expenses incurred in connection with the preparation, the impensae ludorum
publicorum, that had been previously imposed on the chief magistrate were now com-
pletely reorganized, and from then on were probably split up among the praesides
and curatores ludorum. An enormous expansion and elaboration of the ludi publici
followed these organizational changes.
With the introduction of the ludi scaenicisoon after 367/6 bc, the system of
public games, which had assumed its first clear ritual and organizational forms in
the archaic and early republican periods, entered into a new phase of its develop-
ment, the enormous dynamism of which was to last into the first half of the
second century bc. Not only were the canon of the optional and permanent ludi
publiciand the circle of divine dedicatees considerably expanded, the forms of the
cult of the games were also elaborated. The ritual became subject to increasing
Hellenization.
In 364 bc, through Etruscan mediation, the stage play was introduced into the
old ludi maximi/Romani(Livy 7.2.1–12), an elaboration of the “liturgy” that was
initially restricted to quite modest performances, but was to usher in a major devel-
opment. Only gradually, following the example of the impromptu play in Magna
Graecia, did a kind of pre-literary theater develop in Rome. Greek influence was
to continue to be decisive for the system of games in the city of Rome. When
organizing the extraordinary ludi Tarentiniof 249 bc, the senate, the institution
responsible for the introduction and Hellenization of the public games, made use
of the Sibylline Books, thus employing an instrument – which appears clearly from
the sources for the first time (Varro, GRFfrg. 70 =Censorinus 17.8; [Acro], Scholia
Hor. carminis saecularis 8 p. 471 Keller) – that ensured the ritus Graecus. Under
the impression of that catastrophic year in the First Punic War, the nobility attempted
to meet the crisis by taking over and elaborating a gentile cult of Dis Pater and
Proserpina without games – without suspecting that in days to come a changed ap-
preciation of these games would bring about the ludi saeculares, the most famous
and influential celebration of which Caesar Augustus staged in the year 17 bc. The
new nocturnal scaeniciwere thus tantamount to a crisis measure of religiouspolicy,
a functional role that had already formed the basis for the ludi magnifor a fairly
long time.
The senate had probably already taken up the votive games, originally organized
by the military commanders of the early period (see above), in the years around
300 bcas a cultic way of restoring the salus rei publicaein critical situations. This was
necessary because Rome’s increasing military enterprises in Italy, then overseas, were
facing defeats and reversals which it was essential to overcome with the help of the
highest state deity. Thus when it appeared necessary, the senate would delegate the
vowing of ludi magnifor Iuppiter Optimus Maximus to the holders of imperium,
that is to say to the consuls or praetors, if necessary also to the dictator. And soon
that assembly would have made clearly defined public funds available to the magis-
trates for the system (Q. Fabius Pictor, FRH^2 1 frg. 20 =Dion. H. 7.71.2; Livy 31.9.10),
by means of which a financing model had been established that would be applied
to the other ludi publici in the following period. But when Rome directed its
attention increasingly to the Greek east, the new votive games even served for the
Complex Rituals 225