# Lusus Troiae

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Equestrian event in ancient Rome

Drawing of an Etruscan *[oinochoë](/source/Oenochoe)* with a legend reading *Truia*, sometimes thought to depict the Troy Game

Cretan labyrinth

The ***Lusus Troiae***, also as ***Ludus Troiae*** and ***ludicrum Troiae*** ("**Troy Game**" or "**Game of Troy**") was an equestrian event held in [ancient Rome](/source/Ancient_Rome). It was among the *[ludi](/source/Ludi)* ("games"), celebrated at [imperial](/source/Roman_Emperor) [funerals](/source/Roman_funerals_and_burial), temple foundings, or in honor of a military victory. The *lusus* was occasionally presented at the [Saecular Games](/source/Saecular_Games), but was not attached regularly to a particular [religious festival](/source/Roman_festivals).[1]

Participation was a privilege for boys of the nobility (*[nobiles](/source/Nobiles)*).[2] It was a display of communal skill, not a contest.[3]

## Description

The fullest description of the exercise is given by [Vergil](/source/Vergil), *[Aeneid](/source/Aeneid)* 5.545–603, as the final event in the games held to commemorate the anniversary of the death of [Aeneas](/source/Aeneas)'s father, [Anchises](/source/Anchises). The drill features three troops *([turmae](/source/Turma))* — each made up of twelve riders, a leader, and two armor-bearers — who perform intricate drills on horseback:

- … The column split apart As files in the three squadrons all in line Turned away, cantering left and right; recalled They wheeled and dipped their lances for a charge. They entered then on parades and counter-parades, The two detachments, matched in the arena, Winding in and out of one another, And whipped into sham cavalry skirmishes By baring backs in flight, then whirling round With leveled points, then patching up a truce And riding side by side. So intricate In ancient times on mountainous Crete they say The Labyrinth, between walls in the dark, Ran criss-cross a bewildering thousand ways Devised by guile, a maze insoluble, Breaking down every clue to the way out. So intricate the drill of Trojan boys Who wove the patterns of their prancing horses, Figured, in sport, retreats and skirmishes …[4]

Complex intertwining manoeuvres as a display of [horsemanship](/source/Horsemanship) were characteristic of [Roman cavalry](/source/Roman_cavalry) reviews on the parade ground. The Greek military writer [Arrian](/source/Arrian) describes these in his book *The Art of Military Tactics* (*Technē Taktikē*), and says they originated among the non-Roman cavalry units provided by the allies (*[auxilia](/source/Auxilia)*), particularly the [Gauls](/source/Gauls) (that is, the [continental Celts](/source/Continental_Celts)) and [Iberians](/source/Hispania).[5] The Troy Game, however, was purely ceremonial and involved youths too young for military service.

## History and origin

The *lusus Troiae* was "revived" by [Julius Caesar](/source/Julius_Caesar) in 45 or 46 BC,[6] perhaps in connection with his family claim to have descended from [Iulus](/source/Ascanius), the son of Aeneas who in the game of the *Aeneid* rides a horse that was a gift from the [Carthaginian](/source/Carthage#Legends_of_the_foundation) queen [Dido](/source/Dido_(Queen_of_Carthage)).[7] Given the mythological setting, the description of the *lusus Troiae* in the *Aeneid* is likely to have been the [Augustan](/source/Augustan_literature_(ancient_Rome)) poet's fictional [aetiology](/source/Founding_myth).[8] Historically, the event cannot be shown to have been held before the time of [Sulla](/source/Sulla),[9] and it has been doubted that the *lusus* presented under Sulla was the Troy Game. A similar-sounding event during the *[ludi Romani](/source/Ludi_Romani)* at the time of the [Second Punic War](/source/Second_Punic_War) is also uncertain as evidence for an earlier staging.[10]

Panel from the [Gundestrup Cauldron](/source/Gundestrup_Cauldron) sometimes interpreted as depicting an equestrian [ritual of initiation](/source/Initiation_ritual)

