But the special exhibition of the amphitheatre was the munus gladiatorium, which dates from the funeral games of Marcus and Decimus Brutus, given in honour of their father, 264 B.C. It was probably borrowed from Etruria, and a refinement on the common savage custom of slaughtering slaves or captives on the grave of a warrior or chieftain. Nothing so clearly brings before us the vein of coarseness and inhumanity which runs through the otherwise noble character of the Roman, as his passion for gladiatorial shows. We can fancy how Pericles, or even Alcibiades, would have loathed a spectacle that Augustus tolerated and Trajan patronized. Only after the conquest of Greece we hear of their introduction into Athens, and they were then admitted rather out of compliment to the conquerors than from any love of the sport. In spite of numerous prohibitions from Constantine downwards, they continued to flourish even as late as St Augustine. To a Christian martyr, if we may credit the story told by Theodoret and Cassiodorus, belongs the honour of their final abolition. In the year 404 Telemachus, a monk who had travelled from the East on this sacred mission, rushed into the arena and endeavoured to separate the combatants. He was instantly despatched by the praetor’s orders; but Honorius, on hearing the report, issued an edict abolishing the games, which were never afterwards revived. (See [Gladiators].)
Of the other Roman games the briefest description must suffice. The Ludi Apollinares were established in 212 B.C., and were annual after 211 B.C.; mainly theatrical performances. The Megalenses were in honour of the great goddess, Cybele: instituted 204 B.C., and from 191 B.C. celebrated annually. A procession of Galli, or priests of Cybele, was a leading feature. Under the empire the festival assumed a more orgiastic character. Four of Terence’s plays were produced at these games. The Ludi Saeculares were celebrated at the beginning or end of each saeculum, a period variously interpreted by the Romans themselves as 100 or 110 years. The celebration by Augustus in 17 B.C. is famous by reason of the Ode composed by Horace for the occasion. They were solemnized by the emperor Philip A.D. 248 to commemorate the millennium of the city.
2. Private Games.—These may be classified as outdoor and indoor games. There is naturally all the world over a much closer resemblance between the pursuits and amusements of children than of adults. Homer’s children built castles in the sand, and Greek and Roman children alike had their dolls, their hoops, their skipping-ropes, their hobby-horses, their kites, their knuckle-bones and played at hopscotch, the tug-of-war, pitch and toss, blind-man’s buff, hide and seek, and kiss in the ring or at closely analogous games. Games of ball were popular in Greece from the days of Nausicaa, and at Rome there were five distinct kinds of ball and more ways of playing with them. For particulars the dictionary of antiquities must be consulted. It is strange that we can find in classical literature no analogy to cricket, tennis, golf or polo, and though the follis resembled our football, it was played with the hand and arm, not with the leg. Cock-fighting was popular both at Athens and Rome, and quails were kept and put to various tests to prove their pluck.
Under indoor games we may distinguish games of chance and games of skill, though in some of them the two elements are combined. Tesserae, shaped and marked with pips like modern dice, were evolved from the tali, knuckle-bones with only four flat sides. The old Roman threw a hazard and called a main, just as did Charles Fox, and the vice of gambling was lashed by Juvenal no less vigorously than by Pope. The Latin name for a dice-box has survived in the fritillary butterfly and flower.
The primitive game of guessing the number of fingers simultaneously held up by the player and his opponent is still popular in Italy where it is known as “morra.” The proverbial phrase for an honest man was quicum in tenebris mices, one you would trust to play at morra in the dark.
Athena found the suitors of Penelope seated on cowhides and playing at πεσσοί, some kind of draughts. The invention of the game was ascribed to Palamedes. In its earliest form it was played on a board with five lines and with five pieces. Later we find eleven lines, and a further development was the division of the board into squares, as in the game of πόλεις (cities). In the Roman latrunculi (soldiers), the men were distinguished as common soldiers and “rovers,” the equivalent of crowned pieces.
Duodecim scripta, as the name implies, was played on a board with twelve double lines and approximated very closely to our backgammon. There were fifteen pieces on each side, and the moves were determined by a throw of the dice; “blots” might be taken, and the object of the player was to clear off all his own men. Lastly must be mentioned the Cottabus (q.v.), a game peculiar to the Greeks, and with them the usual accompaniment of a wine party. In its simplest form each guest threw what was left in his cup into a metal basin, and the success of the throw, determined partly by the sound of the wine in falling, was reckoned a divination of love. For the various elaborations of the game (in Sicily we read of Cottabus houses), Athenaeus and Pollux must be consulted.
Bibliography.—Daremberg et Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, articles “Agon,” “Athleta,” “Circus,” “Ludi,” “Olympia,” “Spiele”; Curtius and Adler, Olympia (5 vols., 1890, &c.); Hachtmann, Olympia und seine Festspiele; Blümner, Home Life of the Ancient Greeks; J.P. Mahaffy, Old Greek Education; P. Gardner and F.B. Jevons, Manual of Greek Antiquities; E.N. Gardiner, Greek Athletic Sports (1910); Becker-Marquardt, Handbuch der römischen Altertümer (5 vols.).
(F. S.)