A STRIKING CONTRAST

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20104, 24 March 1928, Page 8

A STRIKING CONTRAST

NO MORE ROMAN HOLIDAYS SIGNOR MUSSOLINI'S EDICT Are there to be no more holidays in Rome.’ So decrees II Duce. Neither in Rome nor in all Italy, with au occasional exception on Sunday, are there to be “ceremonies, manifestations, celebrations, inaugurations, anniversaries and. centenaries, either large or small, nor speeches of whatever calibre,” according to the edict. Holidays weary the people, says Mussolini, and consume too much of the time and energies of their leaders. Mussolini’s policy differs from th.it of Augustus, whose gulden age it is U Bute’s announced dream io bring back; for Augustus restored the Compitalia and Lupercalia. His ideas are more in line with those of Marcus Antoninus, who also found it expedient to diminish the number of holidays. Present-day Rome could present no greater contrast to its past than in the abolition of holidays. In holiday-lov-ing America off-days come frequently enough, and receptions, parades and pageants furnish frequent entertainment; but nowhere have holidays held rhe place that they did iu ancient Rome. The year was divided into dies festi and dies profesti, the former being consecrated to sacrifices, banquets and games. Some were observed regularly on definite days, some annually on days fixed temporarily by the authorities, and some were publicly appointed as occasion called for them. In the Augustan age, the year, starting off with New Year s Day holiday, followed by another carnival on the 9th of the month, a half holiday on the loth, others on February 13, 15, 17, 18. 23, 24 and 27; and other months were about as bad. Some of lhe celebrations las*ed for days. The Saturnalia continued for seven days, in popular usage, during which schools were closed, no punishment was inflicted and no wits declared or battles fought; gifts were exchanged; gambling with dice, at 4>ther times illegal. was permitted; an 1 slaves sat with their masters, all distinctions of rank being laid aside. Holidays in Rome meant processions, chariot races, spectacles the like of which the world has never known. The Administration of Carinus, for iustan goes down in history lor the splendour of its holidays iu theatre, circus ami amphi-theaire, surpassing even the triumphal pomp of Probu.s or Aurelian and the secular games of the Emperor Philip. Nothing was spared for the amusement of the people. Provision for one holinday hunt offered to the Romans by Probus is thus described by Gibbon: “A great quantity of large tree?, torn up by the roots, were transplanted into the midst of the circus. The spacious and shady forest was immediately filled with a thousand ostriches, a thousand stags, a thousand fallow (bu r, and a thousand wild boars, and al! ’ th:-, variety' of game was abandoned to lhe riotous impetuosity of the multitudeThe acme in “Roman holidays” was a bull least, held in the Coliseum in the year 1332. Bofore the ladies, of Rome, seated on scarlet cloth in thr.-e balconies, nobles from as far as Rimini and Ravenna descended into the arm. in a show of skill and courage to meet wild bulls on foot, armed with a single spear. Th. ’ icTOry went to the beasts, their fatalities numbering no more than elev. a. wherea.-- <>f th.knights, scions of th - most illustrious houses of Rome and the ecelr .asticit state, nine were wounded and eighteen lay dead. “Some of the noblest families might TtKiurn.' the historian comments, ‘*b-!t the pomp of the funerals iu th* churches of St. J* hn Latcrau ami Sla. Maria Maggiore afforded a second holiday to the people.”