Complex Rituals 223dramas on the stage. Cicero confirms this differentiation of public games into ludi
circensesand ludi scaenici: ludi publici, quoniam sunt cavea circoque divisi(Leg.2.38).
Finally, the fact that the origins and development of the ludi publiciare closely
interwoven with the general history of the Roman republic must be emphasized. The
array of public games which presents itself on the eve of the principate, including
numerous types of spectacles directed to the worship of various deities and a wealth
of forms and rites with diverse functions, was by no means the result of a consistent
process of emergence from original simplicity developing toward final complexity.
Rather, the development of the games was constant, but by no means consistent,
running parallel to the development of the Roman state in its rise to hegemony right
up to its ultimate dissolution.
Emergence and Expansion of the System of
Public Games
The system of public games was not a clearly defined state institution created ad
hoc, but the result of gradual development beginning in the archaic period, when
horse races were staged regularly which were later to find their way into the festival
calendar as annual celebrations and were related to the deity Mars. (The double cel-
ebration of these Ecurria/Equirriaon February 27 and March 14 is connected with
the change in the dates set for the Roman New Year’s Day, since the horse races
were originally intended to provide ritual accompaniment to the turn of the year.)
However, the Etruscan kings of Rome are thought to have played a formative role
in the history of the ludi publici, giving the promotion of games in the city of Rome
a fundamental shape.
Annalistic tradition attributed the institution of the ludi Romani, and the con-
struction of the Circus Maximus for horse and chariot races in the valley between
the Aventine and Palatine, to the Tarquins (e.g. Livy 1.35.7–9, 1.56.2). This can
be accepted as essentially credible, because this late written evidence corresponds to
a highly developed Etruscan games culture that is far more reliably attested by archae-
ological monuments. The ara Consi, the altar to the old harvest deity Consus, existed
earlier in the Circus valley. Thus in the Etruscan period, the Consualia, long since
held annually by the pontificeson August 21 and December 15, were extended ritu-
ally to include horse and mule races. The new spectacles inaugurated by the Tarquins,
though, were neither votive games nor ludithat were linked with the triumph,
as would be consistent with Theodor Mommsen’s widely accepted thesis (1859).
These pre-republican games had their actual origin in the Iuppiter cult, the worship
of that deity who, as Iuppiter Optimus Maximus, gained a special importance for
the Roman polity in the sixth century bc. Key clues to their true origin can be found
in the construction and the dedication of the exceptional temple to Iuppiter on the
Capitol, so that we can conclude that the rite of the procession, the pompa, which
opened the ludialso points back to the later archaic period. After all, Iuppiter had
to be transported from his temple to the venue of the games being held in his honor,
that is, to what was known as the Circus valley, where sacrifice was made to him