The violence of the most infamous Roman spectacles – the gladiatorial games (munera), beast hunts (venationes), and public executions in the arena – seems brutal, even barbarous, by modern standards.1 How, we wonder, could Romans tolerate such savagery? Was there no opposition to such spectacles in Roman society? This essay will show that there was in fact criticism, but it was neither powerful nor pervasive.
Archaeological and literary evidence indicates widespread support for spectacles among Romans, especially among the masses but also among the elite. Romans conceived of their violent spectacles not as butchery or cruelty but as performances by skilled and trained entertainers that validated the militarism and machismo of the Roman military state (Kyle 2007: 270). As Garrett Fagan argues in his essay in this volume, Chapter 31, violent spectacles engaged their audiences in a “dynamic psychological and emotional experience,” and the action in the arena likely held for its Roman spectators some of the same allure that today’s sporting events hold for modern audiences. Furthermore, spectacles offered the Roman masses a chance to escape from abysmal living conditions, to interact with the emperor, and to view exotic sights (Kyle 2007: 300–1). For the Roman elite, they also offered an opportunity to appease and control the masses and maintain the political and social status quo (Flower 2004b; Wistrand 1992: 64–6). In short, for most Romans there was a lot to like about spectacles, and opposition was by no means the norm.
Even when Romans did voice objections to spectacles, they were not the sort of objections that modern readers might expect. In fact, among those who expressed disapproval, the games and spectacles of the arena were generally viewed in a more positive light than other forms of entertainment largely because the violence they put on display was understood to carry symbolic significance and educational value (Wistrand 1992: 56). While Romans had great contempt for gladiators, they nevertheless praised the example gladiators set for spectators by means of their deaths in munera: if a lowly, despicable gladiator could display virtus (manliness) in the form of strength, bravery, discipline, endurance, love of glory, and contempt for death, surely self-respecting Romans could be expected to follow their example and display virtus themselves (Pliny Panegyric 33.1; Cicero Tusculan Disputations 2.41; Wistrand 1992: 56, 77). Even those who opposed certain aspects of spectacles had few qualms concerning public executions in the arena. Most Roman authors felt criminals deserved death, and executions, like the violent execution of informers detailed by Pliny (Panegyric 34.3), could set an example for the audience. Opposition was voiced only rarely, when critics perceived that public executions failed in setting a proper example.2
Similarly, the Roman literary record is largely lacking in serious objections to the slaughter of animals in the arena. Although a few accounts detail the crowd’s outpouring of sympathy for the elephants that were killed in spectacles arranged by Pompey in 55 BCE (e.g., Cicero Letters to His Friends 7.1.3; Pliny Natural History 8.20–1), Jo-Ann Shelton has argued persuasively that this outpouring was motivated by highly unusual circumstances and that the authors who recount this event had their own, anti-Pompeian motives for doing so. Under normal circumstances, Roman spectators objectified animals rather than sympathizing with them and had no moral reservations about causing them harm (Shelton 1999: 245 and passim).
If Romans did not voice serious objections to the brutality of the most violent Roman games, what then were the major objections to spectacles, and what motivations lay behind those objections? Within pagan Roman society, the nature of the opposition raised against spectacles depended both on the nature or “style” of the spectacles in question – whether they were traditional, Roman-style spectacles or Greek-style athletic spectacles – and on the identity of the individual voicing the opposition. Pagan opposition to traditional, Roman-style spectacles of the circus, the theater, and the amphitheater came almost exclusively from a small group of elite (and elitist) literary and philosophical figures who did not share the views of either the masses or most elite Romans. These figures voiced selective and qualified opposition only to certain aspects of the Roman spectacles; they expressed no desire to abolish Roman spectacle culture, and most were not above attending or even sponsoring spectacles.
Greek-style athletic games and training, however, as a relatively late addition to Roman spectacle culture and daily life, elicited more widespread objections of a rather different nature. Members of the Roman elite who were motivated by moral concerns and chauvinism, doctors who were motivated by medical concerns, and intellectuals who were motivated by fears about the neglect of the mind and soul that excessive physical training could cause, all raised a variety of objections specifically aimed at Greek-style athletics in Roman contexts.
However, not everyone living in the Roman world identified with the pagan Roman culture in which spectacles played such a central role. Two groups, Jews and Christians, voiced opposition to spectacles that was much more vehement and aimed at all forms of pagan spectacles – Roman-style and Greek-style, violent, and otherwise. Confronted by the spectacles imported into Jerusalem by Herod in the first century BCE, Jews opposed them as an affront to their ancestral morality and religious traditions, and they lamented the effects these spectacles had on Jewish culture. Early Christian authors voiced objections that were similar but even more numerous and widespread: they viewed all pagan spectacles as antithetical to Christian beliefs and practices and decried the corrupting effects of sinful spectacles on Christian spectators.
