Ancient Rome by Thomas R. Martin

Author:Thomas R. Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2012-05-01T16:00:00+00:00

Figure 18. The gladiators shown in this mosaic are armed and armored according to their different styles of fighting and their names are recorded. The most exciting gladiatorial matches often involved a heavily armored, slower-moving fighter against a lightly protected but more mobile opponent. Scala/Art Resource, NY.

Expensive gladiatorial shows became the rage under the Empire as the people came to expect this kind of spectacular entertainment from their imperial patrons. Augustus paid for more than five thousand pairs of gladiators to fight in spectacular festivals. The programs of these extravagant events also included chariot races, mock naval battles on artificial lakes, fights between humans and savage beasts, displays of exotic African animals that sometimes mangled condemned criminals as a form of capital punishment, and theatrical productions. Mimes were the most popular form of theater. These dramas of everyday life employed actresses to play female roles, as did the sexually explicit farces that were also popular with Rome’s audiences. The city’s largest theater, whose seating rising on arches held about twenty thousand people, was the Theater of Marcel-lus, named by the emperor Augustus in memory of his dead nephew.

As the Roman emperors over time abandoned Augustus’s stance as an accessible ruler and distanced themselves from ordinary people, gladiatorial shows, chariot races, and theater productions became the only venues in which the masses could communicate their discontents to the emperors, who were expected to attend the shows or send a high-ranking representative. On more than one occasion the poor rioted at festivals to express their unhappiness about a shortfall in the free grain supply.

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