Note 213 — ROMAN PEOPLE (continued 3)

G.B. iii. 138 foll. The attempt to connect the so-called Saturnalia of the army of the Danube in the third century a.d. with the early practice of Roman Saturnalia seems to me to fail entirely, even after reading Prof. Cumont's paper in the Revue de philologie, 1897, p. 133 foll. I should imagine that Cumont would now admit that the Saturn who was sacrificed on the Danube as described in the Martyrdom of St. Dasius must have been of Oriental origin, and that the soldiers concerned were in no sense Roman or Italian. For the hellenisation of the Saturnalia, see Wissowa in Roscher's Lexicon, s.v. "Saturnus," p. 432. Wissowa, I may note, does not believe in the accuracy of the account of the "Martyrdom."