Games

GAMES. - Play is an activity of the higher forms of biological-psychic life in man that presents itself both as an unfolding of natural physical energies (most visible in the games of children) and as a means of expressing the religious and social cohesion of the group, to the point of becoming a spontaneous means of interrupting the life of work and of restoring the physiological and psychic equilibrium of the individual. Therefore play is found in action in all civilizations, from the most primitive to the most evolved.

Among primitive peoples, play has its root in the sacred-magical motive, active among all primitive human groups, which seeks to revive, with the energy that is released from contests of dance, running or athletics, the forces of nature, and this especially at the critical moments of vegetation.

To this motive of an animistic character must be added the social one, inasmuch as the cohesion of the group feels strengthened by participation in the same ceremony; and in the case of votive games celebrated following a victory obtained, the vital principle of the group is exalted and its vigor invigorated.

Leaving aside the listing of the games offered by the various religions, mention will be made of those in use in the classical religions of Rome and Greece.

I. ROME

In Rome the games were from the very beginning of an agrarian type, in honor of divinities of vegetation, and they were celebrated at a fixed time, directed by the aediles. Alongside the fixed ones there were votive ones on the occasion of extraordinary events, directed by the dictator or the consul.

With respect to type, the Roman games were circenses, based on gymnastic exercises and races, celebrated in the circuses; munera, gladiatorial spectacles on the occasion of funeral honors; scaenici, theatrical performances given to appease and honor the gods.

The religious value of the games emerges not only from the statement of the writers "ludorum primum initium procurandis religionibus datum" (Livy, VII, 3), but also from their ceremonial. The great procession (pompa) that opened the circus games was headed by the images or symbols of the gods carried on litters (fercula) and began with a sacrifice (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VII, 70); any error or omission committed required the repetition of the spectacle (Cicero, De har. resp., 11).

The principal Roman games, arranged in chronological order, are: 1) Ludi Romani (or Magni, or Maximi) were celebrated from 4 to 19 September in the Circus Maximus in honor of the Capitoline triad (Livy, I, 35). 2) Ludi Florales, instituted in 238 B.C., dedicated to the goddess Flora; they lasted from 28 April to 6 May and had a licentious character, as a stimulus to fertility (Ovid, Fasti, III, 575 ff.). 3) Ludi Apollinares, instituted during the Second Punic War to implore the help of Apollo, Diana and Latona, from 6 to 13 July, were of completely Greek rite and of scenic character (Livy, XXV, 12). 4) Ludi plebei in honor of Jupiter Best and Greatest, mentioned for the first time in 216 (id., XXIII, 30) but of more ancient origin. 5) Ludi Ceriales, in honor of Ceres as she produces and develops vegetation; the plebeian aediles directed them and they fell on 19 April (Ovid, Fasti, IV, 679 ff.). 6) Ludi Megalenses. They began in 194 on the occasion of the dedication of the temple of Cybele, the Magna Mater, on the Palatine. They were scenic and lasted from 4 to 10 April.

Toward the end of the Republic and during the Empire other games were added: the Ludi Victoriae Sullanae, founded by Sulla in 82; the Ludi Victoriae Caesaris, founded by Caesar in 46; the Ludi Augustales founded by Octavian in 11 B.C.

Special mention must be made of the secular games, Ludi saeculares, an old cathartic ceremony, to be performed every century, which tended to purify the people from physical or spiritual miasmas. This ceremony was renewed by Augustus in 17 B.C. almost as a consecration of the new era of religious and political peace that he inaugurated after the civil war. The festival was preceded by three days (26, 27, 28 May) of purificatory fumigations (suffimenta), by the gathering of cereals (fruges), and it took place from 1 to 3 June, by night with sacrifice to the Moerae, to the Ilithyiae and to Earth; and by day with joyous ceremonies dedicated to Jupiter (1 June), Juno (2 June), Apollo and Diana (3 June). Horace composed the hymn that 27 boys and as many girls sang at the close of the rite.

II. GREECE

In Greece the games (ἀγώνες ἱεροί) have a great religious-national value because in them the Hellenic race affirms its unity even through the political fragmentation of the various city-states. They also served to stir up in the Greeks certain qualities such as strength, courage and youthful vigor. The games (races and wrestling) always opened with religious ceremonies, admitted also contests of poetry and eloquence, and granted as a most coveted prize of moral significance a crown of branches of sacred plants.

