Music of ancient Rome
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The music of ancient Rome was a part of Roman culture from the earliest of times. Songs were an integral part of almost every social occasion. The Secular Ode of Horace, for instance, was commissioned
Trio of musicians playing an aulos, cymbala, and tympanum (mosaic from Pompeii)
Masked theatrical troupe around an aulos player (mosaic from the House of the Tragic Poet, Pompeii)
Depiction of a Roman animal sacrifice
Musicians in a detail from the Zliten mosaic (2nd century AD), originally shown as accompanying gladiator combat and wild-animal events in the arena: from left, the tuba, hydraulis (water pipe organ), and two cornua
Pompa circensis
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In ancient Rome, the pompa circensis was the procession that preceded the official games held in the circus as part of religious festivals and other occasions.
The presiding magistrate at the pompa circensis rode in a two-horse chariot; behind him are the young nobiles who led the parade on horseback (4th-century opus sectile from the Basilica of Junius Bassus)
A late 16th-century etching, from a book by the antiquarian Onofrio Panvinio published posthumously, reimagining the pompa circensis within the Circus Maximus but conflating it with a triumphal procession, labeling the elements of the parade in Latin