Roman Festivals and Modern Holidays Quiz

December 25 as the Nativity of Jesus occurs in a section of the Chronography of AD 354 known as the Calendar of Philocalus, which, even by this late date, still identified December 17 as ludi Saturnalia

Half a century later, when Macrobius ______ the Saturnalia, he placed the celebration in the house of Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, a pagan aristocrat who once had served as praetorian prefect during the reign of Valentinian II and been consul designate before his death

A correspondent of Symmachus (Letters, I.44-55), he was ______ by the historian Ammianus Marcellinus as 'a senator of noble character and old-time dignity' (Roman History, XXII.7.6.), an honest and upright man who, 'although he did nothing to gain favour, yet everything that he did was looked upon with favour' (XXVII.9.8-10)

When Praetextatus ______ in AD 384, his death was scornfully dismissed by Jerome (the translator of the Latin Vulgate)

'A few days ago the highest dignitaries of the city ______ before him as he ascended the ramparts of the capitol like a general celebrating a triumph; the Roman people leapt up to welcome and applaud him, and at the news of his death the whole city was moved

Now he is ______ and naked, a prisoner in the foulest darkness, and not, as his unhappy wife falsely asserts, set in the royal abode of the milky way' (Letters, XXIII.3)