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Two Questions on the Circus Flaminius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

T. P. Wiseman
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Extract

Were ludi circenses ever held in the Circus Flaminius as they were in the Circus Maximus?

The evidence is as follows.

1. Varro LL v 153–4: Locus idem circus maximus dictus, quod circum spectaculis aedificatus ubi ludi fiunt, et quod ibi circum metas fertur pompa et equi currunt…item simili de causa circus Flaminius dicitur, qui circum aedificatus est Flaminium campum, et quod ibi quoque ludis Tauriis equi circum metas currunt.

The ludi Taurii were unlike other games in being celebrated only every five years; they were in honour of the di inferi, and therefore could not be held within the walls. It is clear from Varro that they were the only games that took place in the Circus Flaminius, at least in his day: despite the deliberate parallelism of his two explanations, he cannot invoke a pompa at the Flaminius to make it like the Maximus in that respect as well. The parallelism may in fact be misleading, merely Varro's attempt to justify his etymology by finding spurious similarities between circi that were in reality not alike at all. Certainly the fact that he speaks of horses in both cases does not entitle us to infer that the ludi Taurii took the form of chariot-races, like the ludi circenses proper that were held in the Circus Maximus. It is quite possible that they were simply horse-races, and that Varro emphasises the horses rather than the chariots in section 153 in order to achieve a further similarity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 44 , November 1976 , pp. 44 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1976

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References

1 Fasti Ostienses A.D. 145, Inscr. It. xiii 1, p. 205Google Scholar (quinquennial); Festus 478L (‘<ne> intra muros evocentur d<i inferi>’).

2 Note the different use of circum: adverbially at the first occurrence in section 153, prepositionally (but separated from its noun) in section 154.

3 Livy, per. 20Google Scholar, cf. Cassiod. Chron.; Festus (Paulus) 79L may imply a date three years earlier (C. Flaminius' consulship rather than his censorship); the garbled version in Plut., QR 66Google Scholar is undated, but the reference to the Via Flaminia suggests that his ‘a certain ancient Flaminius’ was the cos. 223.

4 As does Quinn-Schofield, W. K., ‘Observations upon the ludi plebeii’, Latomus xxvi (1967) 677 n. 1 and 681 f.Google Scholar, followed by Coarelli, F., ‘Classe dirigente romana e arti figurative’, Dial. arch., iv–v (1970–1971), 242Google Scholar.

5 Wiseman, T. P., ‘The Circus Flaminius’, PBSR xlii (1974), 3–26Google Scholar. It evidently appeared too late to be used by Richardson, L. jr. for his article ‘The Evolution of the Porticus Octaviae’ (AJA lxxx [1976] 57–64)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, the arguments of which I find unconvincing: in particular, Richardson (like Olinder, n. 12 below) rejects the evidence of Festus 188L, for no good reason.

6 Op. cit. 4, text to n. 17.

7 Op. cit, 8, accepting M. E. Blake's date for the culvert.

8 Cf. Lugli, G., La tecnica edilizia romana (Rome 1957) i 36, 257Google Scholar.

9 Castagnoli, F., ‘Il Campo Marzio nell'antichità’, Mem. acc. Linc. ser. 8 i (1948), 148–51Google Scholar, with fig. 3.

10 Cf. Wiseman, , PBSR 1974 13 f.Google Scholar, and fig. 3 at p. 16. Prof. Coarelli also rightly observes that I posited three temples in an area which was reconstructed at the turn of the century (Via del Progresso, at the western end of the old Ghetto); granted the lamentable inadequacy of the Not. Scav. reports of what was found at the time, it is still hard to believe that three temple podia went unrecorded.

11 See Nash, E., Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome2 (London 1968) i 297–300, ii 120–122Google Scholar.

12 Nash, op. cit. i 298; Pliny, NH xxxiv 13Google Scholar. The identification is tentatively suggested also by F. Zevi, Gnomon, forthcoming (review of Olinder, B., Porticus Octavia in Circo Flaminio, Stockholm 1974Google Scholar). I am very grateful to Prof. Zevi for allowing me to see his review in advance of publication.

13 Pliny, NH xxxvi 26Google Scholar, CIL vi 8423Google Scholar, Livy xxviii 11.4. Cf. Wiseman, , PBSR 1974 13 f.Google Scholar, and in ‘Legendary Genealogies in Late-republican Rome’, G & R xxi (1974) 161 f.Google Scholar, rejecting the identification on the basis of the amnis Petronia argument. In favour of the identification: Coarelli, F., ‘L' “ara di Domizio Enobarbo” e la cultura artistica in Roma nel II secolo a.C.’, Dial. arch., ii (1968) 318–325Google Scholar, and at Dial. arch. 1970–1971, 246 f.Google Scholar; cf. Gros, P., ‘Hermodorus et Vitruve’, MEFR lxxxv (1973) 148–152Google Scholar. I remain sceptical about Coarelli's art-historical arguments, and unconvinced by his theory about M. Antonius and the navalia, the proximity of which he seems to exaggerate.

As for the surviving base of the cult-statue—the so-called ‘altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus’–the recent attempt to attribute it to a third-century tomb monument seems to me quite fantastic (Hafner, G., ‘Zwei römische Reliefwerke: Fixpunkte für die Kunstgeschichte der römischen Republik’, Aachener Kunstblätter xliii [1972] 97–124Google Scholar); Hafner takes no account of Coarelli's proof of its discovery inside the S. Salvatore temple, and re-interprets the census relief on entirely inadequate grounds. As I have tried to show elsewhere (G & R 1974 160–4Google Scholar), the base probably celebrates the censorship and mythical genealogy of Gellius, L.cos. 72Google Scholar; it need not, of course, be contemporary with the building of the temple itself.

14 It could be identical with the temple of Neptune in campo mentioned in the Arvalium, Fasti (Inscr. It. xiii 2, p. 35Google Scholar).

15 Pietas is placed on the assumption that it was identical with Pietas in foro holitorio (Livy xl 34.4); Mars by the probable findspot of the Ludovisi Ares (Coarelli, , Dial. arch. 1968, 313 f.Google Scholar); Castor by the findspot of the colossal Dioscuri now on the Cordonata (Pietrangeli, C., ‘I Dioscuri Capitolini’, Capitolium xxvii [1952] 42Google Scholar); Taurus' amphitheatre on the basis of the cavea reported by Piranesi at Monte dei Cenci (Campus Martius antiquae urbis [1762] tab. xxviii). The temple of Diana, which was evidently demolished by Augustus and replaced by a small shrine in the portico behind Marcellus' theatre (Coarelli, F., ‘Il tempio di Diana in circo Flaminio e alcuni problemi contessi’), Dial. arch. ii [1968] 191–209, esp. 201 f.Google Scholar), is placed conjecturally next to its sister temple of Iuno Regina, whose festival date it shared in the republican calendar; I assume it was removed to make room for the porticoes of Octavia and Philippus. Vulcan and Hercules Custos cannot be precisely located, but should both be on the western side: Vulcan could be referred to as in campo (Livy xxiv 10.9), and Hercules Custos was on the opposite side to Bellona (Ovid, Fasti vi 209–212Google Scholar).

[Added in proof: see now Zevi, F. in Hellenismus in Mittelitalien: Kolloquium in Göttingen vom 5. bis 9. Juni 1974, ed. Zanker, P. (Göttingen 1976) i 34–6Google Scholar (with comments by F. Coarelli at 36–7), rejecting Coarelli's location of the Mars temple and arguing for S. Salvatore as the site instead.]