Detail of foot soldiers from the opposite side of the *Truia* wine-server

The claim that the event "extends back at least to the sixth century B.C." is based in part on a late 7th-century [Etruscan wine-server](/source/Etruscan_pottery) (*[oinochoë](/source/Oenochoe)*) from [Tragliatella](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tragliatella&action=edit&redlink=1) (near [Caere](/source/Caere)) which depicts mounted youths emerging from a [labyrinth](/source/Labyrinth) with the legend *TRUIA*, one possible meaning of which is [Troy](/source/Troy).[11] Vergil explicitly compares the patterns of the drill to the [Cretan Labyrinth](/source/Cretan_Labyrinth), which was associated with the *[geranos](/source/Geranos)* ("crane dance") taught by [Theseus](/source/Theseus) to the Athenian youth he rescued from the [Minotaur](/source/Minotaur) there. In myth and ritual, the labyrinth, and hence the *lusus*, has been interpreted as "a return from danger, a triumph of life over death",[12] or more specifically as an [initiation](/source/Initiation) ritual.[13] The *geranos* of Theseus serves as a "mythic prototype for the escape of initiates from the rigors of initiation"; the feet of the shield-bearers on the *Truia* wine-server may suggest dance steps.[14] Initiation iconography similar to that of the Etruscan *oinochoë* is found on a panel of the [Gundestrup Cauldron](/source/Gundestrup_Cauldron), generally regarded as presenting Celtic subject matter with a [Thracian influence in workmanship](/source/Thracian_treasure).[15] At least one of the Celtic polities of central Gaul, the [Aedui](/source/Aedui), claimed like the Romans to be of Trojan descent and were formally recognized by the [Roman Senate](/source/Roman_Senate) as the "brothers" as well as the allies of Rome long before they were incorporated into the empire.[16]

The Etruscan designation of the game as "Truia", if that is what the vase depicts, may be a play on words, as *truare* means "to move", with a specialized sense in the vocabulary of weaving: it has been argued that the *lusus Troiae* is the "running thread game", intended to repair the "social fabric" of Rome after the [recent civil wars](/source/Caesar's_civil_war).[17] The Troy Game was performed on a [purification day *(dies lustri)*](/source/Lustrum).[18] Vergil uses two forms of the verb "to weave" to describe the equestrian movements, and in some versions of the Theseus myth, the hero's return from the labyrinth is made possible by following a [daedalean](/source/Daedalus) thread provided by [Ariadne](/source/Ariadne).[19] The game may have connections to [Mars](/source/Mars_(mythology)), who was associated with horses through his [Equirria](/source/Equirria) festivals and the ritual of the [October Horse](/source/October_Horse), as a patron of warrior youth. Mars' youthful armed priests the [Salii](/source/Salii) performed dance steps expressed by forms of the verb *truare*, here perhaps meaning "to perform a *truia* dance". The Troy Game was supervised by the Tribunes of the [Celeres](/source/Celeres), who are connected to the Salii in the *[Fasti Praenestini](/source/Fasti_Praenestini)*.[20]

[Augustus](/source/Augustus) established the *lusus Troiae* as a regular event.[21] Its performance was part of a general interest in Trojan origins reflected also in the creation of the *[Tabulae Iliacae](/source/Tabulae_Iliacae)* or "Trojan Tablets", [low reliefs](/source/Relief) that illustrate scenes from the *[Iliad](/source/Iliad)* and often present text in the form of [acrostics](/source/Acrostics) or [palindromes](/source/Palindrome), suggesting patterned movement or literary mazes.[22]

The young [Tiberius](/source/Tiberius) led a *[turma](/source/Turma)* at the games celebrating the dedication of the [Temple of the Divine Julius](/source/Temple_of_Caesar), 18 August 29 BC.[23] The *lusus* was also performed at the dedication of the [Theater of Marcellus](/source/Theater_of_Marcellus) in 13 BC,[24] and of the [Temple of Mars Ultor](/source/Temple_of_Mars_Ultor), 1 August 2 BC.[25] The children in eastern dress on the [Ara Pacis](/source/Ara_Pacis) have sometimes been interpreted as [Gaius](/source/Gaius_Caesar) and [Lucius Caesar](/source/Lucius_Caesar) in "Trojan" garb for the game in 13 BC.[26] The Troy Game continued to be staged under other emperors of the [Julio-Claudian dynasty](/source/Julio-Claudian_dynasty).[27] [Seneca](/source/Seneca_the_Younger) mentions the event in his *Troades* (line 778). [Nero](/source/Nero) participated in 47 AD, at the age of nine, along with [Britannicus](/source/Britannicus).[28]

## See also

- *[Hippika gymnasia](/source/Hippika_gymnasia)*

- [Taurian Games](/source/Taurian_Games)

- [Troy Town](/source/Troy_Town)

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** Harmon, Daniel P. (1988). "The Religious Significance of Games in the Roman Age". *The Archaeology of the Olympics*. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 250.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** [John Scheid](/source/John_Scheid) and [Jesper Svenbro](/source/Jesper_Svenbro), *The Craft of Zeus: Myths of Weaving and Fabric* (Penn State Press, 1996), p. 41.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** Francis Cairns, *Virgil's Augustan Epic* (Cambridge University Press, 1989, 1990), pp. 226 and 246 [online.](https://books.google.com/books?id=KuyMEs9kWk4C&dq=%22Lusus+Troiae%22&pg=PA246)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** Translation by [Robert Fitzgerald](/source/Robert_Fitzgerald) of [Vergil](/source/Vergil), *[Aeneid](/source/Aeneid)* 5.580–593: *olli discurrere pares atque agmina terni / diductis soluere choris, rursusque uocati / conuertere uias infestaque tela tulere. / inde alios ineunt cursus aliosque recursus / aduersi spatiis, alternosque orbibus orbis / impediunt pugnaeque cient simulacra sub armis; / et nunc terga fuga nudant, nunc spicula uertunt / infensi, facta pariter nunc pace feruntur. / ut quondam Creta fertur Labyrinthus in alta / parietibus textum caecis iter ancipitemque / mille uiis habuisse dolum, qua signa sequendi / frangeret indeprensus et inremeabilis error; / haud alio Teucrum nati uestigia cursu / impediunt texuntque fugas et proelia ludo.*