For all of these groups, opposition was not merely about criticizing the negative aspects of these spectacles but was also closely tied to processes of self-presentation and identity formation. Just as Roman spectacle culture itself played a key role in the formation of many aspects of Roman identity for Roman society as a whole, opposition to spectacles provided a means of group and individual self-fashioning. In denouncing spectacles in their various forms, critics were able to define and position themselves in relation to various spectacle-loving “others.” For elitist Roman literary figures, including the Stoics, the “other” meant the uneducated, unphilosophical masses; for Romans opposed to Greek athletics, it meant effeminate and immoral Greeks or athletes and their trainers who jeopardized their own physical and spiritual well-being through athletic training; for Jews and early Christian authors, it meant corrupt pagans who did not share their religious identities or their codes of morality.
The purpose of this essay is to identify and contextualize the major objections raised by each of these groups within pagan Roman, Jewish, and Christian culture. This essay will also explore the different ways that the objections of each group functioned in rhetorical strategies of self-presentation, allowing ancient critics to negotiate their group and individual identities through their opposition to Roman spectacle culture.
Many of the literary elite’s objections to popular, Roman-style spectacles were motivated in large part by elitism and intellectual snobbery. Numerous Roman writers associated spectacles with the vulgus, or the common masses, and expressed (and perhaps sometimes feigned) disdain for or disinterest in these spectacles as a means of distinguishing themselves from the commoners who appreciated them (Wiedemann 1992: 141–4; Wistrand 1992: 62). These writers were primarily concerned with showing that the obsessions of the masses were, first, not obsessions that they themselves shared and, second, not appropriate for intelligent and educated Roman citizens. Writers such as Cicero (106–43 BCE), Pliny the Younger (c.61–c.112 CE), and Marcus Aurelius (121–80 CE) claimed that spectacles were repetitive and boring. As Pliny saw it, the circus spectacles “have no novelty, no variation, nothing for which one viewing would not suffice,” and, similarly, according to Cicero, “if you’ve seen one venatio, you’ve seen them all” (Pliny Letters 9.6, trans. P. Walsh; Cicero Letters to His Friends 7.1, trans. A. Mahoney; see also, Marcus Aurelius Meditations 6.46). Furthermore, according to Pliny, the spectacles of the theater and the circus lacked the severitas (severity) and gravitas (seriousness) befitting men of higher social standing (Pliny Letters 9.6, Panegyric 46.4–6; Wistrand 1992: 30–2, 43–4). For Suetonius and Tacitus, the very idea that an elite Roman – or, worst of all, an emperor – might do more than simply attend such spectacles and actually participate in them was deeply degrading and worthy of contempt (Suetonius Tiberius 35.2, Caligula 54.1; Tacitus Annals 14.14–15; Edwards 1997).
Many members of the Roman literary elite agreed that men of elevated standing should spend their leisure time – or at least most of it – engaged in more worthwhile activities than attending spectacles. Such activities ranged from philosophical and literary endeavors for Cicero, Seneca the Younger (1 BCE–65 CE), and Pliny to sunbathing for Juvenal (55–127 CE) (Cicero Letters to His Friends 7.1; Seneca Letters from a Stoic 83.7; Pliny Letters 9.6; Juvenal Satires 11.204; Wistrand 1992: 44–5). For these figures, spectacles were objectionable because men from among the elite could become too caught up in the trifling pastimes of the masses and neglect more appropriate and worthwhile pursuits. Tacitus laments that in their craze for gladiators, horses, and actors, Roman men neglected the study of the liberal arts (Dialogue on Orators 29.3; Wistrand 1992: 43), a sentiment repeatedly expressed by Seneca as well (e.g., Natural Questions 7.32.3–4). Voicing a related concern, Juvenal and Martial both bemoan a society that neglected not only the liberal arts, but also men who excelled in the liberal arts (such as themselves), rewarding successful charioteers and athletes with wealth and fame while leaving poets and men of learning to toil in relative poverty and obscurity (Juvenal Satires 7.106–14; Martial Epigrams 10.74; Wistrand 1992: 45).
In addition to sharing these more general concerns of the literary elite, the Roman Stoics (again, a particular subset of the literary elite) also voiced a set of specific objections to spectacles that were rooted in Stoic notions concerning emotion, rationality, pleasure, and virtue. Stoics believed that man should be governed by reason rather than by baser, animalistic emotions, and that pleasures (voluptates) must be enjoyed in moderation so as not to make a man soft and feeble (Wistrand 1992: 12). Spectacles were dangerous because they constituted a form of pleasure that appealed to the baser emotions and instincts of the spectacle-goer, potentially corrupting him and distracting his attention from more lofty, rational pursuits (Wiedemann 1992: 142–3). Spectacles could be enjoyed in moderation, and they could even provide occasional respite from the more serious pursuits of the mind, but they were not without risk for the philosophically inclined Roman man.
