Lusus Troiae
Lusus Troiae, the Troy Game, was a spectacle of horsemanship performed by the sons of Rome's nobility. Picture three troops of twelve riders each, weaving their horses through patterns so intricate that Vergil, in the Aeneid, compared them to the Cretan Labyrinth itself. These were not soldiers, not competitors, and not adults. They were boys too young for military service, performing what the poet described as "sham cavalry skirmishes" on behalf of the Roman state.
What exactly were they doing out there? Why were Roman boys reenacting the escape from a maze? And why did Julius Caesar revive the event, Augustus make it a fixture, and a nine-year-old Nero take part? The Troy Game sits at the meeting point of myth, politics, horsemanship, and ritual, and every one of those threads leads somewhere unexpected.
Vergil's Aeneid, book five, lines 545 through 603, provides the fullest account of what the Troy Game actually looked like. He sets the scene at the anniversary games held to honor the death of Anchises, father of Aeneas. Three troops, called turmae, ride in formation. Each turma consisted of twelve riders, a leader, and two armor-bearers.
The movement Vergil describes is anything but simple. The columns split apart, files wheeled left and right, lances dipped as though charging, then the riders whirled and patched up a truce, riding side by side. Two detachments wound in and out of one another across the arena. Vergil uses two forms of the verb "to weave" when describing these movements, a word choice that turns out to carry weight far beyond stylistic ornament.
The Greek military writer Arrian, in his book The Art of Military Tactics, also describes complex intertwining cavalry maneuvers as part of Roman parade-ground reviews. He attributes their origins to non-Roman allied cavalry, particularly the Gauls and Iberians. The Troy Game shared that visual grammar of controlled, interlocking motion, but it was purely ceremonial. No one was training for battle.
Vergil's comparison of the drill to the Cretan Labyrinth was not decorative. The labyrinth carried a specific mythological weight. Theseus, after killing the Minotaur, taught the Athenian youth he had rescued a dance called the geranos, the crane dance. Scholars have interpreted the labyrinth, and by extension the Troy Game, as representing "a return from danger, a triumph of life over death", or more specifically as an initiation ritual. The geranos of Theseus served as a mythic prototype for the escape of initiates from the hardships of initiation.
A late seventh-century Etruscan wine-server, an oinochoë, from Tragliatella near Caere, shows mounted youths emerging from a labyrinth. Beside them is the inscription TRUIA, one reading of which is Troy. The feet of the shield-bearers depicted on the vessel may suggest dance steps. Initiation iconography similar to that on this Etruscan vessel also appears on a panel of the Gundestrup Cauldron, an object generally regarded as presenting Celtic subject matter with Thracian workmanship.
The Etruscan word truare, meaning "to move", also carried a specialized sense in the vocabulary of weaving. One argument holds that the Troy Game was the "running thread game", a ritual meant to repair the social fabric of Rome after civil war. That reading gains some force from the fact that the game was performed on a purification day, the dies lustri. In some versions of the Theseus myth, the hero escapes the labyrinth only by following a thread provided by Ariadne, a detail that ties together the weaving imagery, the maze, and the idea of guided return.
Julius Caesar revived the lusus Troiae in 45 or 46 BC. The revival was likely tied to his family's claim of descent from Iulus, the son of Aeneas. In Vergil's Aeneid, Iulus is one of the riders in the Troy Game, and the horse he rides was a gift from the Carthaginian queen Dido. The mythological connection gave Caesar's restoration of the game a dynastic purpose: it placed his bloodline at the origin of the ritual itself.
Historically, though, the game cannot be shown to have been held before the time of Sulla. Whether the event performed under Sulla was actually the Troy Game remains a matter of doubt. A similar-sounding event during the ludi Romani at the time of the Second Punic War is also uncertain as evidence for an earlier staging.
The claim that the game extends back at least to the sixth century BC rests partly on the Tragliatella oinochoë, which may predate Rome's Republican period. At least one Celtic people of central Gaul, the Aedui, also claimed Trojan descent. The Roman Senate formally recognized the Aedui as "brothers" and allies of Rome long before they were absorbed into the empire, a recognition that gave the Trojan origin myth a political reach well beyond Italy.
