FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   264   265   266   267   268   269   270   271   272   273   274   >>  
h makes Mucius Scaevola learn Etruscan when a child for the sake of his conversation with Porsena (Dionysius, v. 28; Plutarch, Poplicola, 17; comp. Dionysius, iii. 70). But there was at any rate an epoch when the dominion of Rome over Italy demanded a certain knowledge of the language of the country on the part of Romans of rank. 10. The employment of the lyre in ritual is attested by Cicero de Orat. iii. 51, 197; Tusc. iv. 2, 4; Dionysius, vii. 72; Appian, Pun. 66; and the inscription in Orelli, 2448, comp. 1803. It was likewise used at the -neniae- (Varro ap. Nonium, v. -nenia- and -praeficae-). But playing on the lyre remained none the less unbecoming (Scipio ap. Macrob. Sat. ii. 10, et al.). The prohibition of music in 639 exempted only the "Latin player on the pipe along with the singer," not the player on the lyre, and the guests at meals sang only to the pipe (Cato in Cic. Tusc. i. 2, 3; iv. 2, 3; Varro ap. Nonium, v. -assa voce-; Horace, Carm. iv. 15, 30). Quintilian, who asserts the reverse (Inst. i. 10, 20), has inaccurately transferred to private banquets what Cicero (de Orat. iii. 51) states in reference to the feasts of the gods. 11. The city festival can have only lasted at first for a single day, for in the sixth century it still consisted of four days of scenic and one day of Circensian sports (Ritschl, Parerga, i. 313) and it is well known that the scenic amusements were only a subsequent addition. That in each kind of contest there was originally only one competition, follows from Livy, xliv. 9; the running of five-and-twenty pairs of chariots in succession on one day was a subsequent innovation (Varro ap. Serv. Georg. iii. 18). That only two chariots--and likewise beyond doubt only two horsemen and two wrestlers--strove for the prize, may be inferred from the circumstance, that at all periods in the Roman chariot-races only as many chariots competed as there were so-called factions; and of these there were originally only two, the white and the red. The horsemanship-competition of patrician youths which belonged to the Circensian games, the so-called Troia, was, as is well known, revived by Caesar; beyond doubt it was connected with the cavalcade of the boy-militia, which Dionysius mentions (vii. 72). 12. I. VII. Servian Wall 13. I. VI. Time and Occasion of the Reform 14. I. II. Religion 15. -Vates- probably denoted in the first instance the "leader of the singing" (for
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   264   265   266   267   268   269   270   271   272   273   274   >>  



Top keywords:
Dionysius
 

chariots

 
called
 

originally

 
player
 

Nonium

 

competition

 
likewise
 

Cicero

 

Circensian


scenic
 

subsequent

 

succession

 

running

 

twenty

 
century
 

consisted

 
denoted
 
leader
 

innovation


addition

 

amusements

 

Parerga

 

Ritschl

 

sports

 

contest

 

Religion

 

horsemanship

 

patrician

 

youths


Servian
 

belonged

 

militia

 
mentions
 

cavalcade

 

connected

 

revived

 

Caesar

 
Occasion
 
factions

inferred

 

strove

 
wrestlers
 

singing

 

horsemen

 

circumstance

 

instance

 

competed

 

chariot

 

Reform