The Sigillaria on 19 December was a day of gift-giving. Because gifts of value would mark social status contrary to the spirit of the season, these were often the pottery or wax figurines called "sigillaria" made specially for the day, candles, or "gag gifts", of which Augustus was particularly fond. Children received toys as gifts. In his many poems about the Saturnalia, Martial names both expensive and quite cheap gifts, including writing tablets, dice, knucklebones, moneyboxes, combs, toothpicks, a hat, a hunting knife, an axe, various lamps, balls, perfumes, pipes, a pig, a sausage, a parrot, tables, cups, spoons, items of clothing, statues, masks, books, and pets. Gifts might be as costly as a slave or exotic animal, but Martial suggests that token gifts of low intrinsic value inversely measure the high quality of a friendship. Patrons or "bosses" might pass along a gratuity "(sigillaricium)" to their poorer clients or dependents to help them buy gifts. Some emperors were noted for their devoted observance of the Sigillaria. In a practice that might be compared to modern greeting cards, verses sometimes accompanied the gifts. Martial has a collection of poems written as if to be attached to gifts. Catullus received a book of bad poems by "the worst poet of all time" as a joke from a friend. Gift-giving was not confined to the day of the Sigillaria. In some households, guests and family members received gifts after the feast in which slaves had shared. Imperial sources refer to a "Saturnalicius princeps" ("Ruler of the Saturnalia"), who ruled as master of ceremonies for the proceedings. He was appointed by lot, and has been compared to the medieval Lord of Misrule at the Feast of Fools. His capricious commands, such as "Sing naked!" or "Throw him into cold water!", had to be obeyed by the other guests at the "convivium": he creates and (mis)rules a chaotic and absurd world. The future emperor Nero is recorded as playing the role in his youth. Since this figure does not appear in accounts from the Republican period, the "princeps" of the Saturnalia may have developed as a satiric response to the new era of rule by a "princeps", the title assumed by the first emperor Augustus to avoid the hated connotations of the word "king" "(rex)".