Roma's Io Saturnalia |
Pedigree |
Meet Sulla, our newest show hopeful, and a bi-blue boy. He was named after a famous Roman patrician, and the first dictator of Rome, Lucius Cornelius Sulla. The Saturnalia was the most popular holiday of the Roman year, and what a party is must have been in Sulla's time! This photo is of Sulla at 6 months old. He has a nice temperment, has brown eyes, is white-factored, and our happy, outgoing party boy! |
In Sulla's time, the Saturnalia lasted for seven days. It was an occasion for celebration, visits to friends, and the presentation of gifts. Seneca complained that the Saturnalia was when the "whole mob has let itself go in pleasures." The Saturnalia was also a festival day, celebrated on December 25th on the Julian calendar, December 17th on our modern calender. After sacrifice at the temple, there was a public banquet for the god Saturn, in which its image is placed in attendance, as if a guest. Afterwards, according to Macrobius, the celebrants shouted "Io, Saturnalia!" The community selected one person to be the King of Saturnaila. This mock king directed his subjects to get drunk, dance, and carouse. At the close of the festival he was expected to cut his own throat on Saturn's true altar, and thus restore order. |
Sulla at his very first show in March of 2004, the SVSSC Specialty. |
