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During the reign of Julian, when the Christian schools were shut up, and the Christian youth were debarred from the use of the classics, the two Apollinares, father and son, exerted themselves to supply the inconvenience thence resulting from their own resources. Nor did he confine himself to the mere external defence of the Gospel, or the preparatory training of its disciples.
In the year previous to this men belonging to the order of knights had slaughtered wild beasts at the horse-race which came in the course of the Ludi Apollinares, and an intercalary day was inserted, contrary to custom, in order that the market held every nine days should not fall on the first day of the following year, something which was strictly forbidden from very early times.
Of the other three ludi, Apollinares, Megalenses, and Florales, we only know that they included both circenses and plays; we must take it as probable that the former were in their programme from the first. There is no need to describe here in detail the manner of the chariot-racing.
The Ludi Apollinares were vowed by a praetor urbanus in 212, when the fate of Rome was hanging in the balance, and celebrated in the Circus Maximus: in 208 they were fixed to a particular day, July 13, and eventually extended to eight, viz. July 6-13.
Cassius, who was praetor urbanus, had not yet finished his duties in connection with the Ludi Apollinares. However, though absent he accomplished that task most brilliantly through the medium of his fellow-praetor Antony, and did not himself sail away from Italy at once, but lingered with Brutus in Campania, to watch the course of events.
Livy expressly says, "Ita abundavit Tiberis, ut Ludi Apollinares, circo inundato, extra portam Collinam ad aedem Erycinae Veneris parati sint," "There was such an inundation of the Tiber that, the Circus being overflowed, the Ludi Appollinares were exhibited without the gate Collina, hard by the temple of Venus Erycina."
But the usual way of supplementing it was for the magistrate in charge of the ludi to pay what he could out of his own purse, or to get his friends to help him; and as all the ludi except the Apollinares were in charge of the aediles, it became the practice for these, if they aspired to reach the praetorship and consulship, to vie with each other in the recklessness of their expenditure.
The triumphal procession passed along the Sacra via to the Capitol, and thence again to the Circus Maximus, where the ludi were held. All such shows and processions were dear to the Roman people, and this seems to have become a permanent feature of the Ludi Romani, whether or no an actual triumph was to be celebrated, and also of some other ludi, e.g. the Apollinares and the Megalenses.
So many persons, in fact, deserted that the vestal virgins prayed in the name of the sacrifices that their desertions might be restrained. When he failed of that he ordered Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa to wage war against him, and himself set out for Gaul. Sextus when he heard of that kept watch of Agrippa, who was busy superintending the Ludi Apollinares.
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