Ludi Games
Carmel Kittell
Originally, all ludi seem to have been votive offerings (ludi votivi), staged as the fulfillment of a vow to a deity whose favor had been sought and evidenced. In 366 BC, the Ludi Romani became the first games to be placed on the religious calendar as an annual event sponsored by the state as a whole.[8] Games in the circus were preceded by a parade (pompa circensis) featuring the competitors, mounted youths of the Roman nobility, armed dancers, musicians, a satyr chorus, and images of the gods. As the product of military victory, ludi were often connected to triumphs. The first recorded venatio (staged beast hunt) was presented in 186 BC by M. Fulvius Nobilior as part of his ludi votivi, for which he paid with booty displayed at his triumph.[9]
As religious ceremonies, ludi were organized at first by various colleges of priests; during the Republic, they were later presented by consuls, but became most associated with the responsibilities of the aediles. Although public money was allocated for the staging of ludi, the presiding official increasingly came to augment the splendor of his games from personal funds as a form of public relations.[10] The sponsor was able to advertise his wealth, while declaring that he intended to share it for public benefit. Although some men with an eye on the consulship skipped the office of aedile for the very reason that massive expenditures were expected, those with sufficient resources spent lavishly to cultivate the favor of the people. The religious festivals to which the ludi were attached also occasioned public banquets, and often public works such as the refurbishing or building of temples.[11]
The ludi compitalicii ("crossroads games") were entertainments staged by the neighborhoods or community associations of Rome (vici)[13] in conjunction with the Compitalia, the new year festival held on movable dates between the Saturnalia and January 5[14] in honor of the crossroads Lares. In the late Republic, performances were held at the main intersections of neighborhoods throughout the city on the same day.[15] During the civil wars of the 80s, these ludi gave rise to often unruly plebeian political expression by the neighborhood organizations. Freedmen played a leading role, and even slaves participated in the festivities.
An unnamed tribune of the plebs supported efforts to stage the ludi for 61 BC, but the consul-designate Metellus Celer squelched the attempt.[19] In 58 BC, Clodius Pulcher, who had given up his patrician status to become one of the people's tribunes, restored the right of association, but even before his law was enacted, his aide Sextus Cloelius had prepared the way by organizing new-year ludi. The consul Calpurnius Piso, father-in-law of Caesar, permitted the games, even though the organizations that ran them were still outlawed.[20] Caesar banned the collegia and ludi again in 46 BC.
In 7 BC, Augustus reorganized Rome for administrative purposes into 265 districts which replaced but which were still called vici.[21] An image of the Genius of Augustus now stood between the Lares at the crossroads shrines, and the ludi once considered dangerously subversive became expressions of Imperial piety.[22]
Ludi circenses were games presented in the circus. The Circus Maximus was primarily a venue for chariot races, but other athletic events, races, and beast hunts might be offered as well.[23] The games were preceded by an opening parade, the pompa circensis. Ludi circenses were regularly featured in celebrating a triumph or dedicating a major building. They were part of the most important holidays and festivals, such as the Floralia, Ludi Romani ("Roman Games"), and Ludi Plebeii ("Plebeian Games").[24] During the Imperial era, circus games were often added to festivals for which they were not traditionally celebrated in the Republic.[25] Circus games were held in various provinces throughout the empire, as indicated by archaeological remains of tracks and supporting structures, although many areas would have lacked costly permanent facilities and instead erected temporary stands around suitable grounds.[26]
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The ludi were not holidays (feriae), as such, although they did have their origins in religion and ritual, and the days of their celebration were considered dies festi. The oldest and most famous of the public games were the Ludi Romani (Roman Games), which originally were vowed in honor of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, whose temple was dedicated on September 13, 509 BC, as a votive offering if victory were won in battle. They were celebrated in the Circus Maximus following the triumphal procession (pompa) from the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitol. By 366 BC, they had become an annual event, no longer associated with the triumph, and were held for several weeks in September.
