(Ludi Apollinares), in Roman Antiquity, were instituted in the year B.C. 212, after the fatal battle at Cannae. The occasion was a kind of oracle delivered by the ancient prophet Marcus, declaring that, to expel the enemy, and cure the people of an infectious disease which then prevailed, sacred games were to be annually performed in honour of Apollo; the practor to have the direction of them, and the decemviri to offer sacrifices after the Grecian rite. For some time they were moveable or indicative, but at length were fixed, under P. Licinius Varus, to the 6th of July, and made perpetual. The Apollinarian games were merely scenical, and at first only observed with singing, piping, and other sorts of music; but afterwards there were also introduced all manner of mountebank tricks, dances, and the like; yet they still remained scenical, no chariot races, wrestling, or laborious exercises of the body, being ever practised at them.