Saturnalia

This is what sticks in our throats most of all, Cronus, and we think it an intolerable thing for such a man to lie in his purple clothes and gorge himself on all these good things, belching, receiving his guest’s congratulations, and feasting without a break, while I and my sort dream where we can get four obols to be able to sleep after a fill of bread or barley, with cress or thyme or onion as a relish. So either, Cronus, change the situation and give us instead of our present lot an equal share in life, or, at the very least, bid these rich men stop their solitary enjoyment of the good things and out of all their bushels of gold throw down a measure for us all, and out of their clothing give us what would be no loss to them even if it were eaten by moths—it will be completely destroyed and ruined by time in any case—, and tell them to give it us to wear before letting it rot in their boxes and chests with mould everywhere.

Tell them, moreover, to invite the poor to dinner, taking in four or five at a time, not as they do nowadays though, but in a more democratic fashion, all having an equal share, not one man stuffing himself with dainties with the servant standing waiting for him to eat himself to exhaustion, then when this servant comes to us he passes on while we are still getting ready to put out our hand, only letting us glimpse the platter or the remnants of the cake. And tell him not to give a whole half of the pig when it’s brought in, and

If you correct and adjust this, Cronus, you will have made living really living and your festival a real festival. If not, let them have their festival, and we shall sit on our haunches praying that when they have come from the bath the boy will turn up the wine-jar and break it over them, that the cook will burn the soup and in a fit of absent-mindedness put the fish in the pudding, and that the dog will rush in and eat up all the sausage, while the scullions are busy with the other preparations, and half the cake as well; that while the pork and the venison and the sucking-pigs are being cooked they may do what Homer says Helius’s cattle did [*](Homer, Od. xii, 395.) —or rather not only just crawl, but jump up and rush to the mountain, spits and all; and that their plump birds, although already plucked and prepared for serving, should take wing and go off likewise, so that they may not enjoy them by themselves.

This in particular will cause them trouble: we shall pray for their gold to be dug up from its hiding-places by ants like those of India and carried off by night to the public treasury; and that their clothing through neglect of those in charge should be riddled like a sieve by those fine creatures the mice, to be just like a tunny net; and that their pretty, long-haired pages whom they call Hyacinth or Achilles or Narcissus, just as they are handing them the cup should go bald and have their hair fall out and sprout a pointed beard, like the wedge-shaped beards in the comedy, and have the part around their temples become very hairy and exceedingly prickly, and the area between them smooth and bare. All this and more we shall pray for if they will not give up their excessive selfishness and keep their wealth for everybody’s good and give us a moderate share.

2. Cronus to His Very Dear Me—Greetings!

Why do you talk this nonsense, my man, sending me letters about the way things are and telling me to make a redistribution of property? That task would belong to someone else, your present ruler. I’m surprised that you are the only one who doesn’t know that I stopped being king a long time ago when I apportioned my sovereignty to my sons, and that such things are Zeus’s special concern. This rule of mine doesn’t go beyond dicing, hand-clapping, singing, and getting drunk, and then it’s for no longer than seven days. So, as to the more important matters you mention—removing inequality and

But in general you must realise that you poor people have been deceived and have a false view of the rich. You think that they are completely happy and they alone live a life that’s pleasant, because they can have expensive dinners, get drunk on sweet wine, mix with pretty boys and women, and wear soft clothing. You have no idea what the truth of it is. In the first place these things bring no little worry: they are compelled to keep a watchful eye on every detail so that the steward doesn’t get away with any carelessness or theft, that the wine doesn’t go sour, that the corn isn’t swarming with weevils, that a burglar doesn’t steal the drinking-cups, or the people believe the rabble-rousers when they say the rich man wants to be a tyrant. All these things, moreover, would not make up the tiniest fraction of their troubles. If you had only known the fears and worries they have, you would have thought wealth something to be avoided at all costs.

Do you really think that if wealth and kingship were a fine thing I should have been mad enough to let them go and hand them over to others, to sit quietly in private life and put up with orders from another? No, I knew about all this host of troubles which rich men and rulers have to endure, and I gave up my empire, and a good thing too.