1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** As described by [Arrian](/source/Arrian), *Technē Taktikē* (Latin *Ars tactica*) 32–44; see description and diagram, Brian Campbell, *Greek and Roman Military Writers: Selected Readings* (Routledge, 2004), p. 44 [online](https://books.google.com/books?id=YHRc0LAUmIIC&dq=%22In+the+Cantabrian+gallop%22&pg=PA44), and A.M. Devine, "Arrian’s Tactica", *Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt* II.34.1 (1993), p. 331 [online](https://books.google.com/books?id=ssail1eW01gC&dq=%22which+Arrian+claims%22&pg=PA331).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-6)** [Suetonius](/source/Suetonius), *Divus Iulius* [39](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Julius*.html#39); [Cassius Dio](/source/Cassius_Dio) [43.23.6.](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/43*.html#23)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-7)** Vergil, *Aeneid* 5.570–572; Petrini, *The Child and the Hero*, p. 35.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-8)** Mark Petrini, *The Child and the Hero: Coming of Age in Catullus and Vergil* (University of Michigan Press, 1997), p. 93 [online.](https://books.google.com/books?id=42Nw80wplHkC&dq=%22Lusus+Troiae%22&pg=PA93)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-9)** The evidence for the game under Sulla is [Plutarch](/source/Plutarch), *Cato Minor* [3.](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Cato_Minor*.html#3) Unless otherwise noted, citations of sources from Atze J. Keulen, *L. Annaeus Seneca: Troades* (Brill, 2001), p. 403 [online.](https://books.google.com/books?id=m_JVQzsJrloC&dq=%22Lusus+Troiae%22&pg=PA403)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-10)** Scheid and Svenbro, *The Craft of Zeus*, p. 40.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-11)** Harmon, "The Religious Significance of Games in the Roman Age", p. 249 [online](https://books.google.com/books?id=DwU1IlTEhrYC&dq=%22Lusus+Troiae%22&pg=PA249). The *Truia* wine-server has been regarded as a key piece of evidence in tracing the spread of the Cretan Labyrinth design from Greece first into Etruscan Italy and from there into central and northern Europe, the British Isles, and Iberia; see John L. Heller and Stewart S. Cairns, "To Draw a Labyrinth", in *Classical Studies Presented to Ben Edwin Perry by His Students and Colleagues at the University of Illinois, 1924–60* (University of Illinois Press, 1969), pp. 236–262, on the *Truia* labyrinth especially pp. 236, 238, 261–262, and Heller again, "A Labyrinth from Pylos?" *American Journal of Archaeology* 65 (1961) 57–62.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-12)** Harmon, "The Religious Significance of Games in the Roman Age", p. 250.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-13)** [H. S. Versnel](/source/H._S._Versnel), "Apollo and Mars One Hundred Years after Roscher", in *Visible Religion: Annual for Religious Iconography. Approaches to Iconology* (Brill, 1985–86), p. 148 [online.](https://books.google.com/books?id=UesUAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22Lusus+Troiae%22&pg=PA148)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-14)** Thomas Habinek, *The World of Roman Song: From Ritualized Speech to Social Order* (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), pp. 18–19 [online](https://books.google.com/books?id=Em_XpAvaT9oC&dq=%22geranos%2C+that+Theseus+led+after+rescuing+the+Athenian+youth%22&pg=PA18), where the *Truia* vessel is discussed at greater length, with more on the crane dance and the labyrinth pp. 1950–1951.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-15)** Kim R. McCone, "Werewolves, Cyclopes, Díberga, and Fíanna: Juvenile Delinquency in Early Ireland", *Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies* 12 (1986) 1–22; [John T. Koch](/source/John_T._Koch), *Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia* (ABC-Clio, 2006), pp. 908 [online](https://books.google.com/books?id=f899xH_quaMC&dq=initiation+Gundestrup+inauthor%3AKoch&pg=PA908) and 1489–1490.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-16)** *Aeduos fratres consanguineosque saepe numero a senatu appellatos*: [Julius Caesar](/source/Julius_Caesar), *[Bellum Gallicum](/source/Commentarii_de_Bello_Gallico)* 1.332, see also 1.36.5, 43.6, 44.9. There is some possibility that the Aeduan "senate", as Caesar refers to their equivalent political body, is meant. The most explicit claim of Trojan origin for the Aedui is made by [Ammianus Marcellinus](/source/Ammianus_Marcellinus) 15.9.5. A similar claim is made for the [Arverni](/source/Arverni) by [Lucan](/source/Lucan) and [Sidonius Apollinaris](/source/Sidonius_Apollinaris). For full discussion of the evidence, see D.C. Braund, "The Aedui, Troy, and the *[Apocolocyntosis](/source/Apocolocyntosis)*", *Classical Quarterly* 30 (1980) 420–425.