The most important games, all dating back to the first half of the 6th century B.C., at the close of the Greek Middle Ages, are: 1) The Pythian, in honor of Apollo, which traditionally date back to the third year of the 49th Olympiad (582 B.C.). They were held in the plain of Crissa, below Delphi, at first every nine years, then every four (penteteric), and their essential element was the recitation of the πυθικὸς νόμος which narrated and represented the victory of Apollo over the serpent Python, the first possessor of the place; later, gymnastic contests and races were added in imitation of the Olympic games. The prize for the victors was a branch of laurel from Parnassus (Pindar, Pyth., 8, 28). 2) The Nemean, in honor of Zeus, traditionally dating back to the fourth year of the 51st Olympiad (573 B.C.), were held in the Nemean Valley, near the city of Cleonae, and had a funerary character in that they commemorated the death of the child Opheltes (Archemorus). They were trieteric and were celebrated in the second and fourth year of each Olympiad. The prize for the victors was a crown of celery (σέλινον; Pindar, Nem., 4, 153). 3) The Isthmian, in honor of Poseidon, traditionally dating back to the fourth year of the 49th Olympiad (581 B.C.). The god was said to have instituted them for the death of his son Melicertes. They were celebrated at Schoenus in the Gulf of Corinth, under the presidency of the Corinthians. The Athenians had a special place there; the Eleans were instead excluded, perhaps because of the commercial jealousy between Elis and Corinth. They were trieteric, that is, they were celebrated in the second and fourth year of each Olympiad. The prize for the victor was a crown of celery.

Nicola Turchi

4) The Olympic. They were the most ancient and important and were celebrated every four years in the plain of Olympia (penteteric) in honor of the founder-hero Pelops (Pausanias, V, 8, 2), eponym of the Peloponnese, in whose myth solar motifs (the wheel, a clear solar symbol) and funerary motifs (the tomb of the hero existing within the enclosure of the games) are interwoven.

The traditional historical year in which the Olympic games were celebrated for the first time goes back to 776 B.C.; this date was established, at the close of the 5th century B.C., by the sophist Hippias of Elis, who, by scientifically reorganizing the list of Olympionikai, was able to go back to that year, also determining the first victor of the 1st Olympic contest: Coroebus. The work of Hippias, somewhat reworked and completed by Aristotle and his school, became about a century later the basis of chronological systems (Timaeus), and a constant element for dating, until 393 A.D., the year in which Theodosius suppressed the Olympic games.

Five were the days consecrated to them (Pindar, Ol., V, 6) and they fell around the full moon of the month Parthenios (or Apollonios, if it was an intercalary year) according to the Aeolo-Doric calendar, corresponding to the month Hecatombaeon of the Athenian calendar, that is, to July-August.

Regarding the political importance of the Olympic games, note should be taken of the fact that, from the 1st Olympiad onward, according to tradition, when the messengers (σπονδοφόροι) set out from Olympia to proclaim the next Olympic games, a "sacred truce" (ἐκεχειρία) was established among the Greek cities for the entire duration of the celebrations. In the same period the zone of Olympia, where the sanctuary of Zeus was, was inviolable by any armed person, and very severe penalties were inflicted on transgressors.

While men of every age and condition could freely attend the Olympic games, of women only girls were admitted, married women being excluded in the most rigorous manner (those who transgressed were hurled down from Mount Typaion). The only exception was made for the priestess of Demeter Chamyne, who had her place in front of the Hellanodikai (the judges of the contests).

As for the uncertain and much discussed distribution of the various contests, it should be noted briefly that on the first day the judges of the contests selected the various competitors: men, boys and horses; then, before the statue of the terrible Zeus Horkios, the athletes, on the still smoking flesh of the sacrificed boar, swore an oath of loyalty. This same day (which perhaps coincided with the 11th of the moon) was consecrated first of all to the various sacrifices of oxen (βουθυσίαι) before the great altar of Zeus and the six double altars sacred to the 12 major divinities (see the list in Herophorus of Heraclea, frg. 29; in which the 12 months of the year are rather to be recognized) erected by Heracles (cf. Herophorus and Pindar, Ol., V, 6). Then, after a contest of trumpeters, the "bloody libations" (αἱμακουρίαι) were made at the tomb of Pelops.

The contests (ἀγωνίσματα) proper began on the second day with the gymnastic agones of the boys: on the third took place the various foot races (σπάδιον, δίαυλος, δόλιχος) and, perhaps, also the multiple contests of the πένταθλον: long jump (ἅλμα), discus throw (δισκοβολία), javelin throw (ἀκοντίσματα), running (δρόμος) and wrestling (πάλη). At the end of this day, the victors (καλλίνικοι) with a numerous procession went up to the temple of Zeus and sacrificed to the god their palms and their crowns.

On the fourth day were celebrated the most beautiful and imposing contests of the Olympic games: the equestrian contests (two-horse chariots, four-horse chariots, and, in a later age, chariots drawn by two mules), at the end of which the owners of the horses were solemnly awarded prizes.

