Imperial Authority and Saeculum Rhetoric from Augustus to Constantine
By Susan Dunning
The Augustan Ludi Saeculares of 17 BCE were the first occasion on which Republican sacrifices at Tarentum in the Campus Martius were connected with Rome’s entrance into a new age, or saeculum. From this new association Augustus, with the help of Ateius Capito, renamed the old Tarentum sacrifices (formerly known as Ludi Tarentini) the Ludi Saeculares, the name they would bear in all future celebrations.