Roman Spectacles

Theater• Spectators included men and

women, slaves and free individuals

• Theater days also included religious observances and processions that included images of the gods

• Acoustics were very important, given the lack of microphones and amplifiers

• Those with the most prestige got the best seats

• A local noble might sponsor a feast or singing competition in conjunction with a theater day

Theater at Emerita Augusta(Merida, Spain)

Circuses and Chariot Racing• In Latin, a Circus is a

racetrack• Rome’s Circus Maximus held

150,000-180,000 spectators in the Augustan period and 250,000 in the reign of Trajan

• Races were an opportunity for the people to interact with one another (Ovid recommends picking up women there) and with the emperor

• 4-horse chariots raced 7 laps (5.25 miles) in about 15 minutes

• Each team--Red, White, Blue, and Green (plus Purple and Gold under Domitian)--had its supporters and betting was popular

Circus Maximus, Rome(reconstruction)

The Popularity of the Circus• The first-century AD satirist

Juvenal wrote, “Long ago the people shed their anxieties, ever since we do not sell our votes to anyone. For the people—who once conferred imperium (“command”), symbols of office, legions, everything—now hold themselves in check and anxiously desire only two things, the grain dole and chariot races in the Circus” (Satires 10.77-81).

• Juvenal's famous phrase, panem et circenses (“bread and circuses”) has become proverbial to describe giving away significant rights in exchange for material pleasures.

The Circus Maximus as it appears today

Chariots and Charioteers• Most Charioteers began their careers as slaves, those who were

successful soon accumulated enough money to buy their freedom.• Roman racing chariots were designed to be as small and

lightweight as possible. Unlike military chariots, which were larger and often reinforced with metal, racing chariots were made of wood and afforded little support or protection for the charioteer, who basically had to balance himself on the axle as he drove

• Wrecks were common and as popular with the audience as crashes are with NASCAR fans.

Amphitheaters and Gladiatorial Games

• Gladiatorial combats not held as often as theater days and chariot races

• Earliest permanent amphitheater 70 BC; most famous was the Flavian Amphitheater (Colosseum)

• The name Colosseum comes from the colossal statue of Nero (modified to resemble Titus or possibly the sun god) that stood outside (the statue had been recycled from Nero’s Golden House, the grounds of which the amphitheater occupied

• Popularity of Gladiatorial games attests to Roman fondness for blood sports

Colosseum, Rome

The Colosseum

• The floor of the Colosseum was covered with sand (harena; origin of the term “arena”)

• The floor was outfitted with trap-doors designed to let animals leap dramatically into the fray.

• Under the arena was a basement, filled with narrow passages. In this confined space, animals and their keepers, fighters, slaves and stage-hands toiled in the almost total darkness to bring pleasure to Romans.

• A series of winches and the capstans would have allowed teams of slaves to pull in unison and hoist heavy animals from the basement to the main arena, and this machinery has been reconstructed, in part, from ancient drawings - aided by the bronze fittings that still survive in the basement's floor. The rope-burns of the hoists are still visible in the stone of the lift-shafts.

Colosseum, interior

A Multi-Purpose Space

• The center of the Colosseum could be filled with water so that mock naval battles could be staged.

• The speed with which the water could be drained and the arena readied for the next performance was part of the spectacle. Mock naval battle, reconstruction

Gladiators• The term gladiator means “swordsman” (from the Latin gladius, “sword”)• The tradition of gladiatorial combat may have been adopted from the

Etruscans• Gladiatorial games originated in sacrifices to the spirits of the dead and the

need to propitiate them with offerings of blood. • Gladiatorial combats were introduced to Rome in 264 BC, when the sons of

Junius Brutus honored their father by matching three pairs of gladiators.

Who Were the Gladiators?• Most gladiators were prisoners of war, slaves bought for the purpose, or criminals

sentenced to serve in the schools (damnati ad ludos). At a time when three of every five persons did not survive until their twentieth birthday, the odds of a professional gladiator being killed in any particular bout, at least during the first century AD, were perhaps one in ten. But for the criminal who was to be publicly executed (damnati ad mortem) or for Christian martyrs who refused to renounce their faith and worship the gods, there was no hope of survival in the arena.

• Free men also volunteered to be gladiators and, by the end of the Republic, comprised half the number who fought. Often, they were social outcasts, freed slaves, discharged soldiers, or former gladiators who had been liberated on retirement but chose to return for a period of service.

• Successful gladiators could become celebrities: graffiti from Pompeii proclaim: "Caladus, the Thracian, makes all the girls sigh," and "Crescens, the net fighter, holds the hearts of all the girls."

Types of Gladiators• Gladiators fought in various combinations: man vs. man (or even

woman vs. woman), man vs. wild beast, various beasts against each other

• Gladiators also fought with various weapons. Originally, captured soldiers had been made to fight with their own weapons and in their particular style of combat. This tradition gave rise to the designations we see in combats of the Imperial period.

Mosaic: gladiators

Secutor and Retiarius• The secutor’s right arm is protected by a manica, a wrapping of heavy linen tied with leather thongs. To protect

against the trident, the secutor also has a greave (ocrea) on his left leg (the one that was placed forward in combat), and carries a curved rectangular shield (scutum) and sword (gladius). But it is the helmet that most readily distinguishes him.

• The terrible symmetry of gladiatorial combat can best be appreciated in this pairing. The strategy was for the secutor to attack his opponent, using the shield for protection. The retiarius, on the other hand, tried to keep his distance so he could swing his net and use the trident effectively, thrusting at both the head and legs of his pursuer.

• Unless the secutor could strike quickly, there was a danger of exhaustion from the heavier armor and, more importantly, the helmet's constriction on breathing. If the retiarius, on the other hand, could entangle the secutor or manage to close with his adversary, there was the chance to use the dagger, which can be seen in his left hand.

