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33 Cards in this Set
- Front
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For it was neither every kind of fame nor fame from every source that he courted, as Philip did, who plumed himself like a sophist on the power of his oratory, and took care to have the victories of his chariots at Olympia engraved upon his coins; nay, when those about him inquired whether he would be willing to contend in the foot-race at the Olympic games, since he was swift of foot, 'Yes,' said he, 'if I could have kings as my competitors.' |
Plutarch, Life of Alexander Alexander is against competition in athletics because he has nothing to gain by competing because he is already highest social status, too much to lose |
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Then, going up to Ilium (Troy), he sacrificed to Athena and poured libations to the heroes. Furthermore, the gravestone of Achilles he anointed with oil, ran a face by it with his companions, naked, as is the custom, and then crowned it with garlands, pronouncing the hero happy in having a faithful friend while he lived, and after death, a great herald of his fame (i.e. Homer) |
Plutarch, Life of Alexander Alexander's Private funeral games for Achilles in Troy Achilles' non-participation in Funeral Games of Patroclus (though he was the best) as a model for Alexander's non-participation |
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First Tarquinius waged war on the Latins and captured the town of Apiolae. Because he brought back more plunder than expected from what seemed like a small war, he put on more extravagant ludi than previous kings had done. It was then that the place now called the Circus Maximus was market out. There were separate sections of seats for senators and knights to watch from, with benches on supports as much as 12 feet from the ground. There were horse races and boxers brought in from Etruria. These games are still held annually, and called the Ludi Romani or the Great Ludi. |
Livy - History of Rome Triumph of Tarquinius > Circus Maximus and Ludi Romani / Great Ludi |
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But now the procession is coming - keep silence all, and attend! The time for applause is here - the golden procession is coming. First in the train is Victory, borne with wings outspread - came hither, goddess, and help my love to win! Applaud Neptune, you who trust too much in the wave! I will have nothing to do with the sea; I choose that the land keep me. Applaud thy Mars, O soldier! Arms I detest; peace is my delight, and love that is found in the midst of peace. And Phoebus Apollo - let him be gracious to augurs, and Phoebe gracious to huntsman! Minerva, turn in applause to thee craftsman's hands! Young country dwellers, rise to Ceres (Demeter) and tender Bacchus (Dionysos)! Let the boxer court Pollux, the horseman Castor. But we applaud thee, mild Venus (Aphrodite) and thy children potent with the bow |
Ovid - Procession of Gods at Circus Maximus |
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"But even those who have triumphs, and who on that account keep the generals of the enemy alive a longer time, in order that, while they are led in triumph, the Roman people may enjoy an ennobling spectacle, and a splendid fruit of victory; nevertheless, when they begin to turn their chariot from the forum towards the Capitol, order them to be taken ack to prison, and the same day brings to the conquerors the end of their authority, and to the conquered the end of their lives." |
Cicero Passage - Captives and Spectacles of Conquest |
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"For in time long past, in accordance with the belief that the souls of the dead are propitiated by human blood, they used to purchase captives or slaves of inferior ability and to sacrifice them at funerals. afterwards, they preferred to disguise this ungodly usage by making it a pleasure. So, after the persons thus procured had been trained - for the sole purpose of learning how to be killed! - in the use of such arms as the then had and as best as they could wield, they then exposed them to death at the tombs on the day appointed for sacrifices in honour of the dead. Thus they found consolation for death in murder" |
Gladiators and Human Sacrifice - Tertulian |
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"So the Romans made us of the splendid armor of their enemies to do honour to the gods; thile the Companions, in consequence of their pride and hatred of the Samnites, equipped after this fashion the gladiators who furnished them entertainment at their feasts" |
Passage by Roman Historian Livy on Roman reaction to Campanion gladiators - 308 BCE after Romans defeat the Samnites |
