Ellen Perry

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the Capitoline Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus in the lives of the people of Rome.1 Most famously, triumphing generals sacrificed here at the end of the triumphal processions that followed victorious military campaigns, and the temple stored war spoils that had been dedicated by victorious generals.2 This temple was also where consuls and praetors sacrifice d and made vows to the gods on their first day of office (Ov. Pont. 4.4). During the Republic, consuls and praetors who were departing for their provinces, or to go to war, also made their vows here (so, for example, Livy 12.63.7-9 and 45.39.12).3 And the Capitoline Temple also came to be the starting point for the procession associated with the Ludi Romani (Ludi Magni), an annual cycle of competitions (equestrian, chariot, boxing, wrestling, theatrical, etc.) in honor of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. These games expanded in scope from a one-day event (13 September, the foundation date of the temple) in the fourth century b. c.e. to something like half the month by the reign of Augustus.4 The religious procession that kicked off the games followed a route that seems to have been a portion of the triumphal procession in reverse: from the Capitoline Temple down through the Forum and to the Circus Maximus. It consisted of young men of military age on horseback and foot, charioteers, athletes, dancers (serious and satyric - the latter literally, since they were dressed as satyrs), musicians (flute and lyre players), men with incense, carrying vessels of gold and silver and, finally, men carrying statues of the gods (D. H. 7.72.1-13). As one scholar has written, “Successive rituals and ceremonies repeatedly brought Roman society into contact with this sacred vessel of cultural and religious values.”5 Moreover, this repeated contact was sustained for some nine hundred years, from the construction of the building at the end of the sixth century B. C.E. to sometime before it was quarried for materials in the fourth century C. E.