Latin, is chiefly found in scientific applications, of processes or phenomena which are continued through the ages and are not regularly recurrent or periodical, e.g. the secular cooling of the earth, secular change of the mean annual change of the temperature. The word is thus used widely of that which is lasting or permanent. In medieval and Late Latin, saecularis was particularly used of that which belongs to this world, hence non-spiritual, lay. It is thus used, first to distinguish the “regular” or monastic clergy from those who were not bound by the rule (regula) of a religious order, the parish priests, the “seculars,” who were living in the world, and secondly in the wide sense of anything which is distinct, opposed to or not connected with religion or ecclesiastical things, temporal as opposed to spiritual or ecclesiastical. Thus property transferred or alienated from spiritual to temporal hands is said to be “secularized”; “secularism” (q.v.) is the term applied in general to the separation of state politics or administration from religious or church matters; “ secular education ” is a system of training in which definite religious teaching is excluded.
SECULAR GAMES (Ludi Saeculares, originally Terentini).
These were celebrated at Rome for three days and nights to
mark the commencement of a new saeculum or generation. It
is important to note that there was a saeculum civile, the length
of which was definitely fixed at 100 years, and a saeculum
naturale, which, under Greek and Etruscan influence, came to
be accepted by the quindecimviri as 110 years. According to
tradition, the secular games had their origin in certain sacrificial
rites of the gens Valeria, which were performed at the Terentum,
a volcanic cleft in the Campus Martius. According to the Roman
antiquarians themselves, they were derived from the Etruscans,
who, at the end of a mean period of 100 years (as representing
the longest human life in a generation), presented to the
chthonian deities an expiatory offering on behalf of the coming
generation. The first definitely attested celebration of the games
took place in 249 B.C., on which occasion a vow was made that
they should be repeated every hundredth year (their name
being also changed to Saeculares), a regulation which seems to
have been immediately disregarded, for they were next held in
146 (not 149, although the authorities are not unanimous);
in 49 the civil wars prevented any celebration. They would
probably have fallen entirely into oblivion, had not Augustus
revived them in 17 B.C., for which occasion the Carmen Saeculare
was composed by Horace. In explanation of the selection of
this year it is supposed that the quindecimviri invented celebrations
for the years 456, 346, 236, 126, the saeculum being taken
as lasting 110 years.
In later times various modes of reckoning were adopted. The dates were: A.D. 47 (under Claudius), celebrating the 800th year of the foundation of the city; 88 (under Domitian), an interval of only 105 instead of 110 years; 147 (under Antoninus Pius), the 900th year of the city; 204 (under Septimius Severus), exactly two saecula (220 years) after the Augustan celebration; 248 (under Philip the Arabian), the 1000th year of the city; 262 (under Gallienus), probably a special ceremony in time of calamity; in 304 (which should have been 314) Maximian intended to hold a celebration, but does not appear to have done so. From this time nothing more is heard of the secular games, until they were revived in the year 1500 as the popish jubilees instituted by Boniface VIII.
At the beginning of the harvest, heralds went round and summoned the people to the festival. The quindecimviri distributed to all free citizens on the Capitol and in 316 temple of Apollo on the Palatine various means of expiation—torches, sulphur and bitumen. Here and in the temple of Diana on the Aventine, wheat, barley, and beans were distributed, to serve as an offering of first fruits. The festival then began, at which offerings were made to various deities. On the first night the emperor sacrificed three rams to the Parcae at an underground altar on the banks of the Tiber, while the people lighted torches and sang a special hymn. On the same or following nights a black hog and a black pig were sacrificed to Tellus, and dark victims to Dis (Pluto) and Proserpine. On the first day white bulls and a white cow were offered to Jupiter and Juno on the Capitol, after which scenic games were held in honour of Apollo. On the second day noble matrons sang supplicatory hymns to Juno on the Capitol; on the third, white oxen were sacrificed to Apollo and twenty-seven boys and maidens sang the “secular hymn” in Greek and Latin.
