennus.

What happened next is described in a series of fables and legends, none of which dispute that the Gauls fell on Rome and destroyed much of it. Indeed, they did such a good job that contemporary histories of Rome prior to and during this period are sketchy because of the scale of destruction.

Why the Gauls didn’t settle in the conquered city is unknown. One Roman source claims they were chased away by another Roman army, but this was most likely an explanation created to give the Romans something of a face-saving ending to an otherwise total defeat. What is more probable is that like many northern armies that had tried to settle around Rome, the Gauls found the climate distinctly unhealthy, and it’s probable that disease spread through Brennus’ men. Either way, the Gauls retreated into the mists of legend and hearsay.

Rome was so completely destroyed that there was serious debate about re-founding the capital in the nearby (and completely forgotten town) of Veii. Instead, the Senate decided to stay and authorised the building of the first major stone walls to defend the city.

_{Battle between Romans and Gauls. (Photo by Leemage/UIG via Getty Images)}

4) The battle of Adrianople was the beginning of the end

By the 4th century AD, Germanic invasions were starting to become a serious problem for the Roman empire. It was during this period that a number of new groups began to appear in the Roman hinterlands. Some of these people were known as the Goths.

Initially the Goths agreed to join the empire, settle as farmers and, in essence, merge with the local population. But the Goths were hardly welcomed with open arms, and heavy-handedness by local Roman governors led to Goth resentments and uprisings. Exactly who was to blame for the resulting conflict is hard to say.

The Gothic War lasted from AD 376 to 382. This new wave of barbarians was running amok, and there were frequent clashes with the forces of the western Roman emperor Gratian. However, it was the eastern Roman emperor Valens who went personally to deal with them.

The two sides met near Adrianople (modern day Edirne in Turkey). The Roman writer Ammianus Marcellinus claims that Valens had around 25,000 men against a horde of 80,000 (as is often the case with ancient texts, these numbers are probably exaggerated).

The Romans had marched for seven or eight hours over rough terrain; they were tired and out of formation when they arrived in front of the Gothic army. The 4thcentury legions were, by now, clad in mail armour and had large round shields, all of which were an added burden under the hot August sun. Some of the Roman army attacked without orders and were easily pushed back. The Roman soldier’s rash actions meant he had no option but to engage in battle.

The Gothic force’s centre was a defensive circle of wagons, which the Romans failed to penetrate. However, while the Romans were busy attacking this defensive position, the Goth cavalry crept in from the sides and outflanked Valens’ forces. The heavily armoured Romans were not as nimble or agile as the Goths, and while they managed to break out from the enveloping moves by the Goth cavalry, they were now fighting in small groups and not as a unified army. In the ensuing chaos most of the Roman troops were slaughtered, including the emperor, Valens.

Valens’ successor, Theodosius, was forced to turn the Goths from enemies into allies, but at the cost of land. This was a turning point from which the Roman empire never recovered.

5) The capital of the late Roman empire wasn’t Rome

The Roman empire got its name from its founding city. Therefore, when Rome finally fell forever from the power of the emperors, the change in circumstances must mark the end of the Roman empire, right?

However, while it is often recognised that in the late Roman era Constantinople was the more important city, what almost nobody realises is that by the early 5th century AD, the western Roman emperors had moved the capital from the ancient and illustrious city of Rome.

By AD 402 the terrible emperor Honorius felt that Rome was no longer defensible and decided to move the capital to Ravenna. This was a large town with a population of around 50,000, and had been part of the empire since the 2nd century BC. Despite receiving regular investment funds (emperor Trajan built a massive aqueduct), it was never one of the most important urban areas of the empire and had been in decline in recent times. However, Ravenna had a large and easily defendable port and became the base for Rome’s naval fleet in the Adriatic Sea. As it was also surrounded by marshland, it was regarded as a place of safety, with guaranteed connections to the stronger eastern empire.

The move to Ravenna was an admission by Honorius that Rome could no longer hold back the barbarian invasions. It remained the capital of the empire until its eventual fall in AD 476. It was recaptured by the eastern Roman empire in AD 584 and was part of those lands until 751.

6) The last western emperor shared a name with the founder of Rome

Romulus Augustus, better known as Romulus Augustulus, ‘little Augustus’, was a boy who ‘ruled’ for about 10 months from AD 475–476.  He was little more than a figurehead for his father Orestes, a Roman aristocrat (of Germanic ancestry), who had manoeuvred his way into a position of power in the court in Ravenna.

By now the title of western Roman emperor was virtually meaningless. The only remaining areas of the empire were the Italian peninsula, along with some fragmentary lands in Gaul, Spain and Croatia. Barbarian groups had already sacked Rome twice, and any real power was held by these tribes and not by the Roman court in Ravenna.

