Көне Римнің Саекұлдық ойындары

Roman religious celebration
The Secular or Saecular Games (Ludi Saeculares) was an ancient Roman religious celebration involving sacrifices, theatrical performances, and public games (ludi). It was held irregularly in Rome for three days and nights to mark the ends of various eras ([[saeculum) and to celebrate the beginning of the next. In particular, the Romans reckoned a saeculum as the longest possible length of human life, either 100 or 110 years in length; as such, it was used to mark various centennials, particularly anniversaries from the computed founding of Rome. According to Roman mythology, the Secular Games began as the Tarentine Games (Ludi Tarentini) when a Sabine man called Valesius prayed for a cure for his children's illness and was supernaturally instructed to sacrifice on the Campus Martius to Dis Pater and Proserpina, deities of the underworld. Some ancient authors traced official celebrations of the Games as far back as 509 BC, but the only clearly attested celebrations under the Roman Republic took place in 249 and in the 140s BC. They involved sacrifices to the underworld gods over three consecutive nights. The Games were revived in 17 BC by Rome's first emperor Augustus, with the nocturnal sacrifices on the Campus Martius now transferred to the Moerae (fates), the Ilythiae (goddesses of childbirth), and Terra Mater ("Mother Earth"). The Games of 17 BC also introduced day time sacrifices to Roman deities on the Capitoline and Palatine hills. Certain sacrifices were unusually specified to be performed by married women. Each sacrifice was followed by theatrical performances. Later emperors held celebrations in AD 88 and 204, after intervals of roughly 110 years. However, they were also held by Claudius in AD 47 to celebrate the 800th anniversary of Rome's foundation, which led to a second cycle of Games in 148 and 248. The Games were abandoned under later Christian emperors.

According to Roman mythology told by Zosimus, the Secular Games originated with a Sabine man called Valesius, ancestor of the Valerii. When his children became seriously ill, he prayed to his household gods for their cure, offering to give up his own life in exchange. A voice told him to take them to Tarentum and to give them water from the Tiber to drink, heated on an altar of Dis Pater and Proserpina. Assuming that he had to travel to the Greek colony of Tarentum in southern Italy, he set out with his children on the journey. Sailing along the Tiber, he was instructed by the voice to stop on the Campus Martius, at a place which happened also to be called Tarentum. When he warmed water from the river and gave it to the children, they were miraculously cured and fell asleep. When they woke up, they informed Valesius that a figure had appeared to them in a dream and told the family to sacrifice to Dis Pater and Proserpina. Upon digging, Valesius found that an altar to those deities was buried on the site, and performed the ritual as instructed. Celebrations of the Games under the Roman Republic are poorly documented. Although some Roman antiquarians traced them as far back as 509 BC, some modern scholars consider that the first celebration well attested as having taken place was that of 249 BC, during the First Punic War. According to Varro, an antiquarian of the 1st century BC, the Games were introduced after a series of portents led to a consultation of the Sibylline Books by the quindecimviri. In accordance with the instructions contained in these books, sacrifices were offered at the Tarentum on the Campus Martius over three nights, to the underworld deities of Dis Pater and Proserpina. Varro also states that a vow was made that the Games would be repeated every hundred years, and another celebration did indeed take place in either 149 or 146 BC, at the time of the Third Punic War. However, Beard, North and Price suggest that the Games of 249 and the 140s BC were both held because of the immediate pressures of war, and that it was only with the revival in the 140s that they came to be considered as a regular centennial celebration. This sequence would have led to a celebration in 49 BC, but the civil wars apparently prevented this.