Augustan Revival of the Secular Games

438, Lot: 449. Estimate $500. Sold for $1200. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Augustus. 27 BC-AD 14. AR Denarius (19mm, 3.78 g, 11h). Ludi Saeculares (Secular Games) issue. Rome mint; L. Mescinius Rufus, moneyer. Struck 16 BC. CAESAR AVGV-[ST]VS TR PO[T], laureate head right / L MESCINIVS RVFVS III VIR, cippus inscribed IMP/CAES/AVG/LVD/SAEC in five lines; XV-SF across field. RIC I 355; RSC 461; BMCRE –; BN 339. VF, toned, edge chip, scrape on neck. Rare.

These rites (i.e., the Secular Games) were afterwards neglected for many years, until some misfortunes befel them (i.e., the Romans) and then Octavianus Augustus renewed the games which had before been celebrated, when Lucius Censorinus and Marcus Manlius Peulius were consuls. (Zosimus, Historia Nova, 2).

The Ludi Saeculares were celebrated at the close of every saeculum (a length of time corresponding to the maximum age an individual might live, usually defined as 100 or 110 years). Augustus revived the games in 17 BC, when the first coins marking the event were struck. Based on an interpretation of the Sibillyne Books, Augustus declared that a saeculum should be defined as 110 years, with the games of 17 BC thus celebrating Rome’s fifth saeculum.