Roman Holidays

As the father of the modern office party, Julius Caesar really knew how to throw down

IN 45 B.C., THE ROMAN EMPEROR JULIUS CAESAR SHOWED UP FOR A HOLIDAY PARTY WITH 2,000 OF HIS SOLDIERS AT THE HOME OF THE STATESMAN CICERO OUTSIDE OF NAPLES. Fresh from conquests in Egypt and Spain, and known as a party guy, he was ready for some fun. He bathed, took a walk on the beach and then, helped by emetics, "ate and drank without scruple."

And why not? It was the feast of Saturn, the down-home god of agriculture -- the mid-December celebration called Saturnalia, a huge Roman favorite. Citizens would untie the bound feet of the god's statue on December 17, and a week of carrying on would begin.

"Loose reins are given to public dissipation," the philosopher Seneca reported.

Schools were closed. Gifts were exchanged. Masters and slaves swapped roles. Drinking, gambling, feasting and "singing naked" would take place, according to one writer of the time. The poet Catullus said Saturnalia was the best feast ever.

As for Caesar, at the peak of his fame that holiday season, "he was pleased and enjoyed himself," wrote the statesman Cicero, who hoste0d the bash. "Trying to the temper, but not seriously inconvenient."

Two thousand years later, ancient Rome is in ruins, but this stubborn December tradition survives -- as the modern holiday office party.

Some things are different. The use of party emetics did not catch on. Nor, as far as we know, did naked singing. A stripper did show up at a D.C. Superior Court holiday party in 1981, but there's no record that she sang.

There remains, however, much that the Romans might recognize.

One year during a Christmas party at the White House, the West Wing burned down while the Marine band played and President Herbert Hoover watched, smoking a cigar.

In New York in 1928, a Christmas fest held by a real estate mogul sparked a riot in Manhattan. Someone got shoved through a plate-glass window and later sued.

And in Washington, the best office Yule soirees of the rollicking 1980s were famed for the brownies, seasoned with marijuana by the hostess, a well-known advertising executive with the firm of Goldberg/Marchesano & Associates Inc. One time she accidentally doubled the ingredients, and a sign was posted: "Be careful, the brownies are loaded. Only one to a person."

Down through the years, from the Romans to the Republicans, holiday parties have been occasions for merriment, romance, indulgence, drunkenness, lechery, abandon, even assault and murder.