Pompa circensis

In ancient Rome, the pompa circensis ("circus parade") was the procession that preceded the official games (ludi) held in the circus as part of religious festivals and other occasions.

The most detailed description of the pompa circensis during the Republican era is given by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, based on eyewitness observation and the historian Fabius Pictor, who says he is describing the original Ludi Romani; Fabius may, however, have been more influenced by what he saw in the pompa of the Saecular Games in 249 BC. The procession was led by boys of the nobility (nobiles) riding on horseback, followed by boys on foot who were future infantrymen. Next came the charioteers and athletes who would compete in the games.

Troops of dancers followed to musical accompaniment performed on auloi, a type of woodwind instrument, and the lyre. The dancers were divided into age classes, men, youths, and children. Wearing purple tunics, they wielded swords and short spears in war dances similar to the Cretan pyrrhics. The adult dancers also wore bronze helmets with "conspicuous crests and wings."

A chorus dressed as satyrs and sileni followed the armed dancers and mocked them. They were costumed in woolly tunics, garlands of different kinds of flowers, and goatskin loincloths, with their hair standing out on their heads in tufts. The appearance of satyristai at the original Ludi Romani is the earliest known reference to satyrs in Roman culture. Although Dionysius suggests that both the war dances and the Bacchic dancing were in imitation of the Greeks, the armed dances had a Roman precedent in the Salian priests, who danced with sword and shield, and the role of the satyrs seems based on Etruscan custom.

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