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. . . . (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 sikinnis. 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. . . . (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, and also the men who bore the show-vessels made of silver and gold, both those that were sacred 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 statues not only of Iuppiter, Iuno, Minerva, Neptune, and 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, Mnemosynē, 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 Iuppiter 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. . . . (15) After the procession was ended the consuls and the priests whose function it was presently sacrificed oxen; and the manner of performing the sacrifices was the same as with us.22
I have already pointed out the advantages of any procession ritual. The lengthy description shows in detail how mass appeal is created for such an event, clearly ritualized by its mixture of excessive order and rather anarchic elements. Many people are involved as actors or attracted as spectators. Young participants guarantee the participation of their families; the potential for an up-close look at the drivers and athletes attracts the athletic-minded crowd (1), the dances the aesthetic-minded. The level of noise marking this event must have been quite boisterous. Every sense is engaged: unusual dresses in bright colors (6), odors (13), music, even played on archaic instruments (5), thus giving additional ceremonial qualities to the procession. There is a close interaction between actors and spectators, whose laughter is provoked by improvised performance (10). And last, but not least, the ritual assembles a large number of deities, including the most important ones according to Greek and Roman standards. The use of standardized representations of these deities, clearly stressed (13), ensures intellectual as well as religious satisfaction.23
Duration and Intensification
Processions must be judged a highly effective means of creating publicity for a ritual and centralizing a highly diverse urban sacral topography. Otherwise, the powerful attraction of the triumph for many—but by no means all24 —republican generals could not be understood. However, watching a procession along a processional route—even a route more and more monumentalized in itself25—implied certain limits and deficits.
The first limit is temporal. The importance of a procession could be indicated by its length, but velocity and the duration of natural light put limits on that. Triumphal processions experimented with two-day processions starting in the early second century and reached a maximum of three days in the first, but normal reactions seem to have taught the organizers of the latter to create successions of thematically varying booty and war representations—for example, by organizing separate triumphs over different peoples and regions— rather than indefinitely prolonging a unified course of people and images.26 The prolongation of the competitions or scenic spectacles of the games was easier. By the time of the calendar of Antium, nine days each were marked for the Ludi Magni in September and the Ludi Plebeii in November.
Another type of ritual reached even greater lengths, namely supplications. This was a decentralized ritual, with the opening of all (or at least, many) temples to enable sacrifices and ensuing banquets throughout the city, in the second century even throughout Italy.27 An exceptional ritual of petition or thanksgiving, usually lasting one to three days in the middle Republic—again the annalistic historiography is not reliable enough to enable the identification of an exact starting point—exploded during the last century of the Republic. Three supplications of fifty days in the years 45, 44, and 43 mark the acme of this trend. Obviously, as I have already observed, such a duration would not allow the difference between exceptional ritual status and everyday life to be maintained. Thus it is easy to see why this form lost its importance from Augustus onward. Yet the sustained focus of this book on pragmatic and political aspects of the history of religion, and above all on changes in the nature, structure, and cohesiveness of the nobility, should not cause us to neglect a consequence in ritual of long-lasting, even permanent importance. I would maintain that the phenomenon of daily cult in the form of small daily sacrifices, hymns, or lamps, known from some temples and of growing importance in the imperial period, derives in part from this idea of enlarging ritual efficacy through an ever prolonged daily cult at the same temples.28
Processions imply a second restriction beyond the temporal: interaction between participants is limited, though of course spectators did interact among themselves. Ovid knew about this: the Ars amatoria recommends to its male audience theaters, circuses, munera, and triumphs as places to make new female acquaintances and imagines the verbal interactions that would take place in such spaces.29 The prologue of Plautus’s comedy Poenulus (1–45) gives an even livelier picture:
I have a mind to imitate the Achilles of Aristarchus; from that tragedy I’ll take for myself the opening: “Be silent, and hold your tongues, and give attention, for the general bids you listen”—the head-manager, that with a good grace you may be seated on the benches, both those who have come hungry and those who have come well filled. You who have eaten, have done so most wisely by far: you who have not eaten, be filled with the Play. But he who has something ready for him to eat, ’tis really great folly for him to come here to sit fasting for our sakes. Rise up, cryer! Bespeak attention among the people: I’m now waiting to see if you know your duty. Exercise your voice, by means of which you subsist and take care of yourself; for unless you do cry out, in your silence starvation will be creeping upon you. Well, now sit down again, that you may earn double wages. How fine a thing it is that you obey my commands! Let no worn-out debauchee be sitting in the front of the stage, nor let the lictor or his rods be noisy in the least; and let no seat-keeper be walking about before people’s faces, nor be showing any to their seats, while the actor is on the stage. Those who have been sleeping too long at home in idleness, it’s right for them now to stand contentedly, or else let them master their drowsiness. Don’t let slaves be occupying the seats, that there may be room for those who are free; or else let them pay down the money for their places; if that they cannot do, let them be off home, and escape a double evil, lest they be striped both here with scourges, and with thongs at home, if they’ve not got things in due order when their masters come home. Let nurses keep children, little brats, at home, and let no one bring them to see the Play, lest both they themselves may be athirst, and the children may die with hunger, or lest they go bleating around here in their hungry fits, just like young goats. Let the matrons see the piece in silence, in silence laugh, and let them refrain from screaming here with their shrill voices; their themes for gossip let them carry off home, so as not to be an annoyance to their husbands both here and at home. And, as regards the managers of the performance, let the palm of victory not be given to any player wrongfully, nor by reason of favour let any be driven out of doors,