Finally, on the fifth day, a solemn procession formed by the victors, magistrates, ambassadors of the Greek cities and an enormous crowd went again to the Altis, where sacrifices were performed at the great altar of Zeus and funerary sacrifices near the tombs of the mythical heroes (Scholia to Pindar, Ol., III, 33 b, c). On the evening of this solemn day, magistrates and victors, with a great banquet in the Prytaneum, closed the Olympiads (Pausanias, V, 15, 12).

Cesare D'Onofrio

III. CHRISTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY

It is natural that Christian children should generally have possessed the same toys and loved the same pastimes as their pagan contemporaries.

Near the tombs of children in the underground cemeteries of Rome, jointed dolls in bone and ivory were found as far back as the time of M. A. Boldetti (Osservazioni sopra i cimiteri, Rome 1720, pp. 496-97); two were discovered in the cemetery beneath the Viale Regina Margherita (E. Josi, Cimitero alla sinistra della Via Tiburtius al Viale Regina Margherita, in Riv. d'arch. crist., 11 [1934], p. 32, fig. 53; p. 213, fig. 74); tintinnabula, little bronze bells, were also found as far back as the time of Boldetti (op. cit., p. 498), as in recent times they were affixed to the loculi of children (E. Josi, Il cimitero di Panfilo, in Riv. d'arch. crist., 3 [1926], p. 114, fig. 34). In a sarcophagus discovered in a mausoleum of the cemetery in catacumba, ivory discs with horses were found. Boldetti also found small ivory masks in the Roman cemeteries (op. cit., p. 504). The great passion that the Romans had for games of chance is well known. Even the followers of the new faith were not exempt from it, as appears from the Christian writers. From the pamphlet "de aleatoribus" (v.), now dated between 260 and 300, it appears that gambling was very widespread among the Roman faithful of that time. The Council of Elvira, ca. A.D. 300, imposed a year of excommunication on the faithful who had played dice for money. In the apostolic canons of the following century, gaming is forbidden to all ecclesiastics. Among Christian antiquities, particular interest is offered by the marble gaming tables, tabulae lusoriae, which have come down to us in great quantity almost exclusively from the catacombs and the other Christian burials of Rome, tables which, suitably sawn, served to close the openings of the loculi. Each board divided into two equal sectors bears thirty-six squares, generally marked with letters which, arranged six by six, form words and phrases often referring to the game itself. The rules of this game are not known with precision. Without doubt it was a game of dice and counters, of chance and skill. The majority of these tables date back to the 3rd and 4th centuries, that is, to the period when burial in the catacombs was practiced. Moreover, the examples which signs and inscriptions indicate as having been made by Christian craftsmen are not rare. It must therefore be admitted that these gaming tables, before being used as closures of tombs, really belonged to Christian families.

Luigi Maria Catteruccia

IV. IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Few accounts of the games in use in the Middle Ages have come down to us: generally the chroniclers limit themselves to recalling the military ones that accompanied some extraordinary event. Others were more closely connected with religious custom, such as the Roman feast of the "cornomània" (v.). In the 13th century, at Padua and Treviso, on the occasion of Pentecost, a popular game was organized called the "defense of chastity" (shut up in a wooden tower), in the presence of the clergy, with the participation of delegations and banners of the neighboring cities. From the 12th to the 16th century, at Venice, the anniversary of the victory obtained in 1162 over the patriarch of Aquileia was celebrated with a singular symbolic rite and game in which the high dignitaries of the State took part. Many games, even profane ones, had by tradition their seat in the churches and lasted until the Counter-Reformation (for example, the games of May 1st sponsored by the Colonna family in the church of the SS. Apostoli in Rome, which Pope Clement VII attended in 1523; the fire of Pentecost in the cathedral of Orvieto, etc.).

In the communal period the taste for gymnastic games revived, to whose educational importance illustrious humanists later turned their attention, such as Guarino Veronese and Vittorino da Feltre. Games of chance, of deception, of society, are repeatedly mentioned in the communal statutes; but those preferred by the conventicles and by private individuals were par excellence dice and tarots (invented by the Arabs and spread in Europe by the Spaniards from the 14th century onward). The game of chess also enjoyed great fortune, to which allegorical and astrological meanings were attributed. No mention has been made here of the "corti bandite" and "corti d'amore"; but one cannot omit recalling how the passion for jongleurs' games was later transmitted to the courts of the Renaissance, including the papal one, down to Leo X and Clement VII.

The medieval games that survived are for the most part connected with the feasts of the patron saints of individual cities. Others, characteristic of Italian civic custom, such as the palio of Siena, arose later and enjoyed great fortune.

For the term game, understood as recreation, v. DIVERTIMENTI; understood as gymnastics, v. GINNASTICA; understood as gambling, stock-market game, v. SCOMMESSE E GIOCHI D'AZZARDO.

Riccardo Averini