Little is known about the teenage Romulus Augustulus. Coins were minted with his face, but he led no armies and no monuments were built for him. He was an irrelevance.

The 8 bloodiest Roman emperors

The Germanic leader Odoacer knew this and, in AD 476, marched on Ravenna. Odoacer had been leading the foederati, the barbarian contingents that by now made up almost the entire ‘Roman’ army. He had all the real power and he knew it.

On arriving in Ravenna and finding no resistance, Odoacer met face-to-face with the so-called emperor, Romulus Augustus. However, the chronicles then say that Odoacer, “taking pity on his youth”, spared Romulus' life. Odoacer carried out no bloody coup, nor did he take the imperial title, because he knew that it had ceased to have any significance. Instead, he recast himself as the first king of Italy, after which he granted Romulus an annual pension and sent him to live with relatives in southern Italy.

Odoacer then got on with reshaping Italy, not in the mould of the old empire, but in the form of a new kingdom. The transformation was long overdue, and as a result, Odoacer was able to bring more stability to the time of his reign than the previous emperors had managed during the past 80 years.

The last western Roman emperor did not go down in a battle, nor did he commit suicide. He was deposed and sent home like a naughty schoolboy. This was final humiliation for a title that, from Scotland to Iraq, had once put fear in men’s hearts.

_{c475 AD, last Roman emperor of the west, Romulus Augustulus. (Photo by Spencer Arnold/Getty Images)}

7) When the Roman empire ended is up for debate

What determines the final demise of the empire is notoriously difficult. The easiest date to use is the fall of Rome… but which one? 410 doesn’t mark the end of the list of western Roman emperors, nor does 455. The other problem is that while Rome was the cradle of the empire, by the 5th century it was neither the most important city (Constantinople), nor the capital of the Western Roman Empire (Ravenna).

The second date that could be used is 476, when Romulus Augutulus was deposed. Again, this doesn’t work because the eastern Roman emperor was still the most powerful person in the world (except for the emperor of China). His empire might have become known as the Byzantine empire, and its inhabitants might have begun speaking Greek, but they considered themselves to be as Roman as Julius Caesar – right up until the bitter end – an ending that happened twice.

The Byzantine empire was the victim of the Fourth Crusade and was conquered in 1204. This was the end of the empire then, surely?

However, just a couple of generations later, it threw off its western overlords, and the emperors returned. These were to last until the Ottoman conquest of 1453 (where the last eastern Roman emperor, unlike the last western one, did go down in a blaze of glory on the city’s battlements).

So does 1453 count as the end of the empire? This is an even harder date to use because the 15th-century world was very different to that of the Roman empire at its peak. Worse still, since Charlemagne was crowned emperor of the Romans in 800, there had been a number of Germanic rulers who would, by the Middle Ages, claim to be ‘holy Roman emperors’. They were no such thing, but the title was still in play.

And yet, still later dates could be used: when Constantinople fell to the Ottomans, two very different dynasties took up the title of Roman emperor and Caesar. Firstly the Ottoman sultan took the title because he had just conquered the old eastern capital. Secondly, as Constantinople had been the capital of Orthodox Christianity, the Russian rulers, as defenders of the Orthodox faith, took the title Caesar (‘tsar’ in Russian).

None of these dates are satisfactory, so the last fact is really a question. Which date would you choose?
Jem Duducu is the author of The Romans in 100 Facts (Amberley Publishing, 2015). You can follow Jem on Twitter and Facebook @HistoryGems.

10 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Romans

History Extra

19th-century coloured engraving of gladiators in ancient Rome. © Lanmas / Alamy

1) Gladiatorial fighting was not the most popular entertainment

The seating capacity of the main venues formed a ‘rough and ready’ index of the popularity of the different public shows in Rome. The arena for gladiatorial combat, the Colosseum – known in antiquity as the Flavian Amphitheatre – was huge. Modern archaeologists estimate that it could accommodate 50,000 people. One ancient source put the number even higher, at 87,000.
Yet it was dwarfed by the Circus Maximus, where some 250,000 could watch chariot racing. Despite the popularity of pantomime (closer to our ballet than modern panto), theatrical shows came off a poor third. The largest theatre in Rome, that of Marcellus, could hold a mere 20,500.

2) Roman warships were not rowed by slaves

In almost all ‘swords and sandals’ movies and novels, when a galley [a large ship propelled primarily by rowing] appears, we hear the clank of slaves’ chains and the crack of the overseer’s whip. Both are completely anachronistic: the Romans, like the Greeks, had an ideology that we call ‘civic militarism’. It was believed that if you were a citizen you had a duty to fight for your state, and conversely if you fought you were entitled to political rights.
This excluded the use of slave rowers, or slave soldiers like those of medieval Islam. In the handful of exceptional times when slaves were admitted to the armed forces, they were either freed before enlistment, or promised manumission if they performed well in battle.