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“The ordered that armor and weapons should be made ready, and took down temples and porticoes of ancient spoils of enemies. The levy wore a strange appearance, for owing to the scarcity of free men and the need of the hour, they bought, with money from the treasury |
Livy 22.57.9: Ideology of "Slave Warriors" - Battle of Cannae, 216 BCE |
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“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 the huge beast has a fellowship with the human race.” |
Cicero, letter to Marcus Marius - Pity for elephants - 55 BCE Pompey's Theatre where 20 elephants, 500 lions and 400 other African animals were murdered |
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"But Pompey's elephants, when they had lost all hope of escape, tried to gain the compassion of the crowd by indescribable gestures of entreaty, deploring their fate with a sort of wailing, so much to the distress of the public that they forgot the general and his munificence carefully devised for their honor, and bursting into tears rose in a body and invoked curses on the head of Pompey for which he soon afterwards paid the penalty.” |
Pliny, Natural Histories - Pity for elephants - 55 BCE Pompey's Theatre where 20 elephants, 500 lions and 400 other African animals were murdered |
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The insurrection of the gladiators and their devastation of Italy, which is generally called the war of Spartacus,1 had its origin as follows. A certain Lentulus Batiatus had a school of gladiators at Capua, most of whom were Gauls and Thracians. Through no misconduct of theirs, but owing to the injustice of their owner, they were kept in close confinement and reserved for gladiatorial combats.Two hundred of these planned to make their escape, and when information was laid against them, those who got wind of it and succeeded in getting away, seventy-eight in number, seized cleavers and spits from some kitchen and sallied out. On the road they fell in with wagons conveying gladiators' weapons to another city; these they plundered and armed themselves. Then they took up a strong position and elected three leaders. The first of these was Spartacus, a Thracian of Nomadic stock, possessed not only of great courage and strength, but also in sagacity and culture superior to his fate, and more Hellenic than Thracian. |
Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 8.1ff: Spartacus 'more Hellenic than Thracian' |
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“Spartacus emerges as the most capital fellow in the whole history of antiquity. A great general [...], of noble character, a ‘real representative’ of the proletariat of ancient times. Pompey a real sh*t [...]” |
Karl Marx on Spartacus: |
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“The whole world belongs to Rome so Rome must be destroyed and made only a bad memory, and then where Rome was, we will build a new life where all men will live in peace and brotherhood and love, no slaves and no slave masters, no gladiators and no arenas, but a time like the old times, like the golden age. We will build new cities of brotherhood, and there will be no walls around them.” |
Howard Fast, Spartacus p.170 - 1951 novel portrays Spartacus as a communist revolutionary |
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Seeking to die honorably,She had no coward’s fear of the sword, Nor did her swift fleet make for hidden shores. Her face serene, she dared to behold her helpless palace, brave enough to clutch deadly snakesSo she should take the black poison into her body. All the more fierce– she planned her own death—She deprived Caesar’s swift Liburnian ships of her being led in his proud triumph like a meek woman. |
Praise of Cleopatra - Horace Odes |
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“In the number, variety, and magnificence of his public spectacles, he surpassed all former example. Four and-twenty times, he says, he treated the people with games upon his own account, and three-and-twenty times for such magistrates as were either absent, or not able to afford the expense.” |
Suetonius, Divine Augustus 43 - Improvements to Spectacle |
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“He entertained the people with wrestlers in the Campus Martius, where wooden seats were erected for the purpose; and also with a naval fight, for which he excavated the ground near the Tiber, where there is now the grove of the Caesars. During these two entertainments he stationed guards in the city lest, by robbers taking advantage of the small number of people left at home, it might be exposed to depredations. In the circus he exhibited chariot and foot races, and combats with wild beasts, in which the performers were often youths of the highest rank.” |
Suetonius, Divine Augustus 43 - Improvements to Spectacle |
