hrone.
The Votive Ludi include:
- The Ludi Magni which were started on the bringing into Rome of the goddess Cibele at the time of the Carthaginian wars. Fabius Maximus devoted them to Jupiter and sacrificed several hundred Ox on the occasion. They tended to last four days and occurred more or less every five years.
- Victoriae. First held by Sylla after his victory over Marius during the civil wars of Rome at the end of the Republic.
- Quinquennales. Were started by Augustus and were held every five years to commemorate his victory over Marc Anthony at Actium, for this reason they were also known as the Ludi Actiaci. They were organised and presided over by four priesthoods.
- Decennales. These games were a great event held every ten years. Instituted by Augustus as a politically friendly means of appearing to hand over power and be given it for a further ten year mandate without allowing the people to feel menaced by a perpetual ruler.
- Triumphales, as part of a General’s triumph.
- Natalitii, on the Emperor’s birthday.
- Other votive games included the Ludi Juvenales or Ludi Juventutis, the Ludi Miscelli and finally
- the Ludi Funebres which according to Tertullian in his book De Spectaculis later developed into the Gladiatorial shows.
The Ludi Funebres
These were one of the earliest types of public games held in honour of the deceased. At first the person being celebrated was a high dignitary but with time this could also include the rich, who might include such fights to the death as part of their final wills. With time it came to be that the situation reversed itself in that the common people themselves came to expect the shows as a result of an important funeral. As a result of this the shows were increasingly organised out of public coffers.
Suetonius tells us that Julius Caesar also allowed the honour of Gladiatorial combat to be extended to the funeral of women when he treated the people of Rome with a show in honour of his deceased daughter.
Much more is said about the Gladiatorial shows in a specific section about the Colosseum and the Gladiators.
As already mentioned in the section about the priestly orders the feast of the Lupercalia was a feast of purification. The festivity was linked to the god of shepherds and woodlands Faun or Pan and focused on the image of the Wolf.
Although the name is reminiscent of the She wolf which had bred Romulus and Remus the very myth of Romulus tells us of the Lupercalia being celebrated by the Arcadians: a pastoral population which had come to Italy from Greece. The feast was regularly celebrated for some 1300 years of ancient Rome right through to the sixth century.
The ceremony began in the Lupercal cave on (in?) the Palatine hill where a goat and a dog would be sacrificed. The goat was intended as a symbol of the god because he had goat’s feet, whilst the dog was sacrificed because it is the shepherd’s usual companion and guards the sheep against wolves.
The blood stained knives would then be wiped over the foreheads of two children of noble family and subsequently the same blood would be wiped off with locks of wool dipped in milk. It seems that it was important that the boys should laugh when their foreheads were wiped clean.
The boys would then clothe themselves in the goat’s skin and run down the streets, in the manner of the god Faun/Pan, lashing out at the bystanders with whips, called “februa“, made of the same sacrificed hide they wore. Plutarch tells us that to be hit or touched was actually a good thing and was meant to assist women in conceiving or delivering children.
The name of the month February is derived from this feast.