According to Seneca, who expressed the Stoic position on spectacles most clearly, the crowds that gathered at spectacles were the most dangerous and objectionable element of spectacles for a Stoic; crowds had the power to corrupt a wise man who was striving to live virtuously because they stirred up his emotions and caused him to “relapse” into his former, vicious condition (Letters from a Stoic 7.1). For Seneca, “to consort with the crowd is harmful; there is no person who does not make some vice attractive to us or stamp it upon us, or taint us unconsciously therewith . . . the greater the mob with which we mingle, the greater the danger” (Letters from a Stoic 7.2, trans. R. Gummere). At spectacles, where crowds were particularly large and where idle pleasure was added into the equation, the danger was greatest: “Nothing is so damaging to good character as the habit of lounging at the games; for then it is that vice steals subtly upon one through the avenue of pleasure. . . . I come home more greedy, more ambitious, more voluptuous, and even more cruel and inhuman for having been among human beings” (7.2–3). Spectacles were thus particularly dangerous because they were peopled by “a crowd that was so unlike” Seneca and the philosophical elite he represented as to undermine the values and mindset that were central to a Stoic’s identity (7.6).
For the Roman literary elite generally and the Stoics specifically, opposition to spectacles was thus about defining and defending one’s elite and philosophical identity in relation to popular culture and the pastimes of the masses. The opposition of the literary and philosophical elite did not constitute a wholesale rejection of traditional Roman-style spectacles. Rather, elite opposition was a reaction to the popularity of spectacles and, for the Stoics, a statement of the perceived threat that such popular entertainment posed to one’s philosophical well-being.
While most Romans voiced no criticism of more traditional, Roman-style spectacles, the same cannot be said of Greek-style athletic games and training. Greek-style athletics were gradually adopted and adapted in Rome beginning as early as the second century BCE, but they did not become a permanent fixture in Roman spectacle culture until the middle of the first century CE (Newby 2005: 24–5; see also Chapter 36). As athletics came to occupy an increasingly prominent place in Roman life, three major forms of opposition arose: members of the elite classes of Roman society criticized athletics on chauvinistic and moral grounds, doctors such as Galen objected to the physical effects of athletics on the body, and intellectuals and philosophers voiced concerns about the effects of excessive athletic training on the mind and the soul.
By far the most widespread form of opposition to Greek athletics in Roman contexts was that of elite Romans concerned with defining “Romanness” as separate and distinct from “Greekness” – a process that was neither straightforward nor simple (König 2005: 213; Rawson 1989). As both König and Newby discuss in their treatments of Roman responses to Greek athletics, the gradual adoption of Greek athletics occurred within the larger tradition of selective adoption and adaptation of elements of Greek culture – including philosophy, literature, art, and architecture – as part of appropriate and expected elite Roman behavior (König 2005: 206–7; Newby 2005: 3–7). For members of elite Roman culture, Hellenism in itself was not objectionable, but excessive or inappropriate Hellenism was (Newby 2005: 3). For many, the adoption of Greek athletics as a new, increasingly permanent fixture in Roman spectacle culture constituted a form of excessive, inappropriate, and morally dangerous Hellenism.
The members of the Roman elite who criticized Greek athletics on moral grounds voiced a list of standard objections that served as “highly charged starting points for defining and (in some cases) questioning the proper composition of elite Roman culture” (König 2005: 211). These objections were rooted in the idea that Greek-style athletic training exposed participants to the more deplorable elements of Greek culture: public nudity, pederasty, effeminacy, luxury, and degeneracy. The public nudity that Greek athletic training entailed was a particular source of anxiety for Romans; for many, it carried associations with (and the potential to incite) pederasty and homosexuality, and it represented moral decadence that was incompatible with traditional Roman values (Tacitus Annals 14.20–1; Mann 2002). As Cicero famously notes, citing the Roman epic poet Ennius (c.239–169 BCE), “to strip in public is the beginning of evil-doing” (Tusculan Disputations 4.33.70, trans. H. Harris).
Some Roman elites expressed concerns that athletic training drew Romans away from more traditional and worthwhile pursuits. The perceived irrelevance of athletics to military training was a particular preoccupation for Romans, as illustrated, for example, by Lucan’s lament that in hanging around wrestling grounds, Roman youth had become unfit to carry arms (The Civil War 7.270–2). Similarly, Martial speaks to concerns about athletic training distracting Romans from other serious and traditional interests such as agriculture in his suggestion that digging in the vineyard was a more practical way of passing the time than lifting barbells (Epigrams 14.49). While no evidence exists to indicate that Greek athletics in fact led to the moral and social degeneration that Romans feared, these literary commonplaces (topoi) of Romanness versus Greekness, Roman virtus versus Greek nudity and effeminacy, military training versus athletics, and practical utility versus luxury pervade Roman writings on Greek athletics. Indeed, they were central to elite Roman strategies of defining Roman values against the perceived threat of moral degeneration posed by Greek athletics (Mann 2002).