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“Augustus corrected the confusion and disorder with which the spectators took their seats at the public games, after an affront which was offered to a senator, for whom, in a crowded theatre, no one would make room. He therefore procured a decree of the senate, that in all public spectacles of any sort, and in any place whatever, the first tier of benches should be left empty for the accommodation of senators. He would not even permit the ambassadors of free nations, nor of those which were allies of Rome, to sit in the front seats; having found that some freed slaves had been sent under that character.” |
Suetonius, Divine Augustus 43 - Seat order / social stratification |
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“He separated the soldiery from the rest of the people, and assigned to married plebeians their particular rows of seats. To the boys he assigned their own benches, and to their tutors the seats which were nearest it; ….. Nor would he allow any women to witness the combats of the gladiators, except from the upper part of the theatre, although they formerly used to take their places promiscuously with the rest of the spectators.” |
Suetonius, Divine Augustus 43 - Gender Divisions |
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Anchises (Aeneas’ Father), tells the future to Aeneas when in the underworld: “Now turn your eyes this way And behold these people, your own Roman people. Here is Caesar and all the line of IulusSoon to venture under the sky’s great arch. Here is the man, he’s here! Time and againYou’ve heard his coming promised– Caesar Augustus!Son of a god, he will bring back the Age of GoldTo the Latin fields where Saturn once held sway, Expand his empire past the Garamants and the IndiansTo a land beyond the stars, beyond the wheel of the year, The course of the sun itself, where Atlas bears the skies and turns on his shoulder the heavens studded with flaming stars.” |
Virgil’s Aeneid, Book 6 (Underworld) |
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Aeneas: “So come, all of us celebrate our happy rites!…I shall hold games for all our Trojans.First a race for our swift ships, then for our fastest man afoot, And then our best and boldest can step up to win the javelin-throw or wing the wind swift arrow or dare to fight with bloody rawhide gloves (boxing). Come all! See who takes the victory prize, the palm.” |
Virgil's Aeneid: BK. 5 Funeral Games for Anchises Promotes the reigns of Augustus as new era of peace that reflects the foundations of Rome Boat Race; Trojan Games |
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“watch the long column, split into three equal squads, Splits into rows of six, in bands dancing away, Then recalled at the next command they whelled and charged each other, lances tense for attack, Wheeling charge into countercharge, return and turn Through the whole arena, enemies circling, swerving back in their armor, acting out a mock display of war.” |
Virgil’s Aeneid Bk. 5: Funeral Games- Trojan Games - groups of young boys on horse back |
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“This tradition of drill and these mock battles: Ascanius was the first to revive the Rite When he girded Alba Longa round with ramparts, Teaching the early Latins to keep these rites, Just as he and his fellow Trojan boys had done, And the Albans taught their sons, and in her turnGreat Rome received the rites and preserved our fathers’ fame. The boys are now called Trojans, their troupe the Trojan Corps.”
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Virgil’s Aeneid Bk. 5: Funeral Games-
Trojan Games
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“Now that no one buys our votes, the public has long since cast off its cares; the people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things----Bread and Games!”
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Juvenal- Roman Satirical Poet60-130 AD - Bread and Games |
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“The Emperor Trajan knew that the Roman people are held in control principally by two things– free grain and shows– that political support depends as much on the entertainments as on matters of serious import, that…neglect of the entertainments brings damning unpopularity, that gifts are less eagerly and ardently longed for than shows, and finally, that gifts placate only the common people on the grain dole, singly and individually, but shows placate everyone.” |
Fronto100-170 CETutor to Roman Emperors - Bread and Games |
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At a gladiatorial munus, when the sun was blazing and the awnings had been put out, he would sometimes insist that they be taken off, and forbid anyone to leave. He would exhibit the cheapest, second-rate beasts and gladiators grown old and sick. He would make men with physical disabilities fight, even if they were respectable, free citizens. And sometimes he would close the granaries and announce that the people would starve.
