The Public Games of the Romans

Extract

(a) Origin and Development. The public games at Rome had their origin in religion. Thus the earliest games of which we have any account, those distinguished for the rape of the Sabine women, were in honour of the god Consus, and another very ancient festival, the Equirria, was in honour of Mars. That something of their religious character was felt even in the last days of the Republic is shown by a passage of Cicero: ‘An, si ludius consistit aut tibicen repente conticuit … aut si aedilis verbo aut simpulo aberravit, ludi sunt non rite facti?’ For Roman religion was marked by a love of formality and ritual: if, therefore, the slightest hitch occurred in the ceremonial procedure, the games were regarded as having failed to satisfy the gods, and it was necessary to start them afresh. So we meet in Livy such notices as ludi in unum diem or in biduum instaurati: sometimes the second performance was no more successful than the first, in which case we find ludi ter, quater, or even septies instaurati. Claudius, suspecting that these hitches were occasionally manufactured in order that the games might be prolonged, decreed that at the second performance chariotand horse-races should be finished in one day.