Beyond these moral and cultural objections, there existed a second, very different tradition of opposition to Greek athletics from within Roman society, one rooted in concerns over the injurious effects of excessive exercise on the body. No one articulates these concerns more passionately and graphically – or with greater motives of self-promotion and professional self-definition – than Galen, a doctor and prolific writer who lived in Rome in the second century CE. Throughout his writings related to physical training, Galen rails against the imbalanced and immoderate exercise regimens that were foolishly advised by paidotribai, or professional athletic trainers, with whom Galen and other ancient doctors were in competition. By reacting to the practices and ill effects of athletic training, Galen defined his own approach to bodily regimen, showcased his medical expertise, and championed the supremacy of the medical arts over the false arts of athletic trainers (König 2005: 256).
As Galen saw it, not all forms of exercise were bad; the types of exercises that doctors advised – practical, philosophically grounded exercises that stimulated the mind and all the muscles evenly, such as exercises with a small ball – were quite good (Scarborough 1985: 171–2; König 2005: 285–6). However, any exercise that worked the body excessively or in an uneven, imbalanced way – such as the exercises that foolish paidotribai recommended – could be devastating to the body. Improper training subjected the body to abuse, which according to König’s reading of Galen’s Good Condition, “almost literally rips its [the body’s] internal organs apart” (2005: 283).
The heavy caloric intake that athletic training necessitated was also said to endanger the body, causing the veins to overfill with blood and putting the body at risk of losing its innate heat (König 2005: 283). According to Galen, the type of peak condition that athletic trainers encouraged was no “genuine good condition” at all, and the stress that the athletic body endured in attempting to achieve athletic peak condition made the body like a wall weakened by so many siege engines that it collapsed under the slightest pressure (Exhortation to Study the Arts 11). In Galen’s words, “As far as bodily health is concerned . . . it is clear that no other group of people is more miserable than athletes” (Exhortation to Study the Arts 11, trans. König 2005: 296).
Galen’s concerns about the devastating physical effects of regular athletic training on the body overlapped and engaged with a third tradition of Roman opposition to Greek athletics that was rooted in the claims of Roman intellectuals and Stoics like Cicero and Seneca that excessive athletic training led to the neglect of the mind and the soul. For Cicero and Seneca these concerns about athletic training functioned within a more general and long-established tradition privileging the pursuit of wisdom and the intellectual arts over the physical arts (Newby 2005: 38). Neither figure opposed certain types of athletic training in moderation, and both even drew metaphors from the stadium in making philosophical arguments. However, both Seneca and Cicero opposed athletic training that caused individuals to prioritize exercise and preservation of the body over exercise of the mind and preservation of the soul (Seneca Letters from a Stoic 15.2–6; Crowther 2004: 387–401). As Galen saw it, professional athletes and their professional trainers were guilty of precisely this: “They do not even know that they have a soul in the first place . . . For they are so busy accumulating a mass of flesh and blood that their soul is extinguished as if beneath a heap of filth, and they are incapable of thinking about anything clearly; instead they become mindless like the irrational animals” (Exhortation to Study the Arts 11, trans. König 2005: 296).
For Galen, as for Seneca, Cicero, and other Roman intellectuals, objections to the neglect of the mind and the soul because of athletic training carried implicit assertions of philosophical and intellectual superiority over those who did not share these concerns. Like the standard elite moral concerns and the physically grounded medical concerns, these too functioned in strategies of self-definition and self-positioning.
Elite Romans resisting the adoption of Greek-style athletic games and training in the Roman world were not the only group to voice moral and cultural objections to spectacles. For some cultural and religious groups within the Roman world who did not identify with pagan Roman culture, all pagan spectacles, regardless of their “style” and their level of violence, were objectionable on both moral and cultural grounds. According to the writings of the first-century CE Roman-Jewish historian Josephus this was particularly true among Jews confronted with the Roman- and Greek-style spectacles imported into Jerusalem by Herod in the first century BCE (Weiss 1999).
In his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus highlights several Jewish objections to the spectacles instituted by Herod, each of which was rooted in concerns that foreign spectacles posed a threat to Jewish culture, tradition, and morality. Josephus claims that spectacles caused men to neglect “those religious observances which used to lead the multitude to piety,” making the Jews “guilty of great wickedness.” Herod’s elaborate venationes and executions were seen as “a dissolution of those customs for which they had so great a veneration.” According to Josephus it was “an instance of barefaced impiety, to throw men to wild beasts, for . . . affording delight to the spectators,” but it was “an instance of no less impiety” for Jews to abandon traditional Jewish law to allow for such foreign practices (15.8.1, trans. W. Whitson). Further, Jews perceived the trophies that were hung in the theater to commemorate Augustus’s victories as forms of idols, and because idolatry was fundamentally at odds with Jewish law and religious practice, spectacles were found to be particularly reprehensible. In short, according to Josephus, Roman spectacles presented an affront to the traditions and ancestral morality of the Jews that were central to their cultural identity; opposition to spectacles was thus a means of defending and defining Jewish identity against pernicious foreign influences. (For further discussion of Jewish responses to Roman sport and spectacle, see Chapter 39.)