3rd c. AD mosaic: the retiarius strikes at the secutor. The referee looks on

Murmillo• Except for the helmet, the

equipment of the murmillo and secutor was the same. Both wore a loincloth and belt, the right arm protected by a manica of tied linen and the left leg by a short greave. The curved rectangular shield and straight sword that both carried were similar to those used by the Roman soldier. It is the helmet of the murmillo, with its high angular crest and broad curved brim that is so distinctive.

Murmillo helmet

Thraex and Murmillo• The Thraex or Thracian wore the usual

loincloth and belt, and protected the right arm with a manica. Because the shield (parma or parmula), which Pliny describes as round and slightly concave (Natural History, XXXIII.129), was smaller than the scutum of the murmillo, his traditional adversary, longer greaves were required to protect the legs and thighs, which were wrapped with thick quilted fabric. The characteristic weapon of the Thracian was the traditional sica, a short sword with a curved or angled blade designed to maim the exposed areas of the back. The broad-brimmed helmet also is distinctive.

• In this detail from a larger mosaic, the Thraex attacks with the sword in his left hand, which usually would hold the shield. Gladiators were trained to fight against those who were right-handed, and it was the right-hand side that was protected. It must have been disconcerting, therefore, to confront a left-handed opponent, who would have the advantage. Indeed, in one graffito, a gladiator is specifically described as being left handed, sc(aeva).

Thraex (left) amd Murmillo (right)

Female Gladiators

• A relief from Halicarnassus shows 2 female gladiators

• The inscription gives their names as Amazon and Achillia

Bestiarius

• The bestiarii were not gladiators, as such, but fought for their lives in the arena against wild beasts

• The bestiarii often were wretched creatures, condemned criminals or prisoners of war, who had little chance against the animals they fought (Seneca, De Beneficiis, II.19).

Mosaic: leopard attacking a bestiarius

Venator• the venatores were specialists of wild animal hunts.

The popularity of these cruel spectacles was such that, by the time they were abolished in AD 523 during the consulship of Flavius Anicius Maximus, tens of thousands of animals had died, and entire species were no longer to be found in their native habitat, all having been captured or driven away.

• There were no more hippopotamuses in Nubia or elephants in northern Africa; the lions which once had been represented in Assyrian reliefs were gone.

• Either five thousand or ten thousand animals were reported to have died in the dedication of the Colosseum; eleven thousand died in the celebration of Trajan's conquest of Dacia; and Augustus boasted that, in the twenty-six venationes presented in his reign, thirty-five hundred animals had been killed.

• When Pompey presented elephants (and the first rhinoceros) at the Circus Maximus, he did so in part to demonstrate his power over even the strongest of beasts.

Mosaic: venator

Gladiators and Roman Society

• The gladiator held a morbid fascination for the ancient Romans. Their blood was considered a remedy against impotence, and the bride whose hair had been parted by the spear of a defeated gladiator was thought to enjoy a fertile married life.

• Although their lives were brutal and short, gladiators often were admired for their bravery, endurance, and willingness to die. In forfeiting their lives in the arena, the gladiator was thought to honor the audience, and glory was what it could offer in return.

A Gladiator’s Voice• There is not a lot of direct evidence from the

gladiators themselves, but one found a way to speak out from beyond the grave.

• The inscription that accompanies the funerary relief shown at right reads, “After breaking my opponent Demetrius I did not kill him immediately. Fate and the cunning treachery of the referee killed me.”

• Normally, the referee intervened to stop a fight as soon as one gladiator requested missio (release) by signaling submission.

• The decision to grant or decline missio was then referred to the munerarius (the person who paid for the show) who in turn was expected to defer to the wishes of the people. But in this case, the referee allowed Demetrius to get up, pick up his weapon and fight again.

• The referee must have interpreted Demetrius' fall as accidental and allowed him to get up again.

• Demetrius took advantage of the second chance and gave poor Diodorus the fatal blow.

Tombstone of Roman gladiator Diodorus, who was buried 1,800 years ago in Turkey.

Combats in Context• The blood lust of the spectators and emperors alike, the brutality of the combat,

and the callous deaths of men and animals still disturb modern sensibilities. Certainly, Rome was cruel. Defeated enemies and criminals forfeited any right to a place within society.

• In publicly witnessing such violence, citizens were reassured that the proper social order has been restored and they, themselves, deterred from such actions.

• In this display, the games reaffirmed the moral and political order of things, and the death of criminals and wild animals, the real and symbolic re-establishment of a society under threat.

• In the arena, civilization triumphed over the wild and untamed, over the outlaw, the barbarian, the enemy.

Jean-Léon Gérôme. Police Verso (“Thumbs Down”), 1872

Roman Objections• By the age of Nero cultured and elevated men

were beginning to revolt at the arena butcheries which still delighted the mob.

• The following quotation is from a letter the 1st century AD philosopher Seneca the Younger wrote to his friend Lucilius.

• “I turned in to the games one mid-day hoping for a little wit and humor there. I was bitterly disappointed. It was really mere butchery. The morning's show was merciful compared to it. Then men were thrown to lions and to bears: but at midday to the audience. There was no escape for them. The slayer was kept fighting until he could be slain. "Kill him! flog him! burn him alive" was the cry: "Why is he such a coward? Why won't he rush on the steel? Why does he fall so meekly? Why won't he die willingly?" Unhappy that I am, how have I deserved that I must look on such a scene as this? Do not, my Lucilius, attend the games, I pray you. Either you will be corrupted by the multitude, or, if you show disgust, be hated by them. So stay away.” (Epistle 7)

Seneca

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