Secular Games
The Secular or Saecular Games
According to
Republic
According to
Celebrations of the Games under the
Augustus
The Games were revived in 17 BC by Rome's first emperor Augustus. The date was justified by a Sibylline oracle that called for the Games to be celebrated every 110 years, and a new reconstruction of the Games' Republican history which placed a first celebration in 456 BC.[19]
Before the Games themselves, heralds went around the city and invited the people to "a spectacle, such as they had never witnessed and never would again".
The Senate decreed that an inscribed record of the Games should be set up in the
Date | Time | Location | Deities | Sacrifices |
---|---|---|---|---|
May 31 | Night | Campus Martius | Moerae | 9 female lambs, 9 she-goats |
June 1 | Day | Capitoline Hill | Jupiter Optimus Maximus
|
2 bulls |
June 1 | Night | Campus Martius | Ilythiae (Εἰλείθυια) | 27 sacrificial cakes (9 of each of three types) |
June 2 | Day | Capitoline Hill | Juno Regina
|
2 cows |
June 2 | Night | Campus Martius | Terra Mater
|
Pregnant sow |
June 3 | Day | Palatine Hill | Apollo and Diana | 27 sacrificial cakes (9 of each of three types) |
The key roles were played by Augustus and his son-in-law
Each sacrifice was followed by theatrical performances. Once the major sacrifices were over, the days between June 5 and June 11 were devoted to Greek and Latin plays, and June 12 saw chariot racing and displays of hunting.[23]
Later games
The Games continued to be celebrated under later emperors, but two different systems of calculation were used to determine their dates. Claudius held them in AD 47 to celebrate the 800th year from the foundation of Rome.[17][26] According to Suetonius, a herald's proclamation of a spectacle "which no one had ever seen or would ever see again" amused his listeners, some of whom had attended the Games under Augustus.[27]
Under subsequent emperors, Games were celebrated on both the Augustan and the Claudian systems. Domitian held his in AD 88,[17][28] possibly 110 years from a planned Augustan celebration in 22 BC,[29] and he was followed by Septimius Severus in AD 204, 220 years from the actual Augustan celebration.[12][17] On both occasions, the procedure used in 17 BC was followed closely.[30] Antoninus Pius on 21 August 148[31] and Philip I in 248 followed Claudius in celebrating the 900- and 1000-year anniversaries of Rome's foundation, respectively. These involved rituals at the Temple of Venus and Roma instead of the Tarentum, and the date was probably changed to the Parilia on April 21.[30] In the case of Antoninus Pius, the games aligned with his decennalia, the celebration of the first ten years of his own rule.[31]
By 314, 110 years from the Games of Septimius Severus, the Christian
References
Citations
- ISBN 978-1-4008-8885-6.
- ISBN 978-3-11-073607-6.
- ISBN 978-90-04-12259-8.
- ISBN 978-0-19-938113-5.
- ISSN 1568-5276.
- JSTOR 283039.
- ^ Tacitus, Cornelius. Furneaux, Henry (ed.). Annals XI (in Latin) (1907 ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 17.
ludi saeculares octingentesimo post Romam conditam
- S2CID 216460005.
- ISBN 978-0-19-938113-5.
- ISBN 978-90-272-3578-7.
- ^ Valerius Maximus 2.4.5.
- ^ a b c d e Zosimus 2.
- ^ Censorinus 17.10.
- ^ Beard et al., vol. 1, pp. 71–72.
- ^ a b Livy, Periochae 49.6 Archived 2018-12-04 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Varro in Censorinus 17.8.
- ^ a b c d Censorinus 17.11.
- ^ Beard et al., vol. 1, pp. 71–72, 111.
- ^ Beard et al., vol. 1, p. 205. The oracle is preserved in Zosimus 2, and is also translated by Braund, no. 770. This cycle would logically have led to Games in 16 rather than 17 BC; the reason for the discrepancy is unclear (Beard et al., vol. 1, p. 205 and n. 126).
- ^ Beard et al., vol. 1, p. 203.
- ^ Braund, no. 768.
- ^ Inscription CIL VI, 32323 = AE 2002, 192, with English translation.
- ^ a b Beard et al., vol. 2, no. 5.7b = Braund, no. 769.
- ^ JSTOR 10.3366/j.ctt1r2b8s.15.
- ISSN 0003-567X.
- ^ Tacitus, Annals 11.11.
- Claudius 21.2.
- S2CID 192958570.
- Domitian 4.3, with Jones and Milns, p. 130.
- ^ a b Beard et al., vol. 1, p. 206.
- ^ a b Rachet, Marguerite (1980), "Decennalia et Vincennalia sous la Dynastie des Antonins" [Decennalia and Vicennalia under the Antonine Dynasty], Revue des Études Anciennes [Review of Ancient Studies] (in French), vol. 82, Bordeaux: University Press of Bordeaux, pp. 200–242.
Bibliography
- Beard, Mary; North, John A.; Price, Simon (1998). Religions of Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-30401-6. (vol. 1). (vol. 2).
- Braund, David C. (1985). Augustus to Nero: A Sourcebook on Roman History 31 BC–AD 68. Totowa: Barnes and Noble. ISBN 978-0-389-20536-4.
- Jones, Brian; Robert Milns (2002). Suetonius: The Flavian Emperors: A Historical Commentary. London: Bristol Classical Press. ISBN 978-1-85399-613-9.
- Pighi, Giovanni Battista (1965). De ludis saecularibus populi Romani Quiritium (2nd ed.). Amsterdam: Schippers.
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Secular Games". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 573. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the