Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome

Donald G. Kyle

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781134862719
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire antique

The elaborate and inventive slaughter of humans and animals in the arena fed an insatiable desire for violent spectacle among the Roman people. Donald G. Kyle combines the words of ancient authors with current scholarly research and cross-cultural perspectives, as he explores
* the origins and historical development of the games
* who the victims were and why they were chosen
* how the Romans disposed of the thousands of resulting corpses
* the complex religious and ritual aspects of institutionalised violence
* the particularly savage treatment given to defiant Christians.
This lively and original work provides compelling, sometimes controversial, perspectives on the bloody entertainments of ancient Rome, which continue to fascinate us to this day.

1

INTRODUCTION: VIOLENT SPECTACLES AND ROMAN CIVILIZATION

Life becomes transparent against the background of death, and fundamental social and cultural issues are revealed.

(Metcalf and Huntington, Celebrations of Death (1991) 25)

The death of humans (and sometimes even of animals) usually constitutes a spectacle, a disturbing sight which is awful in both senses of the word, an eerie yet intriguing phenomenon demanding acknowledgement and attention. When confronted, as it must be, death makes us come to terms, individually and collectively, with our powers and our limitations – with our humanity and our mortality. Witnessing natural deaths of the aged and infirm is distressing, but far more disturbing are premature, forced, and unnatural deaths. Yet throughout human history some beings have been killed so that others might live, prosper, or feel safe or superior. Violence and destruction are (or have been) necessary for survival and security; empires always have exploited and intimidated. 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 the 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.

From our origins as humans we have dealt with the activity, the responsibility, and the aftermath of death. Paleolithic man advanced as a species in part by developing tools and techniques to improve his killing abilities, to expand his capacity to destroy and control nature and other men; but we still have not evolved past the sensation that killing is a symbolically charged act, something necessary but something to be done in certain prescribed contexts and ways, with certain appropriate actions before and after the killing. Killing must not be random or simply for its own sake; it must be justified in some way, e.g. to protect the community from threats or to provide resources for survival. However swift and intelligible the death, killing normally evokes a profound sense of anxiety. All societies use culturally appropriate rituals of separation or rites of passage to come to terms with the emotional intensity of killing and death, to lay the dead to rest, and – more importantly, since societies privilege the living above the dead – to restore the social fabric and let the living move on.¹

Like any city ancient Rome dealt daily with normal and natural death, but Rome also killed on an enormous scale, with efficiency, ingenuity, and delectation. In the infamous arenas of Rome, in amphitheaters, circuses, and other sites, blood shows (munera) included gladiatorial combats (spectacula gladiatorum, munera gladiatoria) and animal hunts (venationes), and increasingly under the Empire there were also ritualized and even mythologized executions. From the third century BC through the late Republic and into the early Empire, political opportunism, imperial resources, and social needs greatly expanded these spectacles of death and changed their emphasis from private rites or necessary punishments into public entertainments. Of pre-modern cultures, perhaps only the Maya and Aztecs of Mesoamerica rivalled Rome in the extent and duration of their ritualized killing in religious and imperial contexts.

This study looks at unnatural, public death at Rome – the intentional, orchestrated, and spectacular killing of non-loved ones, the slaying of humans and the slaughter of beasts seen as foes, outsiders, outlaws, threats, or prodigies. Our subject is life-taking violence allowed or ordered, sanctioned or staged by the state in public areas. For Romans this killing was not clandestine, nor was it to be ignored: the killers, the killing, the dying, and the dead all were to be seen. As Seneca protested, Romans saw the turning of a man into a corpse as a ‘satisfying spectacle’ (satisque spectaculi: Ep. 95.33).² In fact, the dedicatory inscription for the earliest known amphitheater, that at Pompeii of ca. 70 BC, calls the facility a spectacula.³ Away from the battlefield, Rome killed at home in sacrifices, festivals, munera, proscriptions, and executions. The famous spectacles of the arena were largely expanded, embellished versions of earlier forms of killing adapted for the comfort and entertainment of the spectators. The allure of violence and death was not unique to classical Rome,⁴ but Rome revelled in killing as in the thrills and the reassurance, the self-validation, of a love affair. Death became a spectator sport at Rome, and the viewers, the viewed, and the venues of viewing deserve continued study.

