1. Dionysius of Halycarnassus, Roman Antiquities, 7.72.1-7.72.13 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •victoria (goddess) Found in books: Nuno et al (2021) 111 | 7.72.1. Before beginning the games the principal magistrates conducted a procession in honour of the gods from the Capitol through the Forum to the Circus Maximus. Those who led the procession were, first, the Romans' sons who were nearing manhood and were of an age to bear a part in this ceremony, who rode on horseback if their fathers were entitled by their fortunes to be knights, while the others, who were destined to serve in the infantry, went on foot, the former in squadrons and troops, and the latter in divisions and companies, as if they were going to school; this was done in order that strangers might see the number and beauty of the youths of the commonwealth who were approaching manhood. 7.72.2. These were followed by charioteers, some of whom drove four horses abreast, some two, and others rode unyoked horses. After them came the contestants in both the light and the heavy games, their whole bodies naked except their loins. This custom continued even to my time at Rome, as it was originally practised by the Greeks; but it is now abolished in Greece, the Lacedaemonians having put an end to it. 7.72.3. The first man who undertook to strip and ran naked at Olympia, at the fifteenth Olympiad, was Acanthus the Lacedaemonian. Before that time, it seems, all the Greeks had been ashamed to appear entirely naked in the games, as Homer, the most credible and the most ancient of all witnesses, shows when he represents the heroes as girding up their loins. At any rate, when he is describing the wrestling-match of Aias and Odysseus at the funeral of Patroclus, he says: And then the twain with loins well girt stepped forth Into the lists. 7.72.4. And he makes this still plainer in the Odyssey upon the occasion of the boxing-match between Irus and Odysseus, in these verses: He spake, and all approved; Odysseus then His rags girt round his loins, and showed his thighs So fair and stout; broad shoulders too and chest And brawny arms there stood revealed. And when he introduces the beggar as no longer willing to engage but declining the combat through fear, he says: They spake, and Irus' heart was sorely stirred; Yet even so the suitors girt his loins By force and led him forward. Thus it is plain that the Romans, who preserve this ancient Greek custom to this day, did not learn it from us afterwards nor even change it in the course of time, as we have done. 7.72.5. The contestants were followed by numerous bands of dancers arranged in three divisions, the first consisting of men, the second of youths, and the third of boys. These were accompanied by flute-players, who used ancient flutes that were small and short, as is done even to this day, and by lyre-players, who plucked ivory lyres of seven strings and the instruments called barbita. The use of these has ceased in my time among the Greeks, though traditional with them, but is preserved by the Romans in all their ancient sacrificial ceremonies. 7.72.6. The dancers were dressed in scarlet tunics girded with bronze cinctures, wore swords suspended at their sides, and carried spears of shorter than average length; the men also had bronze helmets adorned with conspicuous crests and plumes. Each group was led by one man who gave the figures of the dance to the rest, taking the lead in representing their warlike and rapid movements, usually in the proceleusmatic rhythms. 7.72.7. This also was in fact a very ancient Greek institution â I mean the armed dance called the Pyrrhic â whether it was Athena who first began to lead bands of dancers and to dance in arms over the destruction of the Titans in order to celebrate the victory by this manifestation of her joy, or whether it was the Curetes who introduced it still earlier when, acting as nurses to Zeus, they strove to amuse him by the clashing of arms and the rhythmic movements of their limbs, as the legend has it. 7.72.8. The antiquity of this dance also, as one native to the Greeks, is made clear by Homer, not only in many other places, but particularly in describing the fashioning of the shield which he says Hephaestus presented to Achilles. For, having represented on it two cities, one blessed with peace, the other suffering from war, in the one on which he bestows the happier fate, describing festivals, marriages, and merriment, as one would naturally expect, he says among other things: Youths whirled around in joyous dance, with sound of flute and harp; and, standing at their doors, Admiring women on the pageant gazed. 7.72.9. And again, in describing another Cretan band of dancers, consisting of youths and maidens, with which the shield was adorned, he speaks in this manner: And on it, too, the famous craftsman wrought, With cunning workmanship, a dancing-floor, Like that which Daedalus in Cnossus wide For fair-haired Ariadnê shaped. And there Bright youths and many-suitored maidens danced While laying each on other's wrists their hands. And in describing the dress of these dancers, in order to show us that the males danced in arms, he says: The maidens garlands wore, the striplings swords of gold, which proudly hung from silver belts. And when he introduces the leaders of the dance who gave the rhythm to the rest and began it, he writes: And great the throng which stood about the dance, Enjoying it; and tumblers twain did whirl Amid the throng as prelude to the song. 7.72.10. But it is not alone from the warlike and serious dance of these bands which the Romans employed in their sacrificial ceremonies and processions that one may observe their kinship to the Greeks, but also from that which is of a mocking and ribald nature. For after the armed dancers others marched in procession impersonating satyrs and portraying the Greek dance called sicinnis. Those who represented Sileni were dressed in shaggy tunics, called by some chortaioi, and in mantles of flowers of every sort; and those who represented satyrs wore girdles and goatskins, and on their heads manes that stood upright, with other things of like nature. These mocked and mimicked the serious movements of the others, turning them into laughter-provoking performances. 7.72.11. The triumphal entrances also show that raillery and fun-making in the manner of satyrs were an ancient practice native to the Romans; for the soldiers who take part in the triumphs are allowed to satirise and ridicule the most distinguished men, including even the generals, in the same manner as those who ride in procession in carts at Athens; the soldiers once jested in prose as they clowned, but now they sing improvised verses. 7.72.12. And even at the funerals of illustrious persons I have seen, along with the other participants, bands of dancers impersonating satyrs who preceded the bier and imitated in their motions the dance called sicinnis, and particularly at the funerals of the rich. This jesting and dancing in the manner of satyrs, then, was not the invention either of the Ligurians, of the Umbrians, or of any other barbarians who dwelt in Italy, but of the Greeks; but I fear I should prove tiresome to some of my readers if I endeavoured to confirm by more arguments a thing that is generally conceded. 7.72.13. After these bands of dancers came a throng of lyre-players and many flute-players, and after them the persons who carried the censers in which perfumes and frankincense were burned along the whole route of the procession, also the men who bore the show-vessels made of silver and gold, both those that were sacred owing to the gods and those that belonged to the state. Last of all in the procession came the images of the gods, borne on men's shoulders, showing the same likenesses as those made by the Greeks and having the same dress, the same symbols, and the same gifts which tradition says each of them invented and bestowed on mankind. These were the images not only of Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Neptune, and of the rest whom the Greeks reckon among the twelve gods, but also of those still more ancient from whom legend says the twelve were sprung, namely, Saturn, Ops, Themis, Latona, the Parcae, Mnemosynê, and all the rest to whom temples and holy places are dedicated among the Greeks; and also of those whom legend represents as living later, after Jupiter took over the sovereignty, such as Proserpina, Lucina, the Nymphs, the Muses, the Seasons, the Graces, Liber, and the demigods whose souls after they had left their mortal bodies are said to have ascended to Heaven and to have obtained the same honours as the gods, such as Hercules, Aesculapius, Castor and Pollux, Helen, Pan, and countless others. |
|