The above particulars are from Zosimus (ii. 5, and 6, which contain the Sibylline oracle), who, with Censorinus (De Die Natali, 17), Valerius Maximus, ii. 4, and Horace (Carmen Saeculare) is the chief ancient authority on the subject; see also Mommsen, Römische Chronologie (1858); 'C. L. Roth, “Über die römischen Säcularspiele” in the Rheinisches Museum, viii. (1853); and Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, iii. (1885), p. 386. The inscription commemorating the ludi of 17 B.C. was discovered in 1890 and is printed in the Ephemeris epigraphica, vol. viii. The best account of the whole subject is in H. Diels, Sibyllinische Blätter (1890), p. 109 foll.
SECULARISM, a term applied specially (see Secula) to the
system of social ethics associated with the name of G. J. Holyoake
(q.v.). As the word implies, secularism is based solely on considerations
of practical morality with a view to the physical,
social and moral improvement of society. It neither affirms
nor denies the theistic premises of religion, and is thus a particular
variety of utilitarianism. Holyoake founded a society in London
which subsequently under the leadership of Charles Bradlaugh
advocated the disestablishment of the Church, the abolition of
the Second Chamber and other political and economic reforms.
See Holyoake’s Principles of Secularism (1885).
SECUND (Lat. seconds, following), a botanical term used of
plants when similar parts are directed to one side only, as
flowers on an axis.
SECUNDERABAD, one of the chief British military stations
in India, situated in the state of Hyderabad or the Nizam’s
Dominions, 1830 ft. above sea-level, and 6 m. N.E. of Hyderabad
city. Pop. (1901) 83,550. It is now the headquarters of the
9th division of the southern army. Secunderabad includes
Bolaram, the former cantonment of the Hyderabad contingent
(now merged in the Indian army), and also Trimulgherry, the
artillery cantonment, covering a total area of 22 sq. m. These
two places have an additional population of 12,888.
SECUNDUS, JOHANNES, whose real name was Johann Everts (1511–1536), Latin poet, was born at The Hague on the 10th of November 1511. He was descended from an ancient family in the Netherlands; his father, Nicholas Everts, or Everard, seems to have been high in the favour of the emperor Charles V. On what account the son was called Secundus, is not known. His father intended him for the law; but though he took his degree at Bourges it does not appear that he devoted much time to legal pursuits. Poetry, painting and sculpture engaged his mind at a very early period. In 1533 he went to Spain, and soon afterwards became secretary to the cardinal archbishop of Toledo, in a department of business which required no other qualification than that of writing Latin with elegances. During this period he composed his most famous work, the Basia, a series of amatory poems, of which the fifth, seventh, and ninth Carmina of Catullus seem to have given the hint. In 1534 he accompanied Charles V. to the siege of Tunis. After quitting the service of the archbishop, Secundus was employed as secretary by the 'bishop of Utrecht; and so much did he distinguish himself by his compositions that he was called upon to fill the important post of private Latin secretary to the emperor, who was then in Italy. But, having arrived at St Arnand; near Tournay, he died of fever on the 8th of October 1536.
SECUNDUS, PUBLIUS POMPONIUS, Roman general and
tragic poet, lived during the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius. He was on intimate terms with the elder Pliny, who wrote a biography of him (now lost). The chief authority for his life is Tacitus, according to whom Secundus was a man of refinement and brilliant intellect. His friendship with Sejanus and his brother made him politically suspect, and he only escaped death by remaining practically a prisoner in his own brother’s house until the accession of Caligula. During his enforced retirement he composed tragedies, which were put on the stage during the reign of Claudius. In A.D. 50 he distinguished himself against the Chatti and obtained the honour of the triumphal insignia. Quintilian asserts that he was far superior to any writer of tragedies he had known, and Tacitus expresses a high opinion of his literary abilities. Secundus devoted much attention to the niceties of grammar and style, on which he was recognized as an authority. Only a few lines of his work remain, some of which belong to the tragedy Aeneas.