Similar but more numerous and widespread objections to pagan spectacles were voiced by early Christian authors. These objections often took the form of a long and rather standardized list of reasons for which Roman spectacle culture was inconsistent with Christian beliefs, practices, and, by extension, identity.
At the top of this list was the idea that Roman spectacles were “idolatry, pure and simple” that could defile the Christian spectator and turn his mind from God. In his treatise against Roman spectacle culture, On Spectacles, the Christian apologist Tertullian (c.160–c.220 CE) argues that practically every aspect of spectacles – from their origins and their names to their equipment and their architectural settings – was idolatrous. Rooted in pagan religious festivals and funeral games (or “worship of the dead”), inspired by demons to lead people astray, staged in structures dedicated to pagan gods, and employing misused elements of God’s creation, spectacles “belong[ed] to the devil, his pomp and his angels” and were thus no place for Christians (On Spectacles 4–13, trans. T. Glover). According to a different treatise of the same name attributed to Novatian (c.200–58 CE), spectacles were particularly dangerous for Christians because they were not merely idolatrous, but deceptive and seductive, disguising their idolatrous elements – which ordinarily would be repulsive to Christians – behind pleasures of the eyes and ears that were attractive to everyone (On Spectacles 4).
Betraying the influence of Stoic thought on early Christianity, Christian writers also expressed particular concern over the emotional impact of spectacles and their potential to do violence to the souls of the spectators. Tertullian asserts that “there is no spectacle without violence to the spirit” and argues that the games inspired in the audience “madness, bile, anger, and pain” antithetical to the “tranquility, gentleness, quiet, and peace” with which Christians ought to approach the Holy Spirit (On Spectacles 17, 15). In his late fourth-century CE Confessions, Augustine presents this spiritual violence even more graphically, arguing that the emotions induced by theatrical spectacles created “inflamed spots, pus, and repulsive sores” on the soul and that in watching the gladiatorial games, a Christian might be “struck in the soul by a wound graver than the gladiator in his body” (Confessions 3.10.24, 6.8.13, trans. M. Dods).
A related (and similarly Stoic) concern among Christian writers was that spectacles brought the spectator into contact with crowds of sinners and impious people. Though expressed by several authors, this concern is perhaps most clearly illustrated in Augustine’s account of how his friend Alypius fell prey to the seductions of the gladiatorial games. Augustine relates that, being forced to attend a gladiatorial game, Alypius tried to close his eyes and ignore the tempting spectacle, but “the shouting [of the crowd] entered his ears and forced open his eyes.” Compelled to look upon the violence in the arena by the noise of the crowd, Alypius was immediately transfixed and corrupted, and “thereby it [the noise of the crowd] was the means of wounding and striking to the ground a mind still more bold than strong” (Confessions 6.8.13). Seneca’s concern that vices are harder to resist among the crowds at spectacles (Letters from a Stoic 7) seems to resonate in Augustine’s anecdote and in the general concerns among early Christian writers about crowds and their effects.
As if the idolatry, emotional violence, and impious crowds at spectacles were not enough, early Christian authors also feared that spectacles exposed audiences to other egregious sins and vices such as prostitution and adultery. Novatian speaks clearly to this concern in lamenting that even to get to the circus one had to walk through the bad parts of town, “through the brothel, through the naked bodies of prostitutes, through sleazy lust, through public disgrace, through vulgar sensuality, through the reproaches of all right thinking men” (On Spectacles 5.4, trans. C. Francese). Once at their destinations spectators of theatrical spectacles (ludi scaenici) even put sin on display. Tatian, writing in the second century, notes that the stage gave “lessons in adultery,” which were learned by the youth (To the Greeks 22), and Novatian expresses concern that becoming accustomed to watching something on stage made a spectator more inclined to do it (On Spectacles 6.3).
The writings of many early Christian writers also betray misgivings about the violence and bloodshed inherent in arena spectacles – misgivings that are absent in the writings of the Roman literary elite – and demonstrate particular concern with the moral impact of the violence on the viewer and the participants. In the eyes of these Christian writers, the munera were not merely a form of entertainment put on by skilled performers, as they were for pagan Roman audiences; instead, they constituted a form of murder. Because some Christians believed “looking on at a murder to be nigh to murder itself” (Athenagoras Embassy for the Christians 35, trans. J. Crehan), attending the munera was thought to be particularly dangerous, for it not only exposed the spectator to the sin of murder but turned the spectator into a sort of vicarious murderer himself. Worse still, the murderous spectacles forced men who were condemned to the arena for minor crimes to become murderers in the most literal sense (Tertullian On Spectacles 19).
Many Christian writers also objected that spectacular executions in the arena were not merely sinful and corrupting, but also pointless and wasteful. Tatian quips that “the robber commits murder for the sake of plunder, but the rich man purchases gladiators for the sake of their being killed” (To the Greeks 23, trans. B. Pratten). Similarly, Ambrose, a fourth-century CE bishop of Milan, saw in spectacles both a senseless waste of human life and a misuse of economic resources, which should have been put to more charitable purposes, bettering the lives of men rather than wasting them (On the Duties of the Clergy 2.109–10; Bomgardner 2000: 203).
