Increase of Amusements

We have already noticed the alarming extension of the popular amusements during this epoch.  At the beginning of it, apart from some unimportant foot and chariot races which should rather be ranked 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 native wrestlers and boxers.  Of the dramatic exhibitions we shall speak hereafter:  the transplanting of Greek comedy and tragedy to Rome was a gain perhaps of doubtful value, but it formed at any rate the best of the acquisitions made at this time.  The Romans had probably long indulged in the sport of coursing