There is some doubt as to the exact occasion of this sermon. It seems to have been connected with the yearly commemoration (not the first or second from the language Leo uses), of that 14 days’ pillage of Rome by Genseric (in 455) and of the city’s subsequent liberation, in which Leo took so important a part. But the date ascribed to the sermon’s delivery (the octave of SS. Peter and Paul, i.e. July 6) does not tally well with its allusions to the ludi Circenses as counter-attractions to the recent Church functions. A reference to Serm. IX. n. 6, will remind the reader that it was the ludi Apollinares that, at least in the past, were associated with that date: perhaps Leo’s phrase ludus Circensium is only a general description and would include the Apollinarian games as being still held in Circo as well as others. The ludi Circenses themselves were held Sept. 4–12.