Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/492

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

472

CHAPTER IX.

ART AND SCIENCE.

The Roman national festival. The growth of art, and of poetic art especially, in antiquity was intimately associated with the development of national festivals. The extraordinary thanksgiving-festival of the Roman community which had been organized in the previous period mainly under Greek influence, the ludi maximi, or Romani (P. 235), acquired during the present epoch a longer duration, and greater variety in the amusements. Originally limited to one day, the festival was prolonged by an additional day after the happy termination of each of the three great revolutions of 245 ^[509], 260 ^[494], and 387 ^[367], and thus at the close of this period it had already a duration of four days.^[1]

A still more important circumstance was, that, probably on the institution of the curule ædileship (387 ^[367]) which was from

↑ The account given by Dionysius (vi. 95; comp. Niebuhr, ii. 40) and by Plutarch deriving his statement from another passage in Dionysius (Camill. 42), regarding the Latin festival, must be understood to apply to the Roman rather than the Latin games, as, apart from other grounds, is strikingly evident from comparing the latter passage with Liv. vi. 42 (comp. Ritschl. Parerg. i. p. 313). Dionysius has perseveringly, according to his wont when in error, misunderstood the expression ludi maximi. There was, moreover, a tradition which referred the origin of the national festival not, as in the common version, to the conquest of the Latins by the first Tarquinius, but to the victory over the Latins at the Lake Regillus (Cicero, de Div, i. 26, 55; Dionys. vii. 71). That the important statements preserved in the latter passage from Fabius really relate to the ordinary thanksgiving-festival, and not to any special votive solemnity, is evident from the express allusion to the annual recurrence of the festival, and from the exact agreement of the sum of the expenses with the statement of the Pseudo-Asconius (p. 142 Or.).

[1] The account given by Dionysius (vi. 95; comp. Niebuhr, ii. 40) and by Plutarch deriving his statement from another passage in Dionysius (Camill. 42), regarding the Latin festival, must be understood to apply to the Roman rather than the Latin games, as, apart from other grounds, is strikingly evident from comparing the latter passage with Liv. vi. 42 (comp. Ritschl. Parerg. i. p. 313). Dionysius has perseveringly, according to his wont when in error, misunderstood the expression ludi maximi. There was, moreover, a tradition which referred the origin of the national festival not, as in the common version, to the conquest of the Latins by the first Tarquinius, but to the victory over the Latins at the Lake Regillus (Cicero, de Div, i. 26, 55; Dionys. vii. 71). That the important statements preserved in the latter passage from Fabius really relate to the ordinary thanksgiving-festival, and not to any special votive solemnity, is evident from the express allusion to the annual recurrence of the festival, and from the exact agreement of the sum of the expenses with the statement of the Pseudo-Asconius (p. 142 Or.).

[1]