The foregoing survey of Roman arena spectacles has amply illustrated their central importance in Roman society. Far from simply being sadistic displays of brutality, the gladiatorial munera and beast hunts, as we have seen, fulfilled a number of important roles apart from that of mere entertainment. One of the best indicators of their perceived importance, of course, is the fact that they continued to be staged over the course of several centuries, in the midst of myriad political and social changes in the Roman state, and in the case of the venationes, actually outlasted for a time the state that had created them.
Another clear indicator of the spectacles’ importance within Roman society was, of course, the vast resources devoted over the course of centuries to their continued production. In the Republican period, as we have seen, the arrangements behind various munera, such as the collection of the requisite gladiators, was somewhat ad hoc in nature, facilitated in part by the dramatic Roman conquests and territorial expansion of the period. This gave various editores access to an ample supply of both prisoners-ofwar and exotic animals to fight in the arena. As time went on, however, such arrangements became ever more formalized, culminating in the state-owned familiae of the imperial period, as well as the army of officials who oversaw every aspect of the spectacles’ production. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this infrastructure, one which this book has sought to emphasize, was the Roman logistical achievement in capturing and transporting untold numbers of animals over hundreds of years for venationes staged across the Empire.
The reason why the Romans were willing to devote so many resources to the production of arena spectacles was, of course, the central position they held in Roman social and political life. Indeed, the munera in many respects served as a microcosm of the Roman world, and a celebration of Roman values and traditions. One of the commonly cited benefits of gladiatorial spectacles, for example, was the role they played in reminding the assembled audiences of the martial values and virtus which had enabled Rome to conquer such a massive empire. It was a reminder that was perhaps even more important under the Empire, when decisive military victories ultimately occurred much less frequently than they had during the last centuries of the Republic. The various ethnic types of gladiators, such as ‘Samnites’ and ‘Thracians’, which were especially common in earlier munera, served as an even more pointed reminder of specific wars and campaigns in Rome’s illustrious military past.
The munera, however, did not simply serve to sate the Romans’ nostalgia for past military triumphs. One of the most important aspects of such events was to reaffirm important aspects of contemporary Roman society. The very seating arrangement found in venues like the Colosseum, in which the proximity of spectators to the arena floor was determined by the rank and privilege which they enjoyed within the state, served as a clear illustration of the distinct segregation within Roman society. The relative powerlessness of slaves as well as many women, for example, which in many respects consigned them to the fringes of Roman social and political life, was reflected in the seats they were assigned in the upper tiers of various amphitheatres, as far distant from the arena floor, and the Roman elite seated directly above it, as possible.
Another very important social role of the munera was to serve as a venue for capital punishment, and in so doing reassure the assembled spectators of the efficacy of Roman justice. As we have seen, the public execution of criminals guilty of serious offences like arson were included in Roman arena spectacles from a relatively early date, and continued to be a staple of such events for centuries thereafter. Such executions not only reassured the audience that law and order was being maintained, but also, through the truly demeaning and humiliating way in which many condemned criminals were killed, sought to ensure that there would be no outpouring of sympathy for the condemned, thereby further reinforcing social solidarity and the rule of law within the state.
Closely linked to the social role of the arena was its political importance. The public execution of criminals in the arena, for example, was just one of the ways in which Roman emperors sought to demonstrate not only the effectiveness of Roman law, but also the effectiveness of their own rule, to their assembled subjects. Even more importantly, the arena was one of the few venues in the Rome where members of the populace, regardless of their wealth or social status, could interact with the prominent political leaders who had sponsored a given munus, and feel that their voice was being heard. Most commonly, this collective expression consisted of voting on whether or not a defeated gladiator should be spared, but spectators could also use the arena as a venue in which they could express their displeasure with a given leader and/or his policies. This became even more important under the autocracy of the Empire, when the voting assemblies of the Republic had long since fallen by the wayside. Certainly, those emperors who ignored such mass expressions of discontent did so at their own risk.
Although the spectacles of the arena served a variety of roles specific to Roman state and society, in other respects they addressed broader concerns and possessed characteristics that would be familiar in other cultures, including our own. Perhaps the best example of the latter is the celebrity status successful gladiators, venatores, and even certain arena animals could achieve. Although fighting in the arena was legally considered among the basest professions in Roman society, particularly proficient combatants could gain a popularity akin to modern day rock stars or famous athletes. The desire for such acclaim, as we have seen, could even prompt an emperor like Commodus to descend into the arena himself.
Unsurprisingly, the Roman arena spectacle which addressed a variety of broader cross-cultural concerns, the venatio, arguably enjoyed the most significant legacy following the collapse of the Roman Empire. Although the form of the venatio was uniquely Roman, owing certain elements to contemporary gladiatorial spectacles, many of its underlying messages certainly were not. The Romans, for example, did not invent the concept of using staged animal hunts to demonstrate mastery over nature, or the extent of a particular ruler’s wealth and territory. Such propaganda aims continued to hold a certain fascination long after the fall of Rome, which helps to explain why certain spectacles and events reminiscent of the venationes continued to appear in various states for centuries thereafter.
A number of European monarchs of the medieval and early modern periods, for example, staged their own spectacles inspired, at least to a degree, by the Roman beast hunts. To name two such instances: the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, an avid collector of exotic animals, periodically staged combats between a number of them for his subjects in Palermo; while at a later date, the Portuguese king, Manuel I unsuccessfully attempted to stage a combat between an elephant and a rhinoceros, inspired by the mention of similar contests in Roman texts.1
The collection and display of exotic animals, even in the modern period, continued to be an element of imperial propaganda. In the mid-nineteenth century, namely, at the height of the British Empire, an entire army division was entrusted with the task of bringing a hippopotamus from Egypt to London, incidentally the first such animal shipped from Africa to Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire. Such an assignment, as we have seen, would have been perfectly familiar to the Roman troops stationed along the frontiers of their empire, who played such an indispensable role in supplying the imperial munera of Rome over the course of centuries.2