Piracy and Republican Politics

other essays in the volume which associate games with social and political realities through the imaginative use of literary sources. Briquel, starting from Tacitus' passage (Ann. 14.21.1) which claims that horse competitions came from Thurii, explores the contribution of Magna Graecia to Rome in the third and second century B.C. B. suggests that the triumph of L. Mummius in 145 may have been accompanied by a significant change in Roman theatrical practices, and brilliantly associates Tacitus' comment with a tradition of hostility to Nero's introduction of the Neronia as a foreign, Greek import. Massa-Pairault also examines Roman games, and compares them with what is known of Etruscan examples, finding a number of extremely fruitful analogies in rites of integration of young men into society, concluding with very suggestive comments on the way the history of the Roman games can be read in the light of the plebeian struggle for recognition. Themes of integration and symbolic representation are also explored by Capdeville, who shows the importance of games in Roman celebrations of their community, starting with the Consualia, which was the scene of the Rape of the Sabine Women in Roman legend, and, together with the Lusus Troiae and the Lupercalia, retained this aspect into the historical period. Coarelli, in a typically farreaching combination of literary record and astute topographical analysis, explores convincingly the implications of the Campus Martius for both games and military activity. Dupont's account of the ritual aspect of the games, and her suggestion that their ancient descriptions in fact tell us little about the history of the games and more about the ideology of their performance, provides a rather different approach.