Finally, two other significant and seemingly peculiar critiques of Roman spectacles – that they demonstrated great impiety toward the pagan gods and that they involved a form of cannibalism – recur frequently throughout early Christian texts and merit special mention here. While these criticisms may at first seem strange, they can be understood as responses to and inversions of allegations that the Romans leveled against Christians. Because Christians refused to participate in Roman religious life, Romans accused them of impiety. Furthermore, Romans denounced Christians as cannibals as part of a long Roman tradition of ascribing cannibalism to marginal and threatening groups and perhaps also because they misunderstood the Eucharist, Christians’ symbolic consumption of the body and blood of Christ (McGowan 1994).
For early Christian apologists, spectacles provided a convenient and obvious rhetorical pivot point for turning these allegations of impiety and cannibalism back onto the Romans themselves. Tertullian and the third-century CE apologist Minucius Felix observe that while the Romans alleged Christian impiety, they themselves disgraced and violated the majesty of their own gods in theatrical spectacles by attributing vices to the gods, putting these on display, and allowing men – and in the amphitheater even criminals – to play the roles of the gods (Tertullian Apology 15; Minucius Felix Octavius 32.10). Tertullian’s wry remark, “I don’t know whether your gods may not have more complaints to make of you than of the Christians,” sums up this criticism of pagan impiety succinctly and quite bitingly (Apology 15.7, trans. T. Glover). As for allegations of cannibalism, the standard argument made by apologists was that Christians, who (in some ascetic sects) did not even consume animal blood and who could not stand to look upon death in the arena, could not possibly be cannibals. Instead, Roman pagans, who relished human death in the arena and who ate the meat of beasts slain there – “flesh glutted with blood and gorged on the entrails of men” (Minucius Felix Octavius 30.6, trans. G. Rendall) – were the true cannibals who partook of a “cannibal banquet of the soul” by attending arena games (Tatian To the Greeks 23).
This vehement and widespread opposition to Roman spectacle culture among Christian authors was as much about identity formation as it was about the spectacles themselves. For early Christians, constructing a new religious and cultural identity involved establishing what Christians were and what they were not by defining early Christians against their cultural “others” – a process which played out largely in early Christian written texts (Lieu 2004: 7, 17–21). Central to this definition for many Christian writers was the fact that Christians were not – or at least should not be – pagan spectacle-goers. Tertullian, for instance, asserts that Christians “have nothing to do in speech, sight, or hearing with the madness of the circus, the shamelessness of the theater, the savagery of the arena, the vanity of the gymnasium” (Apology 38.4). Similarly, in Minucius Felix’s Octavius, a pagan character identifies Christians as those who “do not attend the shows; . . . take no part in the processions; fight shy of the public banquets; abhor the sacred games” (7.5–6). According to early Christian moralists, to be Christian meant to abstain from the spectacles of pagan Roman culture – a fact which these authors explained to non-Christian audiences in apologetical treatises and of which they regularly had to remind their Christian followers.
While rejection of Roman spectacle culture played a significant role in forging an early Christian identity for numerous early Christian moralists, it is worth noting that many Christian writers also worked to establish a Christian identity by appropriating the language and the imagery of Roman spectacles and by recasting the arena in Christian terms. For example, Novatian and Tertullian assert that Christians had no need for pagan spectacles because they had their own, better spectacles to enjoy. These “Christian spectacles” included the spectacles of the natural world (the rising and setting of the sun, the changing of seasons, the motion of the constellations (Novatian On Spectacles 9)), the spectacles of Scripture (the creation of the world, the parting of the seas, the recalling of souls from the dead (Novatian On Spectacles 10)), and the spectacles of Christian life (“the trampling underfoot of the gods of the pagans, expelling of demons, effecting cures, seeking revelations, living to god” (Tertullian On Spectacles 29)). These writers promised that at the end of days, “the greatest spectacle of all,” the second coming of Christ, awaited faithful Christians. When that occurred, they promised, the participants in pagan spectacles would be condemned in a truly spectacular fashion– and with every bit as much violence as that which Christian moralists decried in the pagan spectacles (Novatian On Spectacles 19; Tertullian On Spectacles 30).3
Other Christian writers co-opted the imagery of the arena in discussing and recasting Christian martyrdom. Both Cyprian, a third-century CE bishop of Carthage, and Minucius Felix portrayed martyrdom as a pleasing “spectacle to the Lord” in the cosmic arena in which, according to Cyprian, God was both the main spectator and the source of the martyrs’ strength (Cyprian Letters 7.2–3, 9; Futrell 2006: 171). In a similar vein, several narratives celebrating specific Christian martyrdoms, known as “Martyr Acts,” were written and circulated within the early Christian community. As Futrell aptly notes, these “Martyr Acts” “reconfigured the meaning of the arena . . . claiming martyrdom as a demonstration of Christian authority rather than that of Rome” and “consolidated these identity-forming patterns within the group” of early Christians throughout the Mediterranean world (Futrell 2006: 173).