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-17)** Scheid and Svenbro, *The Craft of Zeus*, pp. 45–48.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-18)** Seneca, *Troades* 777f.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-19)** *Textum* (5.589) and *texunt* (5.593). [Claudian](/source/Claudian) describes a similar event in his *Panegyric on the Sixth Consulship of the Emperor Honorius*, Bill Thayer's edition at [LacusCurtius](/source/LacusCurtius), [English translation](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Claudian/De_VI_Consulatu_Honorii*.html) and Latin [line 615ff.](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Claudian/De_VI_Consulatu_Honorii*.html#615), where the "interwoven retreats" (*textas … fugas*, 623) are also compared to the Cretan (as *[Gortynia](/source/Gortyn)*) labyrinth and to the course of the [Meander River](/source/B%C3%BCy%C3%BCk_Menderes_River) (hence English "meander") near Troy.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-20)** H.S. Versnel, "Apollo and Mars One Hundred Years after Roscher", in *Visible Religion: Annual for Religious Iconography. Approaches to Iconology* (Brill, 1985–86), p. 148, citing [Festus](/source/Sextus_Pompeius_Festus) 270 (Müller).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-21)** *Frequentissime*: Suetonius, *Augustus* [43.](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Augustus*.html#43)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-22)** Thomas Habinek, "Situating Literacy at Rome", in *Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome* (Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 127–129 [online](https://books.google.com/books?id=SrTUcYJTMewC&dq=%22Tabulae+Iliacae%22&pg=PA127), including a diagram; Piotr Rypson, "*Homo quadratus in labyrintho*: The Cubus Visual Poem from Antiquity until Late Baroque", *European Iconography East and West. Selected Papers of the Szeged International Conference June 9–12, 1993* (Brill, 1996), p. 10 [online.](https://books.google.com/books?id=iad5O0BIxGoC&dq=geranos+%22lusus+Troiae%22&pg=PA10)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-23)** [Cassius Dio](/source/Cassius_Dio) [51.22](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/51*.html#22); Geoffrey S. Sumi, *Ceremony and Power: Performing Politics in Rome between Republic and Empire* (University of Michigan Press, 2005), p. 23.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-24)** Cassius Dio [54.26.1](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/54*.html#26); Suetonius, *Augustus* 43.5; Lawrence Richardson, *A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome* (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), p. 382.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-25)** [Kathleen M. Coleman](/source/Kathleen_Coleman), "Euergetism in Its Place: Where Was the Amphitheatre in Augustan Rome?" in *Bread and Circuses: Euergetism and Municipal Patronage in Roman Italy* (Routledge, 2003), p. 76.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-26)** I.M. Le M. Du Quesnay, *Horace,*Odes 4.5: "*Pro Reditu Imperatoris Caesaris Divi Filii Augusti*", in *Homage to Horace: A Bimillenary Celebration* (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), p. 143; Mario Torelli, *Typology and Structure of Roman Historical Reliefs* (University of Michigan Press, 1992), pp. 48–49, 60 [online.](https://books.google.com/books?id=4012VYCWYqwC&dq=%22Lusus+Troiae%22&pg=PA60) Charles Brian Rose, "The Parthians in Augustan Rome", in *American Journal of Archaeology* 109 (2005), pp. 36–44, argues at length against this identification, but discusses "the uneasy interaction of Trojan and Parthian iconography" that can conflate "the founders of the Romans or their fiercest opponents".

1. **[^](#cite_ref-27)** Suetonius, *Tiberius* [6](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Tiberius*.html#6), *Caligula* [18](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Caligula*.html#18), *Claudius* [21](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Claudius*.html#21), *Nero* [7.](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Nero*.html#7)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-28)** Keulen, *L. Annaeus Seneca: Troades*, p. 9; Suetonius, *Nero* 7; [Tacitus](/source/Tacitus), *Annales* 11.11.5 (where the event is called *ludicrum Troiae*). The semiotics of Nero's participation is analyzed at length by Ellen O'Gormon, *Irony and Misreading in the Annals of Tacitus* (Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 162–175.

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