Numerous works have been written upon the combat sports and spectacles of ancient Rome, events that are among the most famous manifestations of Roman culture. One might wonder, then, as to the need for another book on this topic. My intention is to write a survey of the Roman arena that I hope will be of interest to both a general and a scholarly audience. The two types of arena spectacles that will comprise the main focus of this book are gladiatorial events and staged beast hunts, commonly known as venationes. One very popular Roman sport which will not be discussed in any great detail is chariot racing, an event which, given its importance and popularity in Roman culture, merits its own detailed treatment. What sets my work on the Roman arena apart from those of many other scholars is, first of all, the attention I devote to the venationes. Many surveys of Roman arena spectacles focus primarily upon gladiatorial events and pay substantially less attention to the beast hunts, despite the fact that the latter spectacles were very popular in their own right, and were staged over a longer period. I will also discuss in some detail the all-important infrastructure behind the scenes that ensured the successful staging of untold numbers of both gladiatorial and animal spectacles throughout Roman territory over the course of centuries.
Fortunately, a wide variety of evidence is available to reconstruct the history of such events. First off are the preserved writings of numerous Greek and Roman authors. Most such works do not take the spectacles as their focus of interest, but describe them in passing from time to time. The historians Livy and Tacitus, for example, who wrote annalistic histories of Republican and imperial Rome respectively, describe in the course of their works the noteworthy public events staged by various magistrates and emperors. Similarly, the voluminous correspondence of Cicero, one of the most important figures of the late Republic, occasionally touches upon contemporary spectacles in Rome or other topics pertaining to them.
One of our most important literary sources for the history of the Roman games is a small book of poems, De Spectaculis (‘On the Spectacles’) written by the poet Martial in the later first century AD. The subject of the poems is the dedication of the Colosseum, the most famous amphitheatre in the Roman Empire, in 79 AD, and the spectacles staged there by the emperors Titus and Domitian. Martial’s work not only provides information on specific events staged in the course of these events, be they gladiatorial combat, venationes, or criminal executions, but also provides a vivid glimpse of the spectator reaction to them. As such, De Spectaculis is one of our most prominent primary sources demonstrating the importance of the arena and its associated spectacles in Roman society.
Literary works must always be used with some degree of caution, however, primarily because of potential bias or inaccuracy on the part of the author. An instructive example of just such a work is the so-called Scriptores Historiae Augustae (or SHA), a collection of biographies of Roman emperors from the second and third centuries. Among issues surrounding this work are the fabricated documents and persons inserted in the text by the author, which necessitate a cautious separation of fact from fiction by scholars.
Fortunately, another type of written evidence, epigraphy, is not as prone to problems of bias or inaccuracy. Inscriptions such as funerary epitaphs, for example, are normally contemporary with the events or persons to which they refer, unlike historical works that are commonly written decades or even centuries after the events they describe. In addition, inscriptions, in describing specific events or the careers of individuals, often provide specific details on various aspects of Roman spectacles that are comparatively overlooked in broader literary accounts. We shall see that epigraphy, for example, is particularly useful in reconstructing the infrastructure of the Roman games, something which writers like Livy tend not to discuss in any detail.
Other major sources of evidence when it comes to Roman arena spectacles are the surviving art and archaeological remains from that period. Among the most impressive examples of such physical evidence are the ruins of amphitheatres scattered throughout the territory of the former Roman Empire. Such monuments, on a more general level, not only attest to the widespread popularity of Roman spectacles, but also, through their surviving architectural layouts, provide important evidence on more particular topics, such as the arrangement of spectator seating and the provisions for animal cages and other equipment in arena substructures.
The most important artistic evidence for the Roman spectacles comes to us from media such as relief sculpture and mosaics. In many cases, the events commemorated for posterity in such artwork are otherwise unattested, and these depictions therefore provide us with further important evidence of the spread and popularity of Roman spectacles. The inclusion of such visual details as the clothing and equipment of the performers is also of utmost importance in reconstructing the particulars of these events, providing us with information not found in written sources. Numerous hunting scenes from Roman mosaics also afford us a great deal of information on the infrastructure behind arena events, in particular the necessary capture and transport of wild animals prior to a given venatio. The most famous example is the massive ‘Great Hunt’ mosaic from a fourth century Roman villa in Sicily which depicts, albeit in a sometimes stylized fashion, the capture of animals from throughout Roman territory and their shipment to the port of Ostia.
Such are the many different types of evidence we can use to reconstruct the history and importance of arena spectacles in Roman society. A major part of my work will consist of tracing the development of gladiatorial events and venationes in Rome – from their inception during the Republic to their heyday in the high Empire. In the midst of this discussion, of course, a number of questions must be addressed. Why were the Roman games, which seem so reprehensible to many in the modern world, so popular among Roman spectators? Why did Roman magistrates and emperors go to the trouble of staging such expensive spectacles? What was in it for them? The social and propaganda roles of the Roman arena, as we shall see, were most important.
No account of Roman arena spectacles would be complete without a discussion of the veritable army of performers and specialists behind the scenes who ensured the successful production of countless spectacles over the course of centuries. Foremost among them, of course, are the trained gladiators and beastfighters who actually fought and died in the arena. As previously mentioned, however, such spectacles could not have been staged in the first place without the efforts of myriad support staff, ranging from the personnel of the training schools to the hunters who captured and shipped exotic animals from the frontiers of the Roman Empire.
My work concludes with an examination of the arena spectacles of the late Empire, and their gradual disappearance at a time when the state no longer had the requisite resources for such events. It is commonly claimed that the conversion of the Empire to Christianity in the fourth century spelled the end of gladiatorial contests, in particular, but as we shall see, the factors behind their disappearance, and that of the venationes, were not quite so straightforward as commonly assumed.