Ludi Saeculares

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LUDI SAECULARES

LUDI SAECULARES , the centennial games of ancient Rome, were rites celebrated in fulfillment of a vow pronounced at the beginning of the previous saeculum. Because a saeculum, in the wider sense of the term, was a period of time longer than the longest human life, no one could attend the games twice. It seems that initially the games went on for three nights; in any case, from the time of Augustus onward they lasted three days and three nights and were held, in principle, every 100 or 110 years, depending on the computation. The functioning and arrangement of this festival changed in the course of time, but its purpose remained the same: to purify the res publica at the beginning of a new era, by putting a hopeful end to a given period of time.

We do not know how far back the centennial games go. The ancients, followed by some modern scholars, sometimes claimed an early date: the fifth century bce; it is certain at any rate that centennial games were celebrated in 249 bce at the urging of the Sibylline Books; these games included nocturnal sacrifices in honor of Dis Pater (god of the underworld) and Proserpina, to which were added chariot races. It may be, however, that in one or another manner these games replaced a cult of the Valerian gens, which clearly was of greater antiquity but was celebrated on the same site as the centennial games: in the Campus Martius (Field of Mars), near the Tiber River, level with the modern Ponte Vittorio Emmanuele, in that part of the Field of Mars known as the Tarentum (though the connection with the Tarentum is doubtful).

At the beginning of the reign of Augustus, in 17 bce, centennial games were celebrated with great pomp in order to mark the end of a period of destruction and bloodshed and the beginning of a golden age. It was in the form the games acquired at this time that they were subsequently celebrated in 88 and 204 ce. (A parallel series of festivities was held on April 21 of the years 248, 147, and 47 bce to commemorate the centenaries of the foundation of Rome; the rites were simpler but also went by the name of centennial games.) The new liturgy comprised a complex series of nocturnal and diurnal rites. The nocturnal rites, which opened each day's festival after midnight and were regarded as a prolongation of the games of antiquity, marked the close of the preceding century with a sacrifice to the Fates (June 1), the Ilithyiae, goddesses of childbirth (June 2), and Mother Earth (June 3). The daytime sacrifices were offered to Jupiter Optimus Maximus (June 1, on the Capitoline), Juno Regina (June 2, on the Capitoline), and Apollo and Diana (June 3, on the Palatine). During the three nights, after the sacrifices, sellisternia or religious banquets were celebrated on the Capitoline in honor of Juno and Diana; 110 matrons of senatorial and knightly rank took part, and then plays were presented on the Campus near the Tiber. During the daytime these plays were continued from June 1 to 3 after the sacrifices to Apollo and Diana; other plays were added, known as Latin plays, and there were more banquets in honor of Juno and Diana. The climax of the entire festival came on the third day after the sacrifice to Apollo and Diana: 27 boys and 27 girls of senatorial rank, whose fathers and mothers were still living, recited a Carmen saeculare on the Palatine and the Capitoline (the centennial ode for 17 bce was composed by Horace). After the celebration of the banquets and other rites, the plays ended, and chariot races, held in a temporary arena, brought the liturgy proper to an end.

Along with the festivals of the Arval Brothers, the centennial games of the emperors Augustus and Septimius Severus (193–211) are the Roman religious liturgies best known to us, thanks to the discovery of extensive records in epigraphic form.

Bibliography

Brind'amour, P. "L'origine des jeux séculaires." In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, vol. 2.16.2, pp. 1334–1417. Berlin and New York, 1978.

Gagé, Jean. Recherches sur les jeux séculaires. Paris, 1934.

Pighi, Giovanni Battista. De ludis saecularibus populi Romani Quiritium libri sex. 2d ed. Amsterdam, 1965.

New Sources

Altheim, Franz. "Poetry and Cult: The Secular Hymn of Horace." In A History of Roman Religion, translated by H. Mattingly, pp. 394–407. London, 1938.

Gagé, Jean. La reforme apollinienne des jeux et le chant séculaire d'Horace; l'achèvement suprème du 'ritus graecus' à Rome des origines à Auguste. Paris, 1956. See pages 629–637.

Guittard, Charles. "Les prières dans la célébration des jeux séculaires augustéens." In Dieux, fêtes, sacré dans la Grèce et la Rome antiques, edited by André Motte and Charles M. Ternes, pp. 205–215. Turnhout, 2003.