3) They did not all die young

The average life expectancy – although all such figures are uncertain – was only about 25. However, this did not mean that no one lived into their thirties or on into old age. The average was skewed by the number of women who died giving birth, and by high infant mortality. If a Roman made it to maturity, they were likely to live as long as people in the modern western world.

4) Very few Roman hours lasted an hour

Like us, the Romans divided the day into 24 hours. But unlike us, their hours varied in length. For the Romans there were always 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. Thus, for example, a daylight hour in high summer was considerably longer than one in midwinter.

5) Not all Romans spoke Latin

Stretching from the Atlantic to the Tigris, the Roman empire contained perhaps about 65 million inhabitants. While Latin was the language of the army and of Roman law, many peoples incorporated into the empire continued to speak their native tongue, either as well as, or, especially in the countryside, instead of Latin. Thus variants of Celtic and Syriac, and more obscure languages such as Cappadocian and Thracian, survived.
The Roman elite was bilingual. For them, knowledge of Greek was a badge of status – as such it was similar to French for aristocrats across Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. So internalised was the Roman usage, when the senators assassinated Julius Caesar, some shouted out not in Latin, but Greek.

6) Many Romans disliked philosophy

The empire produced eminent philosophers such as Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. Yet some Romans were hostile to philosophy for two main reasons: first, it was a Greek invention, and the Greeks were a conquered race – Roman attitudes to the Greeks were very mixed. Second, the study of philosophy, with its hair-splitting definitions and its concentration on the inner man, could be considered to unfit a man for an active life that would serve the state.
The latter view had long been held by some Greeks. Galen, the doctor to the imperial court, remarked that the Romans regarded philosophy as being of no more use than drilling holes in millet seeds.

_{19th-century wood engraving of Roman Emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius. © INTERFOTO / Alamy} 

7) There were sexual ‘do’s’ and ‘don’t’s

The great French scholar Paul Veyne said that the Romans were paralysed by sexual inhibitions. While that might be going too far, there were strict limits to socially acceptable behaviour: after the wedding night, for example, a modest Roman wife should not let her husband see her naked again. Consequently, it might be no surprise that those philosophers who argued that a man should not have sex with anyone but his wife, not even with his slaves, won few converts.

8) Generals seldom fought in combat

Although in art they liked to be depicted in heroic and martial posture, Roman generals were ‘battle managers’, not warriors. Only in the most exceptional circumstances were they expected to fight hand-to-hand. If a battle was lost, the commander should draw his sword and either turn it on himself, or seek an honourable death at the hands of the enemy. Not until Maximinus Thrax (who reigned from AD235 to 238) was an emperor recorded as fighting in the line of battle.

9) Emperors poisoned themselves every day

From the end of the first century AD, Roman emperors had adopted the daily habit of taking a small amount of every known poison in an attempt to gain immunity. The mixture was known as the Mithridatium, after the originator of the practice, Mithridates the Great, king of Pontus (who reigned from c120 to 65BC).
A drinking vessel made from the horn of the one-horned horses or donkeys, believed by the Romans to have lived in India, was thought to be an antidote to fatal poisons.

10) Romans believed they had good reasons to persecute Christians

The Romans believed their empire rested on the Pax Deorum: if the Romans did right by the pagan gods, those deities would do right by them. Christians, on the other hand, either claimed the pagan gods were evil demons, or denied they existed at all. If the Romans allowed such atheists to propagate their beliefs, it was little wonder that the gods were angered and withheld their favour from Rome.
Usually, Roman persecutors gave Christians every chance to acknowledge the traditional gods, and thus avoid martyrdom. Of course, a committed Christian could not offer such false idols even a pinch of incense, or say the necessary ritual words.                 
            
Harry Sidebottom is a lecturer in ancient history at Lincoln College, Oxford, and author of the Warrior of Rome and Throne of the Caesars series of novels.

How did the Romans celebrate ‘Christmas’?

History Extra

 

It is today associated with decorations, gift giving and indulgence. But how did the Romans celebrate during the festive season? Dr Carey Fleiner, a senior lecturer in classical and medieval history at the University of Winchester, looks back at Saturnalia, the Roman mid-winter ‘festival of misrule’

