SECULAR, that which relates to affairs of the present world, in which sense the word stands opposed to spiritual and ecclesiastical. Secular is more peculiarly used for a person who lives nt liberty in the world, not shut up in a monastery, nor bound by vows, or subjected to the particular rules of any religious community; in which sense it stands opposed to regular. The Catholic clergy are divided into secular and regular; of which the latter are bound by monastic rules, the former not.

Secular Games, in Antiquity, solemn games held among the Romans once in an age.

These games lasted three days and as many nights, during which time sacrifices were performed, and theatrical shows exhibited, with combats and sports in the circus. The occasion of these games, according to Valerius Maximus, was to stop the progress of a plague. Valerius Publicola was the first who celebrated them at Rome, in the year of the city 245. The whole world was invited by a herald to a feast which they had never seen before, nor ever should see again. Some days before the games began, the quindecemviri, in the Capitol and in the Palatine temple, distributed to the people purifying compositions of various kinds. Thence the populace passed to Diana’s temple on the Aventine Mount, with wheat, barley, and oats, as an offering. After this whole nights were spent in devotion to the Destinies. When the time of the games was fully come, the people assembled in the Campus Martius, and sacrificed to Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, Latona, Diana, the Parcae, Ceres, Pluto, and Proserpine. On the first night of the feast, the emperor, with the quindecemviri, caused three altars to be erected on the banks of the Tiber, which were sprinkled with the blood of three lambs, and then proceeded to regular sacrifice. A space was next marked out for a theatre, which was illuminated with innumerable flambeaux and fires. Here they sung hymns, and celebrated all kinds of sports. On the day afterwards, having offered victims at the Capitol, they went to the Campus Martius, and celebrated sports in honour of Apollo and Diana. These lasted until next day, when the noble matrons, at the hour appointed by the oracle, went to the Capitol to sing hymns to Jupiter. On the third day, which concluded the solemnity, twenty-seven boys, and as many girls, sung, in the temple of Palatine Apollo, hymns and verses in Greek and Latin, to recommend the city to the protection of those deities whom they designed particularly to honour by their sacrifices. The inimitable carmen Seculare of Horace was composed for this last day, in the Secular Games celebrated by Augustus.

It has been much disputed whether these games were held every hundred or every hundred and ten years. Valerius Antius, Varro, and Livy, are quoted in support of the former opinion. In favour of the latter may be produced the quindecemviral registers, the edicts of Augustus, and the words of Horace in the secular poem, “Certus undenos decies per annos.”

It was a general belief, that the girls who bore a part in the song should be soonest married; and that the children who did not dance and sing at the coming of Apollo should die unmarried, and at an early period of life.