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Suetonius Caligula, 26-27 (Mahoney p49) - Caligula’s Cruelty and Control in Spectacle |
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He was so extravagantly fond of the party of charioteers whose colours were green, that he ate and lodged for some time constantly in the stable where their horses were kept. At a certain revel, he made a present of two million sesterces to one Cythicus, a driver of a chariot. The day before the Circensian games, he used to send his soldiers to enjoin silence in the neighborhood, that the repose of his horse Incitatus, might not be disturbed. For this favorite animal, in addition to giving a marble stable, an ivory manger, purple housings, and a jeweled frontlet, he appointed a house, with a retinue of slaves, and fine furniture, for the reception of those who were invited in the horse's name to eat with him. It is even said that he intended to make his horse consul. |
Suetonius, Caligula 55 - About Caligula's favorite horse - Incitatus |
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“That no memory or the least monument might remain of any other victor in the sacred Grecian games, he ordered all their statues and pictures to be pulled down, dragged away with hooks, and thrown into the common sewers. He drove the chariot with various numbers of horses, and at the Olympic games with no fewer than ten; though, in a poem of his, he had reflected upon Mithridates for that innovation. Being thrown out of his chariot, he was again replaced, but could not retain his seat, and was obliged to give it up, before he reached the goal, but was crowned notwithstanding.” |
Suetonius, Nero, 24 - To improve Roman relations with Greece, Nero competed at the Olympic Games of 67 BCE. |
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“Now the enemy, pursuing you recklessly…comes boldly across the course to ram your wheel. His horses crumple. The shameless mob of their legs goes in the wheels and breaks the spokes one after another, until the center of the wheel is full of cracking sounds and the rim stops the flyting feet. He himself falls from the collapsing chariot, making a massive mountain of ruin, and staining his fallen face with blood.” |
Apollonaris Sidonius - Violence of Circus Games |
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“Let Victory in sadness break her Idumaean palms; O Favour, strike your bare breast with unsparing hand. Let Honour change her garb for that of mourning; and make your crowned locks, O disconsolate Glory, an offering to the cruel flames. Oh! sad misfortune! that you, Scorpus, should be cut off in the flower of your youth, and be called so prematurely to harness the dusky steeds of Pluto. The chariot-race was always shortened by your rapid driving; but O why should your own race have been so speedily run?” |
The Charioteer Scorpus - Martial epigrams |
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Rome, I am Scorpus, the glory of your noisy circus, the object of your applause, your short-lived favorite. The envious Lachesis, when she cut me off in my twenty-seventh year, accounted me, in judging by the number of my victories, to be an old man.” |
The Charioteer Scorpus - Martial Epigrams |
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And nothing is so damaging to good morals as to hang around at some spectacle. There through pleasure, vice sneaks in more easily. I come back more greedy, more desirous of honour, more dissolute, even more unfeeling and cruel, because I have been among people. By chance I happened to be at the spectacle at noontime, expecting some witty entertainment and relaxation, to rest men’s eyes from the gore. It was the opposite. Whatever fighting there was before was comparative mercy. Now there was pure murder, no more fooling around. …Many people prefer this to the ordinary pairs and the fighters. Why wouldn’t they? No helmet or shield pushes the sword away. Where is the defence? Where is the skill? These things are just to delay death. In the morning men are thrown to lions and bears, at noontime to the audience. “ |
Seneca (Stoic Philosopher, Tutor and Advisor to Nero= fail)Letter 7.1-5. - Criticism of Roman Violence |
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Let barbarous Memphis stop talking about the miracle of the pyramids;Assyrian toil is not to vaunt Babylonand the soft Ionians are not to garner praise for Trivia’s temple;let the altar of many horns say nothing about Delos,and do not let the Carians lavish extravagant praise on theMausoleum suspended in empty air and exalt it to the stars.All labour yields to Caesar’s amphitheatre:Fame will tell of one work instead of them all. |
Martial (40 -102 CE) Spectacles 1 |
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The Circensian Games were taking place; a kind of entertainment for which I have not the least taste. They have no novelty, no variety, nothing, in short, one would wish to see twice. I am the more astonished that so many thousands of grown men should be possessed again and again with a childish passion to look at galloping horses, and men standing upright in their chariots. If, indeed, they were attracted by the swiftness of the horses or the skill of the men, one could account for this enthusiasm. But in fact it is a bit of cloth they favour, a bit of cloth that captivates them. And if during the running the racers were to exchange colours, their partisans would change sides, and instantly forsake the very drivers and horses whom they were just before recognizing from afar, and clamorously saluting by name. |
Pliny the Younger (61CE-112 CE), Letter 9.6: - Cheering for clothes - Team Fanatics |