Q: What was Saturnalia, and how was it celebrated?
A: It was the Romans’ mid-winter knees up!
It was a topsy-turvy holiday of feasting, drinking, singing in the street naked, clapping hands, gambling in public and making noise.
A character in Macrobius’s Saturnalia [an encyclopedic celebration of Roman culture written in the early fifth century] quotes from an unnamed priest of the god Saturn that, according to the god himself, during the Saturnalia “all things that are serious are barred”.  So while it was a holy day, it was also very much a festive day as well.
The ordinarily rigid and conservative social restrictions of the Romans changed – for example, masters served their slaves during a feast and adults would serve children, and slaves were allowed to gamble.
And the aristocracy, who usually wore conservative clothes, dressed in brightly coloured fabrics such as red, purple and gold. This outfit was called the ‘synthesis’, which meant ‘to be put together’. They would ‘put together’ whatever clothes they wanted.
People would also wear a cap of freedom – the pilleum – which was usually worn by slaves who had been awarded their freedom, to symbolise that they were ‘free’ during the Saturnalia.
People would feast in their homes, but the historian Livy notes that by 217 BC there would also be a huge public feast at the oldest temple in Rome, the Temple of Saturn. Macrobius confirms this, and says that the rowdy participants would spill out onto the street, with the participants shouting, “Io Saturnalia!” the way we might greet people with ‘Merry Christmas!’ or ‘Happy New Year!’
A small statue of Saturn might be present at such feasts, as if Saturn himself were there. The statue of Saturn in the temple itself spent most of the year with its feet bound in woolen strips. On the feast day, these binds of wool wrapped around his feet were loosened – symbolising that the Romans were ‘cutting loose’ during the Saturnalia.
People were permitted to gamble in public and bob for corks in ice water. The author Aulus Gellius noted that, as a student, he and his friends would play trivia games. Chariot racing was also an important component of the Saturnalia and the associated sun-god festivities around that time – by the late fourth century AD there might be up to 36 races a day.
We say that during Christmas today the whole world shuts down – the same thing happened during the Saturnalia. There were sometimes plots to overthrow the government, because people were distracted – the famous conspirator Cataline had planned to murder the Senate and set the city on fire during the holiday, but his plan was uncovered and stopped by Cicero in 63 BC.
Saturnalia was described by first-century AD poet Gaius Valerius Catullus as “the best of times”. It was certainly the most popular holiday in the Roman calendar.

Q: Where does Saturnalia originate?
It was the result of the merging of three winter festivals over the centuries. These included the day of Saturn – the god of seeds and sowing – which was the Saturnalia itself. The dates for the Saturnalia shifted a bit over time, but it was originally held on 17 December.
Later, the 17th was given over to the Opalia, a feast day dedicated to Saturn’s wife – who was also his sister. She was the goddess of abundance and the fruits of the earth.
Because they were associated with heaven (Saturn) and Earth (Opalia), their holidays ended up combined, according again to Macrobius. And the third was a feast day celebrating the shortest day, called the bruma by the Romans. The Brumalia coincided with the solstice, on 21 or 22 December.
The three were merged, and became a seven-day jolly running from 17–23 December. But the emperor Augustus [who ruled from 27 BC–AD 14] shortened it to a three-day holiday, as it was causing chaos in terms of the working day.
Later, Caligula [ruled AD 37–41 ] extended it to a five-day holiday, and by the time of Macrobius [early fifth century] it had extended to almost two weeks.
As with so many Roman traditions, the origins of the Saturnalia are lost to the mists of time. The writer Columella notes in his book about agriculture [De Re Rustica, published in the early first century AD] that the Saturnalia came at the end of the agrarian year.
The festivities fell on the winter solstice, and helped to make up for the monotony of the lull between the end of the harvest and the beginning of the spring.
Q: Were gift-giving and decorations part of Saturnalia?
A: Saturnalia was more about a change in attitudes than presents. But a couple of gifts that were given were white candles, named cerei, and clay faces named sigillariae. The candles signified the increase of light after the solstice, while the sigillariae were little ornaments people exchanged.
These were sometimes hung in greenery as a form of decoration, and people would bring in holly and berries to honour Saturn.
Q: Was Saturnalia welcomed by everyone? 
A: Not among the Romans!
Seneca [who died in AD 62] complained that the mob went out of control “in pleasantries”, and Pliny the Younger wrote in one of his letters that he holed up in his study while the rest of the household celebrated.
As might be expected, the early Christian authorities objected to the festivities as well.
It wasn’t until the late fourth century that the church fathers could agree on the date of Christ’s birth – unlike the pagan Romans, Christians tended to give no importance to anyone’s birthday. The big day in the Christian religious calendar was Easter.
Nevertheless, eventually the church settled on 25 December as the date of Christ’s nativity. For the Christians, it was a holy day, not a holiday, and they wanted the period to be sombre and distinguished from the pagan Saturnalia traditions such as gambling, drinking, and of course, most of all, worshipping a pagan god!
But their attempts to ban Saturnalia were not successful, as it was so popular. As late as the eighth century, church authorities complained that even people in Rome were still celebrating the old pagan customs associated with the Saturnalia and other winter holidays.