The Lusus Troiae, also as Ludus Troiae and ludicrum Troiae ("Troy Game" or "Game of Troy") was an equestrian event held in ancient Rome. It was among the ludi ("games"), celebrated at imperial funerals, temple foundings, or in honor of a military victory. The lusus was occasionally presented at the Saecular Games, but was not attached regularly to a particular religious festival. [1]
Participation was a privilege for boys of the nobility ( nobiles ). [2] It was a display of communal skill, not a contest. [3]
The fullest description of the exercise is given by Vergil, Aeneid 5.545–603, as the final event in the games held to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Aeneas's father, Anchises. The drill features three troops (turmae) — each made up of twelve riders, a leader, and two armor-bearers — who perform intricate drills on horseback:
Complex intertwining manoeuvres as a display of horsemanship were characteristic of Roman cavalry reviews on the parade ground. The Greek military writer Arrian describes these in his book The Art of Military Tactics (Technē Taktikē), and says they originated among the non-Roman cavalry units provided by the allies ( auxilia ), particularly the Gauls (that is, the continental Celts) and Iberians. [5] The Troy Game, however, was purely ceremonial and involved youths too young for military service.
The lusus Troiae was "revived" by Julius Caesar in 45 or 46 BC, [6] perhaps in connection with his family claim to have descended from Iulus, the son of Aeneas who in the game of the Aeneid rides a horse that was a gift from the Carthaginian queen Dido. [7] Given the mythological setting, the description of the lusus Troiae in the Aeneid is likely to have been the Augustan poet's fictional aetiology. [8] Historically, the event cannot be shown to have been held before the time of Sulla, [9] and it has been doubted that the lusus presented under Sulla was the Troy Game. A similar-sounding event during the ludi Romani at the time of the Second Punic War is also uncertain as evidence for an earlier staging. [10]
The claim that the event "extends back at least to the sixth century B.C." is based in part on a late 7th-century Etruscan wine-server ( oinochoë ) from Tragliatella (near Caere) which depicts mounted youths emerging from a labyrinth with the legend TRUIA, one possible meaning of which is Troy. [11] Vergil explicitly compares the patterns of the drill to the Cretan Labyrinth, which was associated with the geranos ("crane dance") taught by Theseus to the Athenian youth he rescued from the Minotaur there. In myth and ritual, the labyrinth, and hence the lusus, has been interpreted as "a return from danger, a triumph of life over death," [12] or more specifically as an initiation ritual. [13] The geranos of Theseus serves as a "mythic prototype for the escape of initiates from the rigors of initiation"; the feet of the shield-bearers on the Truia wine-server may suggest dance steps. [14] Initiation iconography similar to that of the Etruscan oinochoë is found on a panel of the Gundestrup Cauldron, generally regarded as presenting Celtic subject matter with a Thracian influence in workmanship. [15] At least one of the Celtic polities of central Gaul, the Aedui, claimed like the Romans to be of Trojan descent and were formally recognized by the Roman senate as the "brothers" as well as the allies of Rome long before they were incorporated into the empire. [16]
The Etruscan designation of the game as "Truia", if that is what the vase depicts, may be a play on words, as truare means "to move," with a specialized sense in the vocabulary of weaving: it has been argued that the lusus Troiae is the "running thread game," intended to repair the "social fabric" of Rome after the recent civil wars. [17] The Troy Game was performed on a purification day (dies lustri). [18] Vergil uses two forms of the verb "to weave" to describe the equestrian movements, and in some versions of the Theseus myth, the hero's return from the labyrinth is made possible by following a daedalean thread provided by Ariadne. [19] The game may have connections to Mars, who was associated with horses through his Equirria festivals and the ritual of the October Horse, as a patron of warrior youth. Mars' youthful armed priests the Salii performed dance steps expressed by forms of the verb truare, here perhaps meaning "to perform a truia dance." The Troy Game was supervised by the Tribunes of the Celeres, who are connected to the Salii in the Fasti Praenestini . [20]
Augustus established the lusus Troiae as a regular event. [21] Its performance was part of a general interest in Trojan origins reflected also in the creation of the Tabulae Iliacae or "Trojan Tablets," low reliefs that illustrate scenes from the Iliad and often present text in the form of acrostics or palindromes, suggesting patterned movement or literary mazes. [22]
The young Tiberius led a turma at the games celebrating the dedication of the Temple of the Divine Julius, 18 August 29 BC. [23] The lusus was also performed at the dedication of the Theater of Marcellus in 13 BC, [24] and of the Temple of Mars Ultor, 1 August 2 BC. [25] The children in eastern dress on the Ara Pacis have sometimes been interpreted as Gaius and Lucius Caesar in "Trojan" garb for the game in 13 BC. [26] The Troy Game continued to be staged under other emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. [27] Seneca mentions the event in his Troades (line 778). Nero participated in 47 AD, at the age of nine, along with Britannicus. [28]
In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas was a Trojan hero, the son of the Dardanian prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite. His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas a second cousin to Priam's children. He is a minor character in Greek mythology and is mentioned in Homer's Iliad. Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is cast as an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome. Snorri Sturluson identifies him with the Norse god Vidarr of the Æsir.
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, was the fifth Roman emperor and final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 until his death in AD 68. He was adopted by the Roman emperor Claudius at the age of 13 and succeeded him on the throne. Nero was popular with the members of his Praetorian Guard and lower-class commoners in Rome and its provinces, but he was deeply resented by the Roman aristocracy. Most contemporary sources describe him as tyrannical, self-indulgent, and debauched. After being declared a public enemy by the Roman Senate, he committed suicide at age 30.
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. A number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars consider his authorship of these poems as dubious.
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Elaine Fantham was a British-Canadian classicist whose expertise lay particularly in Latin literature, especially comedy, epic poetry and rhetoric, and in the social history of Roman women. Much of her work was concerned with the intersection of literature and Greek and Roman history. She spoke fluent Italian, German and French and presented lectures and conference papers around the world—including in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Argentina, and Australia.
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Eleanor Winsor Leach was the Ruth N. Halls Professor with the Department of Classical Studies at Indiana University. She was a trustee of the Vergilian Society in 1978-83 and was second and then first vice-president in 1989-92. Leach was the president of the Society of Classical Studies in 2005/6, and the chair of her department (1978-1985). She was very involved with academics and younger scholars - directing 26 dissertations, wrote letters for 200 tenure and promotion cases, and refereed more than 100 books and 200 articles. Leach's research interests included Roman painting, Roman sculpture, and Cicero and Pliny's Letters. She published three books and more than 50 articles. Leach's work had an interdisciplinary focus, reading Latin texts against their social, political, and cultural context. From the 1980s onwards, she combined her work on ancient literature with the study of Roman painting, monuments, and topography.