Take the noisy complaints you made to me just now, that they gorged on pork and cakes in the feasting—what do they amount to? Both of them are perhaps sweet and not disagreeable for the moment, but in the aftermath the matter is turned right round. Then, whereas you will get up on the next day without the headache their drinking gives them and the foul, smoky belching from over-fullness, they not only have the pleasure of all this but having spent most of the night in debauchery with boys or women or in any way their lechery takes them, without difficulty they pick up consumption or pneumonia or dropsy from their excessive indulgence. Again, would you find it easy to point out one of them who was not absolutely pale, looking very much like death? Or one who reached old age on his own feet and not carried on four men’s backs, all gold on the outside, but with his inside cobbled like the costumes in tragedy, patched up out of quite worthless rags? You paupers never taste or feed on fish, true enough, but don’t you see that you’ve no acquaintance with gout or pneumonia either, or of anything else that they catch for some other reason? Yet even they themselves don’t find it pleasant eating this food every day beyond what they want of these dishes; no, you’ll see them sometimes with a better appetite for vegetables and thyme than even you have for hare and pork.

I say nothing of the other things that worry them—a licentious son, a wife in love with a servant, a loved one who yields because he has to and not because he

In fact most of what they have you would find they get on your account, not for their own use, but to impress you poor people. This, then, is the advice I give you, knowing both ways of life as I do. And it is right that during the festival you should remember that after a little time you must all depart from life, the rich giving up their wealth and you your poverty. But I shall write to them as I promised and I know they will not despise my words.

3. Cronus to the Rich—Greetings!

The poor have recently written me complaining that you don’t let them share what you have, and, to be brief, they asked me to make the good things common to all and let everyone have his bit. It was right, they said, for there to be equality and not for one man to have too much of what is pleasing while another goes without altogether. I replied that Zeus would see to that better than I, but with regard

Oh yes, the dinners and their dining with you—they asked me to add this to my letter, that at present you gorge alone behind locked doors, and, if ever at long intervals you are willing to entertain any of them, there is more annoyance than good cheer in the dinner, and most of what happens is done to hurt them—that business of not drinking the same wine as you, for instance—goodness! how ungenerous that is! They themselves might well be condemned for not getting up and going during the proceedings and leaving the banquet entirely to you. But they say that even so they do not drink their fill, for your cup-bearers, like Odysseus’s companions, [*](Homer, Od. xii, 173 ff.) have had their ears stuffed with wax. The rest is so disgraceful that I hesitate to mention their complaints of the way the meat is apportioned and

See to it then that they don’t accuse you any more, but respect and like you for their share in these few things; the expense is nothing to you, but they will never forget that you gave in time of need. Besides, you could not even live in your cities if the poor were not your fellow-citizens and did not contribute in thousands of ways to your happiness; and you would have no one to admire your wealth if you were rich in isolation, privately, and in obscurity. So let many see and admire your silver and your tables, and when you are pledging friendship let them, while they are drinking, examine the cup and estimate the weight themselves, determine the accuracy of the story told on it and the amount of gold that adorns the work. For as well as being called good and kindly you will stop being envied by them. For who would envy the man who goes shares and gives what is fair? And who would not pray for him to live as long as possible in the enjoyment of his blessings? As you are now, your happiness has no witness, your riches are begrudged you, and your life is unpleasant.

It certainly cannot, I am sure, be as pleasant to have your fill by yourselves, as they say lions and lone wolves do, as to mix with clever

I will ask you something. Let us suppose the poor went about with their eyes shut; wouldn’t you be cross when you had no one to show your purple clothes, your thronging attendants, the size of your rings? I leave aside the plots, the hatred you must stir up in the poor against you if you choose to enjoy your luxury alone. Terrible are the curses they threaten to utter against you. May they never be constrained to utter them! For then you will taste neither sausages nor cakes, except what the dog may have left, your lentil-soup will have salt-fish dissolved in it, your boar and deer while they’re being roasted will plan escape from the oven to the hills, and your birds, wingless though they be,—shoo there!—they will be flying at full stretch to the homes of the selfsame poor. And worst of all, the prettiest of your wine-servers will turn bald all at once, and that after breaking your jar. Well, then, make plans that befit the festival and are safest for you. Lighten their great poverty for them, and at slight cost you will find friends who are far from despicable.