culpture with their representations
based so thoroughly upon the poetical treasures of the nation; and
the old Latin barbarous conversions of Persephone into Prosepna,
Bellerophontes into Melerpanta, Kyklops into Cocles, Laomedon into
Alumentus, Ganymedes into Catamitus, Neilos into Melus, Semele into
Stimula, enable us to perceive at how remote a period such stories
had been heard and repeated by the Latins. Lastly and especially,
the Roman chief festival or festival of the city (-ludi maximi-,
-Romani-) must in all probability have owed, if not its origin,
at any rate its later arrangements to Greek influence. It was an
extraordinary thanksgiving festival celebrated in honour of the
Capitoline Jupiter and the gods dwelling along with him, ordinarily
in pursuance of a vow made by the general before battle, and
therefore usually observed on the return home of the burgess-force
in autumn. A festal procession proceeded toward the Circus staked
off between the Palatine and Aventine, and furnished with an arena
and places for spectators; in front the whole boys of Rome, arranged
according to the divisions of the burgess-force, on horseback and
on foot; then the champions and the groups of dancers which we have
described above, each with their own music; thereafter the servants
of the gods with vessels of frankincense and other sacred utensils;
lastly the biers with the images of the gods themselves. The
spectacle itself was the counterpart of war as it was waged in
primitive times, a contest on chariots, on horseback, and on foot.
First there ran the war-chariots, each of which carried in Homeric
fashion a charioteer and a combatant; then the combatants who had
leaped off; then the horsemen, each of whom appeared after the Roman
style of fighting with a horse which he rode and another led by the
hand (-desultor-); lastly, the champions on foot, naked to the girdle
round their loins, measured their powers in racing, wrestling, and
boxing. In each species of contest there was but one competition,
and that between not more than two competitors. A chaplet rewarded
the victor, and the honour in which the simple branch which formed
the wreath was held is shown by the law permitting it to be laid
on the bier of the victor when he died. The festival thus lasted
only one day, and the competitions probably still left sufficient
time on that day for the carnival proper, at which the groups of
dancers may have displayed their ar