Cruel Sports: Gladiatorial Games

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Cruel Sports Gladiatorial Games

• On the Purpose and Function of the Amphitheater
  in the Roman World

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Tomb Wall Painting at Pompeii
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Reconstruction of Gladiatorial Contest at Pompeii
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Phenomenon of the Roman Amphitheater

• All societies witness natural death and all
  societies kill, whether directly in war, state
  executions, blood sacrifice, hunting, or the
  butchering of animals for meat, or indirectly via
  oppressive poverty, insidious pollution, or
  various combat or blood sports wherein abuse
  and death of humans and animals are either
  intentional or probable. Rome, however, remains
  extraordinary for the scale and the method of its
  violence, and for applauding skill, artistry, and
  diligence in the punishment and destruction of
  creatures.
• Donald G. Kyle, Spectacles of Death in Ancient
  Rome (1998) 1

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Modern Parallels?

• Contact Sports
• football and rugby
• boxing
• Danger Sports
• downhill skiing
• bobsled and auto racing
• ski-jumping
• Blood Sports
• bullfighting
• illegal dog and cock fighting
• boxing (where is Evander Holyfields ear?)

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Games Ludi and Munera

• Ludi chariot races and theatrical performances
• performed in Circus Maximus or Circus Flaminius
  in Campus Martius (Field of Mars)
• ludi date from sixth century BCE, at least
• Munera gladiatorial combat
• first attested gladiatorial combat in 264 BCE
  upon death of Junius Brutus Pera (sources
  Valerius Maximus 2.4.7 Livy, Epitome 16
  Servius, Commentary on the Aeneid at 6.862)
• Origin obligatory offerings to dead?
• Republic ludi are public expenditures by a
  magistrate munera are private expenditures
• Empire emperors blur this distinction

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Ludi Aerial View of Circus Maximus
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Reconstructed View of Circus Maximus
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Some Modern Theories

• Sacrifice to Dead (Junius Brutus Pera)
• Scapegoat (Bloodthirsty Gods?)
• Inspiration of Martial Confidence
• Hydraulic Theory (outlet for violent impulses)
• Fertility Ritual Death and Rebirth (combats
  clustered at beginning and end of year)
• Romanization

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Larger Contexts Romanization of Empire

• Forces for forging of a common, empire-wide
  Roman culture--Latin (never conquers Greek
  east) roads common currency cities
• Logistical problems of mass propaganda (here,
  cultural signifiers of Romanitas) in a
  pre-industrial, pre-technological society

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Amphitheater as Force for Romanization

• "The rituals in the arena represent a common
  culture uniting Italy, Africa, and the Celtic
  provinces in their Romanness."(Wiedemann, 94)
• The amphitheater encouraged a large number of
  participants to join in the celebration of the
  central authority thereby confirming the divine
  status of the emperor and legitimizing his rule.
  The establishment of this sort of corporate
  identity in the provinces was a more important
  goal in the early Principate, when a new series
  of social relationships was being established,
  running vertically and horizontally, between
  center and periphery, on many levels and
  involving many social groups. The amphitheater
  accommodated and fostered the formation of such
  communal bonds. (A. Futrell, Blood in the Arena
  1997 5-6)

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Amphitheaters in Gaul
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Amphitheaters in Britain
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Mosaic, Bad Kreuznach, Germany
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Mosaics ad bestias (Zliten mosaic)
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Amphitheater Integral for Urbanization
Romanization

• The act of founding a city was essentially the
  imposition of cosmic structure on the landscape
  the ritual of inauguration, key to the formal
  establishment of a Roman town, was intended to
  transfer the divinely ordered pattern of the
  universe into the physical setting of the new
  settlement. Not only the building of civic
  structures but also the alignment of roads, the
  placement of sanctuaries, and the division of
  cultivable fields were determined according to
  the Roman understanding of the pattern of
  creation. The adoption of the urban model,
  therefore, was more than simply the adoption of
  Roman technical standards and style of
  ornamentation it demanded a fundamental
  acceptance of, quite literally, a new world
  order, based on the Roman ability to control and
  manipulate the environment.
• A. Futrell, Blood in the Arena (1997) 53-54

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Amphitheater at El-Djem, Tunisia
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Amphitheater at Capua Vetere, Campania
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Amphitheater as Reflection of Roman Social
Hierarchy

• As ritualized versions of actions originally
  taken to ensure the survival and safety of the
  group, Roman blood sports legitimized,
  dramatically communicated, and reinforced the
  social and political order of the community.
• Permeating Roman society and its view of the
  human and animal worlds, inequality and hierarchy
  extended in the arena to death and even beyond.
  Animal as well as human victims were classified
  in various hierarchical categories according to
  talent, performance potential, and potential
  longevity.
• As in law, society, and burial at large, there
  was a hierarchy of status even in the arena. Such
  hierarchies were socially embedded, but they
  could adapt and reformulate over time, as in the
  elevation of gladiators over noxii.
• Donald G. Kyle, Spectacles of Death in Ancient
  Rome (1998) 265, 267-68

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Emperors and Gladiators

• Augustus, Res Gestae 22-3 I gave a gladiatorial
  show three times in my own name, and five times
  in the names of my sons and grandsons at these
  shows about 10,000 people fought....Twenty-six
  times I provided for the people, in my own name
  or the names of my sons or grandsons, hunting
  spectacles of wild beasts in the circus or in the
  forum or in the amphitheaters in these
  exhibitions about 3,500 animals were killed. I
  presented to the people an exhibition of a naval
  battle across the Tiber...there were about 3,000
  combatants.
• After Augustus morning--animal killings
  midday--execution of criminals (ad bestias, to
  the beasts) evening--gladiators.

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Colosseum from South-East
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Cult of the Gladiator

• Epitome of Bravery and Virtuosity (We salute you
  who are about to die)
• Roman Aristocracy and Arena The contrast
  between the fame of individual gladiators and the
  infamia with which gladiators as a group were
  stigmatised is striking. (Wiedemann, 28)
• As civilized beast man consciously resists but
  still emotionally attends to violence, and so the
  position of gladiators in Roman society became
  increasingly paradoxical over time. Although
  universally loathed for their lowly social
  origins or heinous crimes, gladiators were also
  associated with glory, discipline, and
  eroticism. (D.G. Kyle, Spectacles of Death in
  Ancient Rome 1998 80)
• Perversion of Amphitheater as Mirror of Roman
  Social Hierarchy--Emperors as Gladiators
  (Caligula, Commodus, Macrinus)-- bad emperor
  stereotype?

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Mundane Sphere Logistical Problem of Disposal

• Donald Kyles Proposed Solutions
• Consumption of Carcasses
• The issue of disposal extends beyond pits, fire,
  and other usual answers. Another possibility to
  be considered, another way to dispose of human
  and animal flesh, is consumption or ingestion by
  humans or animals. Was any significant portion of
  the tons of human and animal flesh produced by
  the Roman spectacles disposed of by being eaten
  by men or animals before or after removal from
  the arenas?
• Human Remains and the Tiber River
• We have notaccounted for large quantities of
  human arena victims.the disposal of human
  victims via the Tiber River as a traditional and
  pragmatic custom.
• Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (1998) 184
  and 213