REFERENCES: Marquardt, 269-296, 834-861; Staatsverwaltung, III, 504-565; Göll, III, 455-480, 104-157; Guhl and Koner, 643-658, 804-829, 609-618; Friedländer, II, 295-637; Ramsay, 394-409; Pauly-Wissowa, _amphitheatrum_, _calx_, _circus_, _Bader_; Smith, Harper, Rich, _amphitheatrum_, _balneae_, _circus_, _gladiatores_, _theatrum_, and other Latin words in text; Baumeister, 694, 241-244, 2089-2111; Lübker, 1073 f., 1199 f., 477 f., 1048 f., 185, 1213; Kelsey-Mau, 135-161, 180-220.
§316. After the games of childhood (§§102, 103) were passed the Roman seemed to lose all instinct for play. Of sport for sport's sake he knew nothing, he took part in no games for the sake of excelling in them. He played ball before his dinner for the good of the exercise, he practiced riding, fencing, wrestling, hurling the discus (Fig. 128), and swimming for the strength and skill they gave him in arms, he played a few games of chance for the excitement the stakes afforded, but there was no "national game" for the young men, and there were no social amusements in which men and women took part together. The Roman made it hard and expensive, too, for others to amuse him. He cared nothing for the drama, little for spectacular shows, more for farces and variety performances, perhaps, but the one thing that really appealed to him was excitement, and this he found in gambling or in such amusements only as involved the risk of injury to life and limb, the sports of the circus and the amphitheater. We may describe first the games in which the Roman participated himself and then those at which he was a mere spectator. In the first class are field sports and games of hazard, in the second the public and private games (_ludi publici et privati_).
[Illustration: FIGURE 128. DISCUS THROWER]
§317. Sports of the Campus.--The Campus Martius included all the level ground lying between the Tiber and the Capitoline and Quirinal hills. The northwestern portion of this plain, bounded on two sides by the Tiber, which here sweeps abruptly to the west, kept clear of public and private buildings and often called simply the _Campus_, was for centuries the playground of Rome. Here the young men gathered to practice the athletic games mentioned above, naturally in the cooler parts of the day. Even men of graver years did not disdain a visit to the Campus after the _meridiatio_ (§302), in preparation for the bath before dinner, instead of which the younger men preferred to take a cool plunge in the convenient river. The sports themselves were those that we are accustomed to group together as track and field athletics. They ran foot races, jumped, threw the discus (Fig. 128), practiced archery, and had wrestling and boxing matches. These sports were carried on then much as they are now, if we may judge by Vergil's description in the Fifth Aeneid, but an exception must be made of the games of ball. These seem to have been very dull and stupid as compared with ours. It must be remembered, however, that they were played more for the healthful exercise they furnished than for the joy of the playing, and by men of high position, too--Caesar, Maecenas, and even the Emperor Augustus.