Terracotta oil lamp decorated on the discus with a winged Victory holding a shield, inscribed with a

Terracotta oil lamp decorated on the discus with a winged Victory holding a shield, inscribed with a New Year’s wish for happiness: Annu(m) / Nov(u)m Fau/stum Fel/icem mi/hi, “I (wish) for a happy and prosperous new year”.Around her are representations of things that were usually given as gifts to celebrate the New Year—money (in the form of three by-then old coins, showing a Janus-head of Republican type, a Victory and clasping hands around a caduceus) and dried fruit (dates and figs).These lamps represent a reification of a social practice that is also well attested in literary and documentary sources. The most explicit description and explanation of this custom is found in book I of Ovid's fasti. This poem follows the traditional Roman calendar and so begins with the Kalends of January.  The poet is visited by the god Janus and takes this opportunity to inquire as to the meaning of the customs of the holiday:I followed his final words with my own:‘What do the gifts of dates and dried figs mean’,I said, ‘And the honey glistening in a snow-white jar?’‘For the omen,’ he said, ‘so that events match the savour,So the course of the year might be sweet as its start.’‘I see why sweet things are given. Explain the reasonFor gifts of money, so I mistake no part of your festival.’He laughed and said: ‘How little you know of your age,If you think that honey’s sweeter to it than gold!I’ve hardly seen anyone, even in Saturn’s reign,Who in his heart didn’t find money sweet.Love of it grew with time, and is now at its height,Since it would be hard put to increase much further.Wealth is valued more highly now, than in those timesWhen people were poor, and Rome was new,When a small hut held Romulus, son of Mars,And reeds from the river made a scanty bed.Jupiter complete could barely stand in his low shrine,And the lightning bolt in his right hand was of clay.They decorated the Capitol with leaves, not gems,And the senators grazed their sheep themselves.There was no shame in taking one’s rest on straw,And pillowing one’s head on the cut hay.Cincinnatus left the plough to judge the people,And the slightest use of silver plate was forbidden.But ever since Fortune, here, has raised her head,And Rome has brushed the heavens with her brow,Wealth has increased, and the frantic lust for riches,So that those who possess the most seek for more.They seek to spend, compete to acquire what’s spent,And so their alternating vices are nourished.Like one whose belly is swollen with dropsyThe more they drink, they thirstier they become.Wealth is the value now: riches bring honours,Friendship too: everywhere the poor are hidden.And you still ask me if gold’s useful in augury,And why old money’s a delight in our hands?Once men gave bronze, now gold grants better omens,Old money, conquered, gives way to the new.We too delight in golden temples, however muchWe approve the antique: such splendour suits a god.We praise the past, but experience our own times:Yet both are ways worthy of being cultivated.’Ovidio, Fasti, I, 184-226. [x]50 - 100 ADThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkDear followers, I wish you a very very happy and prosperous new year! -- source link
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