Secular celebration (ancient)

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Reverse of a coin from Philip the Arab with reference to the secular celebration SAECVLARES AVGG

A secular celebration ( ludi saeculares ) is a festival that marks the end of an old and the beginning of a new age . In ancient Rome , according to later tradition, z. B. 249 BC BC and 146 BC Chr. Secular celebrations take place, but it is historically certain tangible this practice only since Emperor Augustus , the 17 v. BC held secular games with unprecedented pomp. The origin of the celebrations is believed to be a festival of atonement that was adopted by the Etruscans . The focus was on deliverance from a curse-laden time. It should always be celebrated when nobody is alive who has experienced the last celebration. This is announced to people through signs ( divinitus ). Augustus completely changed the character of the festival (possibly he "invented" the celebration in the first place). The past was no longer thought of, but rather the beginning of a new, happy time was celebrated. Horace wrote about this in his carmen saeculare : "Seer Phoebus ( Apollon ) [...] leads [...] the Roman state and Latium into a new saeculum of happiness and into ever better times".

Emperor Claudius also celebrated a secular celebration with a correction of the Augustan calculation in AD 47 - during Augustus of a 110-year cycle since the legendary founding of the city in 753 BC. Chr. Had gone out to have an opportunity to celebrate, Claudius equated a Saeculum with 100 years and therefore now celebrated the 800th anniversary of Rome. In the period that followed, both cycles remained common, but were often not followed exactly. So let Domitian already 88 n. Chr. Celebrate, though, citing Augustus, but six years too early (before 94 would have passed 110 years). Great ludi saeculares also took place in 204 under Septimius Severus , who in this way celebrated his victory in the civil war over several rivals . Of course, the celebrations for the 1000th birthday of the city of Rome in 247 under Emperor Philip Arabs were particularly spectacular . In 313 the holding of possible secular celebrations (according to Augustan calculations) was waived for the first time, which is perhaps due to the Constantinian turning point , but perhaps also had other reasons. Later pagan authors like Zosimos blamed the end of the secular celebrations for the decline of the empire.

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