d with
religious ceremonies, only a single general festival was held in the
month of September, lasting four days and having a definitely fixed
maximum of cost.(5) At the close of the epoch, this popular festival
had a duration of at least six days; and besides this there were
celebrated at the beginning of April the festival of the Mother of the
Gods or the so-called Megalensia, towards the end of April that of
Ceres and that of Flora, in June that of Apollo, in November the
Plebeian games--all of them probably occupying already more days than
one. To these fell to be added the numerous cases where the games
were celebrated afresh--in which pious scruples presumably often
served as a mere pretext--and the incessant extraordinary festivals.
Among these the already-mentioned banquets furnished from the
dedicated tenths(6) the feasts of the gods, the triumphal and funeral
festivities, were conspicuous; and above all the festal games which
were celebrated--for the first time in 505--at the close of one of
those longer periods which were marked off by the Etrusco-Roman
religion, the -saecula-, as they were called. At the same time
domestic festivals were multiplied. During the second Punic war there
were introduced, among people of quality, the already-mentioned
banquetings on the anniversary of the entrance of the Mother of the
Gods (after 550), and, among the lower orders, the similar Saturnalia
(after 537), both under the influence of the powers henceforth closely
allied--the foreign priest and the foreign cook. A very near approach
was made to that ideal condition in which every idler should know
where he might kill time every day; and this in a commonwealth where
formerly action had been with all and sundry the very object of
existence, and idle enjoyment had been proscribed by custom as well
as by law! The bad and demoralizing elements in these festal
observances, moreover, daily acquired greater ascendency. It is true
that still as formerly the chariot races formed the brilliant finale
of the national festivals; and a poet of this period describes very
vividly the straining expectancy with which the eyes of the multitude
were fastened on the consul, when he was on the point of giving the
signal for the chariots to start. But the former amusements no longer
sufficed; there was a craving for new and more varied spectacles.
Greek athletes now made their appearance (for the first time in 568)
alongside of the nat