Early Christian discourse on Roman spectacles in its many forms was thus closely tied to processes of Christian identity formation. By opposing Roman spectacle culture, turning Roman allegations against Christians back on the Romans through a discussion of spectacles, and appropriating the language and imagery of pagan spectacles for Christian purposes, early Christian writers both defined what it meant to live as an early Christian against the example of the pagan, spectacle-loving “other” and redefined what it meant to die in these spectacles at the hands of the very same Romans.
Opposition to sport and spectacle in the Roman world was not what modern readers might expect. Most Romans had plenty of reasons to like spectacles – even in their most violent forms – and opposition was hardly the norm within pagan Roman society. When objections were voiced, they varied in their substance and their specific motivations, but all were inextricably linked to the identity of the groups or individuals voicing the objections. For members of the Roman literary elite and the Stoics, opposition to the traditional, Roman-style spectacles that were popular among the masses allowed for elite and philosophical self-positioning and the exploration of proper elite pastimes in relation to those of the masses. For those who opposed Greek-style athletic games and training in Roman contexts, opposition allowed critics to distinguish themselves from those who appreciated or participated in Greek athletics; for elite Romans, this meant immoral Greeks; for doctors such as Galen, incompetent athletic trainers; and for intellectuals, athletes who neglected their minds and souls through excessive athletic training. Finally, for both Jews and early Christian moralists, opposition to pagan spectacles in all their forms provided a means for defining and defending Jewish and Christian religious identity against the pagan culture in which spectacles played such a central role. Simply put, opposition to sport and spectacle was relatively uncommon in the Roman world, but when it was voiced it allowed ancient critics to define their group and individual identities and position themselves in relation to so many spectacle-loving “others.”
NOTES
1 On gladiatorial games, see Chapters 25, 30, 31, and 32 in this volume. On beast hunts and public executions, see Chapters 34 and 35, respectively.
2 Seneca objected to executions that only delighted the audience rather than teaching them a lesson (Letters from a Stoic 7), but otherwise he had no reservations about public executions. Juvenal alone voiced unqualified opposition to spectacular execution, asserting that the revenge was for the small-minded and that the only thing public executions taught the audience was cruelty – a view that was by no means mainstream (Satires 13.28, 14.15; Wistrand 1992: 23).
3 It is persuasively argued in Frilingos 2004 that Roman spectacle played a significant role in shaping the Book of Revelation. For further discussion of Christian responses to the arena, see Chapter 39.
REFERENCES
Astin, A., F. Walbank, M. Frederiksen, et al., eds. 1989. The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. 8, Rome and the Mediterranean to 133 b.c. 2nd ed. Cambridge.
Bomgardner, D. 2000. The Story of the Roman Amphitheatre. London.
Byrne, S. and E. Cueva, eds. 1999. Veritatis Amicitiaeque Causa: Essays in Honor of Anna Lydia Motto and John R. Clark. Wauconda, IL.
Cagniart, P. 2000. “The Philosopher and the Gladiator.” Classical World 93: 607–18.
Crowther, N. 2004. Athletika: Studies on the Olympic Games and Greek Athletics. Hildesheim.
Edwards, M. 2006. “Christian Thought.” In D. Potter, ed., 607–19.
Edwards, C. 1997. “Unspeakable Professions: Public Performance and Prostitution in Ancient Rome.” In J. Hallett and M. Skinner, eds., 66–95.
Flower, H., ed. 2004a. The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic. Cambridge.
Flower, H. 2004b. “Spectacle and Political Culture in the Roman Republic.” In H. Flower, ed., 322–43.
Fredriksen, P. 2006. “Christians in the Roman Empire in the First Three Centuries CE.” In D. Potter, ed., 587–606.
Frilingos, C. 2004. Spectacles of Empire: Monsters, Martyrs, and the Book of Revelation. Philadelphia.
Futrell, A. 2006. The Roman Games: A Sourcebook. Malden, MA.
Gruen, E. 1990. Studies in Greek Culture and Roman Policy. Leiden.
Gruen, E. 1992. Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome. Ithaca, NY.
Guldager Bilde, P., I. Nielsen, and M. Nielsen, eds. 2003. Aspects of Hellenism in Italy: Towards a Cultural Unity? Copenhagen.
Hallett, J. and M. Skinner, eds. 1997. Roman Sexualities. Princeton.
Hankinson, R. J., ed. 2008. The Cambridge Companion to Galen. Cambridge.
Humphrey, J. H., ed. 1999. The Roman and Byzantine Near East: Some Recent Archaeological Research. Vol. 2. Ann Arbor.
Ibáñez, J.-M. 2003. “Galen’s Treatise ‘Thrasybulus’ and the Dispute between ‘Paidotribes’ and ‘Gymnastes.’” Nikephoros 16: 147–56.
