Non. Dec.
December 5 in Ancient Rome
Faunalia (rural)
festivalAnnual
Roman calendar date
Country people honoured Faunus with offerings and dancing on the Nones of December.
Background
Faunus was an old Italian god of woods, flocks and fields, associated with the Greek Pan. In the city his temple on the Tiber Island had its festival on the Ides of February, but in the countryside he was honoured on the Nones of December.
Our main evidence is a short ode by Horace (Odes 3.18). He asks Faunus to pass gently through his fields and flocks, promising a kid goat, wine and incense at the old altar, and describes the village on holiday: cattle play in the grassy fields, the villagers rest with their oxen, and the ditch-digger happily stamps three times on the hated earth in dance per Horace, a poetic picture.
The scene reflects real farm rhythms. By December the autumn sowing was ending, and work animals could rest. For tenant farmers and the enslaved, a holiday from heavy labour was rare and valued; Cato and Columella list which tasks were still allowed on festival days per Cato, Agr. 138, and Columella 2.21.
Ancient source: Horace, Odes 3.18.10 ('Nonae redeunt Decembres') · Reference
Sources
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Rome in DecemberDecember's highlight was the Saturnalia (from 17 December).
Fields & crops
Olive picking and pressing, wood-cutting, and indoor work on rainy days; sowing ideally finished by the Kalends per Columella 11.2.
Courts & law
Courts closed for the Saturnalia; quaestors gave gladiatorial shows in December in late antiquity per the Chronography of 354.
Senate & politics
New tribunes of the plebs entered office on 10 December; outgoing magistrates closed their accounts before the year ended Republic.
Military
Winter quarters. Soldiers too kept the Saturnalia, choosing a mock 'king' per the Acts of Dasius, a late and disputed martyr text.
Festivals & religion
Faunalia (5 Dec.), Agonalia and Septimontium (11 Dec.), Consualia (15 Dec.), Saturnalia (from 17 Dec.), Opalia (19 Dec.), Divalia (21 Dec.), Larentalia (23 Dec.), and later the birthday of Sol Invictus (25 Dec.).
Daily life
December's highlight was the Saturnalia (from 17 December). Business stopped, people wore the casual pilleus cap and gave small gifts, and households let enslaved people eat with, or even be served by, their owners per Macrobius 1.7, Seneca Ep. 47. Seneca, though, notes that the inversion lasted only days; the rest of the year enslaved people stood silent and hungry while masters dined, and could be beaten for a cough per Seneca, Ep. 47. Seneca himself grumbled that the whole city "sweats" with feasting Seneca, Ep. 18.
On farms, olives were picked and pressed, and enslaved workers repaired tools and baskets on rainy days per Columella 11.2.
Sources: Varro, De Lingua Latina 6 · Chronography of 354 · Seneca, Epistles 18 and 47 · Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.7–10
All days in December →
LATIN LINE OF THE DAY
Sera nimis vita est crastina: vive hodie.
“Tomorrow's life is too late: live today.”
Martial, Epigrams 1.15 · translation ours (literal)