Ancient and modern attitudes

In its many forms, death in the arena was public, official, and communicative; and, when properly conducted, spectacles of death were comforting and entertaining for Romans of all classes. Spectacles played a major role in the festival calendar, the social life, and the public space of ancient Rome for over a millennium. With industry and pride, Rome scoured the Empire for victims, built monumental facilities, orchestrated events, and immortalized these performances in art, architecture, and literature. Thanks to martyrology, historians such as Edward Gibbon, artists such as J.-L. Gérôme, novels and Hollywood epics such as Quo Vadis, the enduring image of Rome will forever be stained with the blood of the arena.⁵

From the emperors who took pride in the productions, to the spectators (high and low) who flocked to the shows, Romans of all classes attended, approved of, and enjoyed the games.⁶ Romans of different stations and from different viewpoints found something redeeming or entertaining about the games, be it how well gladiators faced death, the punishment of malefactors, the ability to interact with the emperor, or the viewing of foreign peoples and animals. The seating at the Colosseum, with tiered levels of spectators from senators to women and slaves, is often used as a metaphor for Rome's hierarchically ordered society.⁷ Indeed, as social functions, arena spectacles were an occasion, as Tertullian said, for ‘seeing and being seen’, for seeing performances of skill and courage, and punishments and domination of foes, and for being seen – as producers and patrons of games sitting at prominent vantage points, as citizens of status in seats of privilege, as citizen-spectators participating and sanctioning the rules and rulers of Rome, or even as a potential lover.⁸

For the state the killing in the arena symbolized power, leadership, and empire, but the ‘blood sports’ did not have the same, singular meaning or attraction for all Romans of all classes in all eras. Individually, Romans were drawn to the arena by the allure of violence, by the exotic and erotic sights, and by an appreciation of the skill and courage of some participants or by the anticipation of the harsh but necessary punishment of others.⁹ Attentive and knowledgeable, some spectators, including some emperors, were true fans – or fanatics; some arguably were sadists, some went for the crowd and the gambling as well as the killing, and many perhaps went to escape their deplorable living conditions. As in modern sports, many different people attended for many different reasons.¹⁰ When in Rome, it was ‘the thing to do’.

Passages in some Roman authors, notably Seneca and Cicero, seem to be criticisms of the arena, but they must be interpreted carefully. Writing in the wake of Caligula and Claudius, emperors notorious for cruel punishments, Seneca condemned certain arena spectacles:

Man, an object of reverence in the eyes of man, is now slaughtered for jest and sport (per lusum ad iocum); and those whom it used to be unholy to train for the purpose of inflicting and enduring wounds, are thrust forth exposed and defenceless.¹¹

Laudable but atypical, this passage concerns ritualized executions in the ‘midday shows’ (meridiani), not true gladiatorial combats. Moreover, Seneca was discomforted less by the effect of blood sports on the viewed than on the viewers. As a recent study clarifies, ‘There is no compassion in the modern sense of the word for those who act in the arena; Seneca worries about the spectators.’¹² He condemned the corruptive, brutalizing influence on the individual of contact with emotionally intense crowds at executions. Yet Seneca was open to shows as diversions (e.g. Helv. 17.1), he did go to the arena, and he praised the virtues of gladiators. Seneca and his circle often commented on the slaughter in the arena, but from an elite, intellectual perspective. Philosophers even applauded the games as useful educational demonstrations of military valor or stoic fortitude (see ch. 3 below).

Depending on the genre, context, or purpose of a statement, authors could be ambivalent or inconsistent about spectacles.¹³ Cicero used ‘gladiator’ as a term of derision, but he felt that gladiators were a good investment.¹⁴ His famous criticism of Pompey's games of 55 BC also is atypical:

But what pleasure can it possibly be to a man of culture, when either a puny human being is mangled by a most powerful beast, or a splendid beast is transfixed with a hunting spear? And even if all this is something to be seen, you have seen it more than once; and I, who was a spectator, saw nothing new in it. The last day was that of the elephants, and on that day the mob and crowd was greatly impressed, but manifested no pleasure. Indeed the result was a certain compassion (misericordia) and a kind of feeling that that huge beast has a fellowship with the human race.¹⁵

