Ludus (ancient Rome)

Ludus (plural ludi) in ancient Rome could refer to a primary school, a board game, or a gladiator training school. The various meanings of the Latin word are all within the semantic field of "play, game, sport, training" (see also ludic).^[1]

An

elementary or primary school or the school of the “litterator" attended by boys and girls up to the age of 11 was a ludus. Ludi were to be found throughout the city, and were run by a ludi magister (schoolmaster) who was often an educated slave or freedman

. School started around six o'clock each morning and finished just after midday. Students were taught math, reading, writing, poetry, geometry and sometimes rhetoric.

The word ludus also referred to a training school for gladiators; see Gladiator: Schools and training. Examples include the Ludus Magnus and Ludus Dacicus.

Ludus was also the word for a board game, examples of which include ludus latrunculorum and ludus duodecim scriptorum, or a game played with knucklebones (astragali).

Latin poetry often explores the concept of ludus as playfulness, both in the writing of poetry as a kind of play and as a field for erotic role-playing.^[2] "Poetic play (ludus, ludere, iocum, etc.)," Michèle Lowrie observes, "denotes two related things: stylistic elegance of the Alexandrian variety and erotic poetry."^[3]

Ludi, always plural, were the games held in conjunction with Roman religious festivals.

References

^ Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982, 1985 reprint), pp. 1048–1049.
^ Thomas N. Habinek, The World of Roman Song: From Ritualized Speech to Social Order (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), pp. 5, 143, et passim.
^ Michèle Lowrie, Horace's Narrative Odes (Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 41.

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[1] Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982, 1985 reprint), pp. 1048–1049.

[2] Thomas N. Habinek, The World of Roman Song: From Ritualized Speech to Social Order (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), pp. 5, 143, et passim.

[3] Michèle Lowrie, Horace's Narrative Odes (Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 41.

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References