Augustus made the lusus Troiae a regular event, folding it into a broader program of interest in Trojan origins. That program also included the creation of the Tabulae Iliacae, low reliefs illustrating scenes from the Iliad whose texts were arranged as acrostics or palindromes, suggesting patterned movement or literary mazes in stone.
The specific occasions on which the Troy Game was staged tell their own story about the Augustan moment. On the 18th of August, 29 BC, the young Tiberius led a turma at the games celebrating the dedication of the Temple of the Divine Julius. The game was performed again at the dedication of the Theater of Marcellus in 13 BC, and at the dedication of the Temple of Mars Ultor on the 1st of August, 2 BC. The children in eastern dress carved on the Ara Pacis have sometimes been read as Gaius and Lucius Caesar in Trojan garb for the 13 BC performance.
The game continued under the Julio-Claudian emperors who followed. Seneca mentions it in his Troades at line 778. In 47 AD, Nero took part at the age of nine, riding alongside Britannicus. A nine-year-old emperor-to-be performing an equestrian drill rooted in Trojan myth, on a purification day, watched by Rome, is a scene that captures how thoroughly Augustus had made the lusus into an instrument of dynastic display.
The Troy Game was supervised by the Tribunes of the Celeres, who are linked to the Salii in the Fasti Praenestini. The Salii were Mars's youthful armed priests, and they performed dance steps expressed by forms of the verb truare, a word that may mean "to perform a truia dance". That linguistic overlap with the name of the game is striking.
Mars himself was associated with horses through his Equirria festivals and through the ritual of the October Horse. As patron of warrior youth, Mars provided the divine framing within which boys who were not yet soldiers could perform a display of martial horsemanship. The Troy Game was not attached regularly to any particular religious festival, but it was placed within the broader context of ludi, the games celebrated at imperial funerals, temple foundings, and military victories. Its appearance at the Saecular Games was occasional rather than fixed.
The connection between the Troy Game and Mars, through the Salii, through the verb truare, and through the dedications of temples including the Temple of Mars Ultor, suggests that the ritual was understood as preparation for martial life, an initiation of noble boys into the world of the soldier, conducted under divine supervision and wrapped in the myth of Troy's survival as the seed of Rome.
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Common questions
What was the Lusus Troiae in ancient Rome?
The Lusus Troiae, or Troy Game, was an equestrian ceremony performed by boys of the Roman nobility. It featured three troops of twelve riders each who performed intricate interlocking drills on horseback as a display of communal skill, not a competition. It was staged at imperial funerals, temple dedications, and military victory celebrations.
Who participated in the Lusus Troiae?
Participation was restricted to boys of the nobility, known as nobiles, who were too young for military service. In 47 AD, Nero took part at the age of nine alongside Britannicus. The young Tiberius led a turma at the games on the 18th of August, 29 BC.
Who revived the Lusus Troiae and why?
Julius Caesar revived the lusus Troiae in 45 or 46 BC, likely because his family claimed descent from Iulus, son of Aeneas, who appears as a rider in the Troy Game in Vergil's Aeneid. Augustus later established it as a regular event, making it a fixture of Julio-Claudian dynastic display.
What does Vergil's Aeneid say about the Troy Game?
Vergil provides the fullest description of the Troy Game in Aeneid book five, lines 545-603, setting it at anniversary games honoring Anchises. He depicts three troops wheeling, dipping lances, winding in and out of one another, and compares the patterns explicitly to the Cretan Labyrinth.
What is the connection between the Lusus Troiae and the labyrinth?
Vergil explicitly compared the equestrian drill to the Cretan Labyrinth, and scholars have interpreted the game as a form of initiation ritual representing a return from danger. A late seventh-century Etruscan wine-server from Tragliatella near Caere shows mounted youths emerging from a labyrinth inscribed with the word TRUIA, one meaning of which is Troy.
On what occasions was the Lusus Troiae performed?
The Troy Game was performed at imperial funerals, temple foundings, and military victories, and was occasionally staged at the Saecular Games. Known performances include the dedication of the Temple of the Divine Julius in 29 BC, the Theater of Marcellus in 13 BC, and the Temple of Mars Ultor on the 1st of August, 2 BC.
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17 references cited across the entry
- 1bookThe Archaeology of the OlympicsDaniel P. Harmon — University of Wisconsin Press — 1988