LUDI- THE FESTIVALS IN ROME

LUDI- THE FESTIVALS IN ROME

There are Ludi for every occasion: funerals, votives, dedications, victories, and of course, in honor of various gods. Not all Ludi include theatre as a regular part of their festivities, but the major ones do. The year begins in March.

Liberalia in honor of the ancient god Liber, requiring unrestrained merrymaking. March.

Ludi Megalenes* - The Games of the Great Mother (Cybele) are held in April under the direction of patrician officials. These are started in 204 BCE and plays are staged ten years later.

April also includes festivals for Tellus (mother of earth); Ceres (bringer of fruitfulness); Jupiter (broaching the first wine) and at the end comes The Floria* - The Festival of Flowers which originates later and only includes mimes. These performances begin in 173 BCE

In April there are celebrations for Tellus, mother of Earth, and for Ceres, bringer of fruitfulness.

Ludi Apollinares- The Games of Apollo are held in July under the direction of the city official. These begin in 212 BCE and include plays almost from the beginning.

Ludi Romani - in honor of Jupiter, are held in September and run by patrician officials. Plays are presented beginning in 240 BCE. Beginning in 214 BCE there are four days of performances.

Ludi Plebei- the Plebeian Games are held in November under the direction of plebeian officials. Introduced in 220 BCE, the first staging of plays is about 200 BCE.

Saturnalia comes in December . In Greece the great plays had been written by prominent citizens to explore ideas of

consequence to the society. In Rome plays are written by slaves and emancipated slaves to consequence to the society. In Rome plays are written by slaves and emancipated slaves to

The Greek productions were paid for by the state and produced for the special event. They may have been reproduced at other events or recreated in the colonies but the individual way in which a production was put together seems to have been the same.

In Rome each festival is run by a magistrate who gets a government grant, which he then supplements with his own funds. The magistrate is out to further his own political ambitions and theatrical producers are careful not to offend any member of a politically influential family. (hardly the climate for controversial subject matter.) Roman theatre is partially subsidized in this fashion by the state, but the basic fee is never enough for the elaborate show the magistrates have in mind.

Festivals hire their plays, ready made, from theatrical companies run by a dominus gregis, or theatrical producer. The producer is usually a free man with a company of slave (and occasionally free) actors (infames, that is, deprived of certain political rights) who have a repertoire of plays ready. The producer buys plays or writee them himself with the intention of making a profit from them.

The producer might also act in his own productions and the names which come down to us tend to be those of actor-managers. The best known of these is Quintus Roscius* (c. 126-62 BCE), regarded as the greatest Roman comic actor. A friend of Cicero, he is honored by Sulla with the gold ring of the equestrian rank. However, such a social rise is rare.

Actors are skilled entertainers, able to excel in rhetorical and oratorical skills, dance and pantomime. They might also be musicians, or be accompanied by musicians. An actor who is highly skilled might be able to buy his freedom and become a producer himself. The profession is definitely upwardly mobile, at least in aspirations. Eventually there is a theatrical guild for theatre people. Actors, writers, technicians and managers are artifices scaenici (scenic artists). The guild is vaguely religious, associated with the goddess Minerva who is in charge of skills. The guild never has the stature or social standing of its Greek counterpart. Rather, it is similar to other skilled craft guilds.