These games—the chief Roman festival—were held in honor of Jupiter,[1] and are said to have been established by Tarquinius Priscus on the occasion of his conquest of the Latin town of Apiolae.
[2] However, Dionysius of Halicarnassus[3] and Cicero[4] date them to the Roman victory over the Latins at Lake Regillus during the early Republic, ca.
In many cases, games were based on a vow (votum) by a military commander, and were celebrated as a special festival after his triumphal procession.
As the army used to go forth as a general rule each summer, it became customary when it returned in autumn to celebrate such games, though connected with no triumph, and though no signal victory had been gained.
The distinction drawn by Ritschl is to be considered proven, but it is unclear when the "established" games became annual.
Mommsen, Die römische Chronologie, &c. p. 30), these festivals are engraved in small letters rather than capitals, so they must be additions made after that time.
Therefore, the most reasonable date for their institution is 367 BC, when many changes in government and society were effected, including the addition of one day to the games and the appointment of curule aediles to superintend them.
Yet Livy and the other authors who identify the ludi magni and Romani are not altogether in error: for the arrangement of the two kinds of games was similar.
An incidental proof of this is that when Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus ludi votivi in 70 BC, they lasted 15 days (Cicero In Verrem i.
[15] The actual ludi Romani consisted of first a solemn procession (pompa), then a chariot race in which each chariot in Homeric fashion carried a driver and a warrior, the latter at the end of the race leaping out and running on foot (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities vii.
These few events allowed further minor exhibitions, such as boxers, dancers, competition in youthful horsemanship (ludus Trojae).
It was allowed that the wreath the victor won (for this in Greek style was the prize of victory) should be put on his bier when dead (Twelve Tables, 10, 7, and Mommsen's remarks, Staatsrecht, i.2 411, note 2).
235-237 (where the Greek influences on the Roman games are traced), 472, 473; and Friedländer in Marquardt's Staatsverwaltung, iii.