Races and Theatricals
The ordinary performances in the theatre and circus, such as officials were required to arrange when they took office, were arranged by Augustus four times in his own name and twenty-three times in the names of other persons. Races in the circus, in particular, had been in vogue from very old times and enjoyed a high degree of popularity. It is true that the enthusiasm of the people did not reach the culminating point till the latter days of the empire, but the germ and rudiment was there even in republican times, and the age of Augustus did its fair share towards developing it. Epitaphs were not yet composed on the victors, like the τοὺς σοὺς ἀγῶνας αἰὼν λαλησει of subsequent centuries, but the interest and enthusiasm were spreading to wider circles. The prizes which rewarded the winners of the various races were valuable, and an exact record was kept of the first, second, and third prizes carried off by a famous charioteer in different years. There were originally only two parties in the circus, the whites and the reds, but the greens and the blues appear to have been added by the time of Augustus; or so it seems probable from inscriptions which, though they bear no date, yet form part of a large find of this period.
Even private individuals (e.g., a relative of the famous jurist Ateius Capito) were beginning to keep racing stables with a numerous staff. His slaves and freedmen formed a life-insurance association in which Vipsanius Agrippa also insured his servants of the same class. The Trojan riding matches which the sons of aristocratic families, including that of the emperor, repeatedly exhibited under Augustus have already been mentioned.
Theatrical performances are mentioned in the emperor’s enumeration, but recede very much into the background as being quite commonplace; they were mainly the affair of newly elected officials, but Augustus himself had plays acted in all sorts of places—the Forum, the Amphitheatre, and even on temporary stages in the streets and squares of the capital, in every language spoken in Rome, Latin and Greek being of course the chief. Every play-giver desired to offer the populace something quite unique. The dictator had even allowed a Roman knight to appear on the stage, and his son followed his example until it was interdicted by a decree of the senate.
Augustus purposely abstained from increasing the number of ordinary and regular festivals to any great extent. The Secular games, of which we shall speak presently, naturally do not come under this head, as do the district games, associated with the new subdivision of the capital. We have already mentioned the games commemorative of the victory of Actium; the martial games were added later in commemoration of the solemn dedication of the magnificent temple of Mars in 2 B.C.
To the innovations of the empire also belong the votive games for the return of the emperor from Gaul and Spain in the years 13 B.C. and 7 B.C.; also votive games for the welfare of Augustus which were arranged every four years by the great colleges of priests in compliance with a decree of the senate.
The example of Rome soon found imitators in the capitals of the provinces; sometimes it was the emperor himself who instituted games there, sometimes prominent citizens who had received or hoped to receive some post of honour. The number of games held in honour of Augustus was very great, especially in the Greek cities. In Naples the imperial games were celebrated in the same fashion as the Olympic games, in commemoration of the visit of Augustus in the year 14 A.D.
NOVUM SECULUM—THE NEW BIRTH FOR ROME
Even as in the life of the individual there are often moments when he remembers with grief and yearning the golden days of childhood, so in the development of nations there are periods when the best minds of the nation dream of a past golden age, in which both the crime and the progress which have come to pass in the course of historical development were unknown. The farther the nation is from a primitive condition and the more strongly its members feel the drawbacks of civilisation, the brighter are the colours in which they paint the innocent joys of an earlier state of things to which violence and rapine were as yet strangers.
The generation which had grown to manhood during the civil wars had of necessity accustomed itself to horrors which are spared to those who grow up in times of order. All the more vividly did they dream of a happy and primitive age in the distant past; for none feels a greater enthusiasm for peace than those who have had to endure the evils of war.