Saturnalian dinners were just a prelude to something even better than a feast…Īs the first century Roman poet, Martial says: ‘give me kisses, boy, wet with wine/… if on top you’ll add a fuck, Jove couldn’t be happier with his Ganymede than I am with mine.’ A threesome depicted on the wall of a bathhouse in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. To avoid this, gay Emperor Hadrian preserved his lover’s locks by insisting on sampling all the trimmings from all the tables at dinners he hosted. His revenge was to pray all their fine clothes be eaten by mice and their pretty boyfriends’ hair fall out. The well-healed were supposed to let their less wealthy neighbours gorge at their tables, but as Lucian, a second century satirist, complains they could be as tight-fisted as Scrooge. Masters would serve their slaves, as all were equal in the golden age of Saturn’s reign. If that happened, they’d eat mistletoe berries, the juice of which was thought to be gods’ semen.ĭo NOT try this at home. All good until that ‘otherness’ meant they were called on to sacrifice themselves to save the tribe in times of war or want. Many Druids were also gay, their otherness singling them out as special and holy. One of their jobs was to gather mistletoe at the winter Solstice. In Iron Age Britain, Ireland and Gaul, Druids were the ‘professional classes’ and religious leaders.
Kissing under the mistletoe, has even queerer credentials, almost lost in the mists of the ancient lands it came from. It was quite the campest thing he’d ever seen, and from then on his heart belonged to those creatures who are neither one thing nor the other. Like all young men who reject the charms of comely maidens, one Christmas Eve he fell for a fairy who, in return, gave him a wondrous tree all decked out with silver lights and shiny baubles. He preferred the company of his male friends and ‘manly’ pursuits. Long ago a young count of Luxembourg called Otto was famous for spurning all the young women of the neighbourhood. Greenery was used to decorate the house during midwinter festivals from ancient Rome to Tudor England’s Yuletide in the 1500s.Ĭhristmas trees are an invention of the pagan North: a symbol of rebirth or, according to one tradition, a Christian replacement for the pagan oak in the spiritual lives of the ancient Germans.īut the best story about the first Christmas tree is surely this: The Gladiator film showed the scale of ceremony in Rome. Not long after, someone remembered this: and the three Magi and their kingly gifts made their first and only appearance in Matthew’s Gospel doing homage to the ruler of the earth. And he closed the doors of the temple of Janus, the two faced god who represents beginnings and endings, including New Year and January, to symbolize peace on earth. He extravagantly kissed handsome Tiridates to seal the bargain. They gave gifts, the wise men made their predictions and Nero sang some early version of Three Coins in a Fountain. Not surprisingly, his reign lasted less than four years but Sol Invictus became a favourite of the Roman people.Įven Saint Augustine (of whom more below) later admitted its importance, saying Christ’s birthday replaced that of the Sun. Roll reversal isn’t just for Saturnalia though: Elagabalus said he was ‘delighted to be called the mistress, the wife, the Queen of Hierocles,’ his lover who was a charioteer. Others might wake from a drunken debauch to find a pet tiger sniffing their crotch. One group of banqueting guests were literally suffocated by the weight of violets dropped through a false ceiling. He shimmied his way to power.īut his Saturnalian practical jokes could go too far. His dancing during the midwinter festival wowed the Roman legions into declaring him emperor. The beautiful young Elagabalus loved a good party. He was a beefcake of a god, popularised around 220AD by that great same-sex, selfish, cross-dressing, proto-transgendered Emperor, Elagabalus. This was the day the Sun was reborn and so was sacred to the deity Sol Invictus, the Unconquerable Sun. There’s less solid historical information about lesbians and trans men, sadly, but of course they would have been there.Īs most good things come in gay packages, most of our traditions, from Christmas trees to Christmas presents, are rip-offs of gay pagan solstice celebrations. The Warren Cup in the British Museum depicts ancient Roman gay sex. Sources mention lads running naked about the place, cross-dressing for dinner, tops becoming bottoms, masters waiting on their servants (just for a day, mind), sausages, wine, cunnilingus and fruitcake. Drink flows like rivers and you and your partner snuggle up on a couch to shag and booze the holiday away.īut this isn’t Christmas: it’s Saturnalia, the ancient Roman festival dedicated to the fertility god Saturn around the first century BC. Midwinter fires are crackling, the home smells sharp of evergreen, candles flicker, glass glitters, the table sags.