Inwood, B., ed. 2003. The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics. Cambridge.
Joyal, M. and R. Egan, eds. 2004. Daimonopylai: Essays in Classics and the Classical Tradition Presented to Edmund G. Berry. Winnipeg.
König, J. 2005. Athletics and Literature in the Roman Empire. Cambridge.
Kyle, D. 2007. Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World. Malden, MA.
Lieu, J. 2004. Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World. Oxford.
Long, A. A. 2003. “Roman Philosophy.” In D. Sedley, ed., 184–210.
Mähl, E. 1974. Gymnastik und Athletik im Denken der Römer. Amsterdam.
Mann, C. 2002. “Griechischer Sport und römishce Identität: Die certamina athletarrum in Rom.” Nikephoros 15: 125–58.
McGowan, A. 1994. “Eating People: Accusations of Cannibalism against Christians in the Second Century.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 2: 413–42.
Musurillo, H. 1972. The Acts of the Christian Martyrs. Oxford.
Newby, Z. 2005. Greek Athletics in the Roman World: Victory and Virtue. Oxford.
Potter, D., ed. 2006. A Companion to the Roman Empire. Malden, MA.
Rawson, E. 1985. Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic. Baltimore.
Rawson, E. 1989. “Roman Tradition and the Greek World.” In A. Astin, F. Walbank, M. Frederiksen, et al., eds., 422–76.
Richardson, P. 1996. Herod: King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans. Columbia, SC.
Scarborough, J. 1985. “Galen on Roman Amateur Athletics.” Arete 2: 171–6.
Sedley, D., ed. 2003. The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Philosophy. Cambridge.
Shelton, J.-A. 1999. “Elephants, Pompey, and the Reports of Popular Displeasure in 55 BC.” In S. Byrne and E. Cueva, eds., 231–71.
Shelton, J.-A. 2004. “Dancing and Dying: The Display of Elephants in Ancient Roman Arenas.” In M. Joyal and R. Egan, eds., 363–82.
Weiss, Z. 1999. “Adopting a Novelty: The Jews and the Roman Games in Palestine.” In J. H. Humphrey, ed., 23–49.
Wiedemann, T. 1992. Emperors and Gladiators. London.
Wistrand, M. 1990. “Violence and Entertainment in Seneca the Younger.” Eranos 88: 31–46.
Wistrand, M. 1992. Entertainment and Violence in Ancient Rome: The Attitudes of Roman Writers of the First Century a.d. Göteburg, Sweden.
GUIDE TO FURTHER READING
Wistrand 1992 provides a thorough and highly accessible overview of the attitudes of nine Roman writers of the first century CE to sport and spectacle in all their forms, treating the objections of the literary elite and the Stoics on a spectacle-by-spectacle basis. For a thorough overview of opposition to gladiatorial games, with extensive citation of primary sources, see Wiedemann 1992: 128–64 (though the reader should be careful not to give too much credence to Wiedemann’s ultimate conclusions concerning the demise of the games).
On the various reasons why there was widespread acceptance of sport and spectacle among Romans of all classes, see Flower 2004b and Chapters 30 and 31 in this volume. On Roman attitudes toward animal spectacles, see Shelton 1999 and 2004. On Roman attitudes toward those who performed in spectacles, see Edwards 1997. On Cicero’s attitudes toward sport and spectacle, see Crowther 2004: 387–419. For thorough and clearly argued treatments of the attitudes of Seneca toward gladiatorial spectacles, see Wistrand 1990 and Cagniart 2000.
For an introduction to Roman philosophy, see Long 2003. On the Stoics in particular, see the essays collected in Inwood 2003.
For a relatively brief survey of Roman reactions to Greek culture, see Rawson 1989. For full-length treatments of that complicated subject, see Gruen 1990 and 1992 and Rawson 1985. Also useful are the articles collected in Guldager Bilde, Nielsen, and Nielsen 2003. Newby 2005 and König 2005: 205–344 offer sophisticated but accessible treatments of the rise of Greek athletics in Rome and the elite opposition that accompanied it. See also Mähl 1974; Mann 2002; and Scarborough 1985. König 2005: 254–300 is essential reading for anyone interested in Galen’s objections to inappropriate athletic training. See also Ibáñez 2003. For an introduction to Galen’s life and work, see the essays collected in Hankinson 2008. On Roman attitudes toward Greek athletic nudity, see Crowther 2004: 375–80.
On Herod and his relationship with the Romans, see Richardson 1996. On the attitude of Jews toward Roman spectacle, see Weiss 1999. For brief surveys of the relationship between Christians and the Roman government in the first three centuries CE and of early Christian thought, see Fredriksen 2006 and Edwards 2006, respectively. On Christian objections to Roman spectacle, see Futrell 2006: 160–88 and Wiedemann 1992: 146–60. On the Christian “Martyr Acts”, see Musurillo 1972.