These and other games came to occupy an increasing number of days on the calendar and originally were devoted either to chariot racing (ludi circenses), animal hunts (venationes), or theatrical performances (ludi scaenici). Later, by the end of the Republic, gladiatorial contests (munera) were included. With the advent of the emperors, additional festival days and public games were declared, celebrating the emperor's birthday, day of accession, notable victories, possible consecration, and even fortuitous escapes from assassination. The result was such a profusion of holidays (perhaps as much as half the calendar year) that Romans spent much of their time at the Circus.
Of all the games, the most intriguing are the Ludi Saeculares (Secular Games). Valerius Maximus (II.4.5) relates the story of a father whose three children were sick with the plague. Directed by an oracle to drink water warmed from the altar of Dis and Proserpina, they landed at Tarentum, at the western boundary of the Campus Martius, where the presence of hot springs led to the belief that it was an entrance to the underworld. The children were cured and the grateful father celebrated with sacrifices, games, and a lectisternium, in which couches were set as if the gods were in attendance, for three successive nights, one for each child.
In fact, the origin of these early Ludi Tarentini is obscure and their celebration, as Censorinus complains (XVII), uncertain. The first historical games probably were in 249 BC and a century later in 146 BC (Zosimus, II.5) at times of national calamity (the First and Third Punic wars).
Customarily celebrated only once in a lifetime, the saeculum was defined in the Republican period as one hundred years, the longest span of human life. Expiatory sacrifices were offered then to the deities of the underworld to mark the commencement of a new generation. By the time of Augustus, the period was fixed at one hundred ten years. Whatever the length, the Secular Games more often were scheduled for political reasons than to denote a particular cycle of time. Augustus celebrated them in 17 BC to inaugurate the beginning of a new age, commissioning Horace to write a choral hymn, the Carmen Saeculare (in which the seven hills of Rome are first mentioned). Claudius found a pretext for the games in AD 47 to mark the eight-hundredth birthday of Rome; Domitian held them again in AD 88 (counting almost a century since Augustus), and Severus in AD 204 (two saecula after those of Augustus). Magnificent games were celebrated by Philippus (Philip the Arab) for the last time in AD 248 on the thousandth anniversary of Rome's founding (following Claudius' precedent of a one-hundred year saeculum) (Victor, XXVIII; Eutropius, IX.3; Orosius, VII.20).
"Heralds go about summoning everyone to attend a spectacle they have never seen bfore and will never see again. In summer, a few days before it begins, the Quindecemviri sit in the Capitol and in the Palatine temple on a tribunal and distribute purifying agents, such as torches, brimstone and pitch, to the people; slaves do not participate in this, only freemen. When all the people assemble in the above-mentioned places and in the temple of Diana on the Aventine, each one bringing wheat, barley and beans, they keep the all-night vigils to the Fates with great solemnity for [lacuna] nights. Then when the time arrives for the festival, which is celebrated for three days and three nights in the Campus Martius, the victims are dedicated on the bank of the Tiber at Tarentum" (II.5.1-2).
He goes on to describe the ceremony. The first night the emperor participated in the sacrifice of three lambs by the Tiber. Fires were kindled, a newly composed hymn sung, and sacred pageants presented. The next day, there were sacrifices at the Capitoline and games dedicated to Apollo and Diana. On the second day, noble matrons prayed and sang hymns to Juno. On the third, twenty-seven boys and the same number of girls, whose parents both still were living, sang hymns in the Temple of Apollo for the preservation of Rome. During this time, games were celebrated in the circus and theaters.
"Therefore, as the [Sibylline] oracle truly says, while all this was observed according to direction, the Roman empire was safe and Rome remained in control of virtually all the inhabited world, but once this festival was neglected after Diocletian's abdication, the empire gradually collapsed and was imperceptibly barbarised.... From the consulship of Chilo and Libo [AD 204], when Severus celebrated the Secular Games, until Diocletian for the ninth time and Maximian for the eighth were consuls [AD 304], one hundred years elapsed. Maximian wanted to celebrate the festival then, contrary to rule, but next year Diocletian became a private citizen instead of emperor and Maximian followed his example. When Constantine and Licinius were in their third consulship [AD 314], the period of one hundred and ten years had elapsed and they ought to have kept up the traditional festival. By neglecting it, matters were bound to come to their present unhappy state" (II.7.1-2).
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