Cicero knew what to expect but still attended, and any sense of the ‘fellowship’ of men and beasts was not strong enough to save the animals.¹⁶

Indictments of the Romans, especially of the lower classes, for their enthusiasm for games clearly represent a minority ineffectually condemning what was popular and persistent. As in other societies, the intelligentsia criticized the popular culture of the masses, using soon commonplace themes of social and moral debasement.¹⁷ Christian writers predictably saw spectacles as idolatrous and corruptive, yet even they testify to the widespread popularity of the games.¹⁸ Aside from Stoic and Christian authors’ concerns about crowd passions and idolatry, criticisms of the games were often of specific examples of a leader's injustice or excess – not of the custom in general. Common Romans resented emperors who were miserly about spectacles, and elite Romans were disturbed when emperors or the upper classes perverted the customs of the circus and arena.¹⁹ Criticisms of aberrations or elements (e.g. meridiani) do not amount to opposition to the phenomenon in general. There simply was no widespread opposition to the inhumanity of the games.²⁰ If the games were held for the people and not for the emperor himself, and if they were performed with some propriety and some sporting interest, they were welcomed and applauded.

The blood sports and deadly spectacles fascinate moderns as, on the surface, a glaring contradiction of Rome's image as a civilizing power.²¹ Modern scholars have long pondered how civilized Romans could condone and even enjoy, make sport of, watching hundreds and even thousands of humans and animals being killed in elaborate public spectacles. Yet violence was omnipresent in Roman society and history. From animal sacrifice and slaughter to the disciplining of slaves and children to the brutalities of ancient warfare, the Romans had long grown accustomed to regarding creatures of lowly status, others and outsiders without reason or rights, as legitimate objects of violence. In the modern West, however, we have difficulty coming to terms with the spectacles because of modern, ‘civilized’ conventions and sensibilities about violence and sport. Ironically, until all too recently, in the context of poverty, violence, and poor life expectancy, western societies tolerated and enjoyed watching the tormenting and destruction of creatures in brutal spectacles, including public hangings, bull and bear baiting, cockfights, and more. Sociologists Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning suggest that, to the degree that we moderns now feel reservations about such customs, we have been influenced by a ‘civilizing process’ whereby there has been a broad change in manners and notions of decent behavior since the late Middle Ages. In recent centuries external factors, such as modern police and penitentiaries, and an internal factor, a conditioned psychology of abhorrence of excess violence, have contributed to a gradual shift in the parameters of embarrassment and shame, including reduced levels of interpersonal violence, increased sensitivity to pain, and an aversion to cruelty.²² Most moderns are conditioned to feel that the viewing of actual life-threatening violence in public should be distasteful and should be discouraged by the social order. The civilizing process, nevertheless, remains incomplete. Just as ancient criticisms had only limited and late effect on death sports at Rome, the banning of modern blood sports and animal baiting has not been quickly or totally achieved.

Not unique but culturally distinctive, Roman spectacles of death must be viewed in their own and not in a modern cultural context. For example, in these days of animal rights, of protests against the cruelty of hunting, rodeos, and lab experiments on animals, of vegetarianism and distrust of red meat, the beast spectacles of ancient Rome seem an alien and disturbing topic; but we should try to comprehend as well as condemn Rome's killing of beasts by men and/or beasts in ‘games’ or ‘hunts’. Moderns struggle to understand the meaning and attraction of beast shows for Romans, first of all, because we misapply our view of animals and of sport hunting to antiquity. An authority on ancient art, J. M. C. Toynbee, finds it paradoxical

that a people that was so much alive to the interest and beauty of the animal kingdom . . . that never seemed to tire of the sight of rare and unfamiliar specimens, that displayed such devotion to its pets, should yet have taken pleasure in the often hideous sufferings and agonizing deaths of quantities of magnificent and noble creatures.²³

The paradox is perhaps more modern than Roman. Modern European and American empathy with the suffering of animals stands out awkwardly against a long history of brutality.²⁴

Any inconsistency between beast spectacles and the Roman love of nature, pets...