From 208 BC, the Ludi Apollinares were held annually in Rome between the 6th and 13th July. The ludi were not merely games, but rather a festival of chariot races, plays and sacrifices in honour of the Greek god Apollo.

Roman legend states that the Romans instigated the ludi following oracular advice to secure victory against the forces of Hannibal. But they are also a perfect example of how the Roman establishment controlled and integrated foreign religious practices.

The Second Punic War

Roman religion was relatively inclusive, welcoming foreign gods and cults — but only if they were compatible with traditional Roman religion and did not threaten it. 

By 213 BC, the forces of Hannibal had massively destabilised Rome and her Italic allies with the battles of Trasimene and Cannae resulting in 15,000 Roman and 75,000 Italic casualties. Refugees from the countryside and other Italian towns flooded into Rome. Desperate measures were required.

As it seems that their ancestral gods had failed them, the fearful people of Rome began to look elsewhere for supernatural help.

“The longer the war dragged on,” said Livy in his History of Rome, “…. success and failure altered the situation …. so much so the attitude of men, superstitious fear, in large part foreign…invaded the state to such a degree that either men or else gods suddenly changed.” (25.1)

The Roman state now faced conflict both inside and outside its walls.

The Carmina Marciana

The Senate answered this threat to its sacred institutions from the Roman people, by calling for the voluntary surrender of all oracular books and prophetic writings on the first of April. In the meantime, they banned all foreign rites.

But then something “peculiar” happened. The praetor in charge of collecting the writings, Marcus Aemilius, happened across a book of oracles by a seer called Marcius. He read two of the oracles it contained. One foretold the calamitous events that had occurred at Cannae — but the other offered the Romans hope.

According to Livy,  the oracle declared: “Romans, if you wish to drive out the enemy from your land, the plague that came from faraway lands, I bid you vow to Apollo annual games ….If you perform all this rightly, you shall ever rejoice, and your power shall be dominant.” (History of Rome, 25.12)

Aemilius delivered the oracles to the Senate. After a day’s deliberation,  they cross-checked Marcius’s prophecies against the Sibylline books — the ancient Oracular texts of the Roman state, which King Tarquinius Priscus purchased from the Sibyl of Cumae.

Unsurprisingly, the Sibyl’s prophecies affirmed the instigation of the new ceremonials. She was, after all, an oracle of Apollo.

Sacred Games — Greek Style

So, the Senate called for the institution of sacred games in honour of Apollo — Greek god. The Senate met the initial cost — although the games celebrated the following year in 212 BC, were covered by the public purse. This seems to have been because the Roman people were keen to carry on the tradition.

“The people took part in them,” stated Livy, “wearing wreaths of flowers. The married women offered prayers. The doors to the houses were opened, meals eaten in the open and the day marked with every observance.” (History of Rome, 25.12)

Games or ludi dedicated to Apollo took up most of the festival. This was a quite standard part of the religious observances of any festival, as the games acted as an offering of human effort and endeavour to the gods — as much as entertainment laid on for the crowds. The Ludi Apollinares consisted of Ludi Circenses: chariot races in the Circus Maximus and Ludi Scaenici: mimes, dances and plays.

Greek Style Sacrifices

On the final day, a formal sacrifice to Apollo performed “by Greek rite” rather than Roman rounded off the festival. This  Greek style ritual involved the officiating priest performed the sacrifice bare-headed — rather than with his head covered by his toga as was the custom in Roman tradition.

At this sacrifice, the Romans offered Apollo a gilded ox and two gilded white goats. They also provided a gilded heifer to Latona, the Latin name for Apollo’s mother, Leto.

The Ludi join the Roman Calendar.

The Ludi Apollinares were never meant to become an established part of the Roman religious calendar. But four years later in 208 BC, the Romans passed a lex, or law, making this so.

Reasons for this vary. The most favoured explanation is a plague prompted the Senate to establish the games as a permanent fixture as Apollo was a god of healing. But Livy states this was not the reason at all — and also suggests the festival was actually made permanent in 211 BC:

“The Games of Apollo had been exhibited the previous year, and when the question of their repetition the next year was moved by the praetor Calpurnius, the Senate passed a decree that they should be observed for all time…. Such is the origin of the Apollinarian Games, which were instituted for the cause of victory and not, as is generally thought, in the interests of the public health.” (History of Rome, 26.23)

The Ludi Apollinares: A Clever Political Move?

But perhaps of greater interest is the reasoning behind the inception of the Ludi Apollinares. For the tales of oracular advice are surely no more than that.

The Roman state faced a crisis within as well as a war outside. Rather than creating more discord by forcefully suppressing the people’s interest in foreign cults at a time of national emergency, the state instead used that same crisis as an excuse for integrating some of those rites into official Roman religion.

Apollo’s games may have added a Greek flavour to part of the Roman religious calendar. But the Ludi Apollinares was still moulded and manipulated to fit the context of Roman state religion.