Roman Culture and Society
Lecture 06
‘Bread and Circuses’
Bread and Circuses
Powerful people are fools and don’t know what to wish for
But what about the crowd of common people? As always,
They idolize success and save their contempt for losers.
Ever since we lost the right to sell our votes
The people toss their civic cares aside; the citizen
Who once had final say over legions, the fasces, the world
Contracts himself to the issues of ultimate concern:
Bread and Circuses
Juvenal, Satires X. 72-4, 77-81.
Murmillo hat
Circus Maximus: Today
Circus Maximus
reconstructions
Quotes on the Circus Maximus
Pliny the Elder, NH XXXVI.102
* “Even if we don’t include include the Circus Maximus
among our great works of architecture; it was built by
Caesar the Dictator, 1,800 feet and 600 feet wide, with
three acres of buildings and seats for 250,000 spectators”
Agrippa’s Egg Timer
Varro, Rerum Rusticarum, I. 2. 11
• “Relax, you have arrive in time, the final egg, signifying the
chariots are running the last lap in the circus has not yet
been taken down”
Cirque du Soleil: Augustus’ Obelisk
IMP CAESAR DIVI
AUGUSTUS
PONTIFEX MAXIMUS
IMP XII COS XI TRIB POT
XIV
AEGUPTO IN
POTESTATEM
POPULI ROMANUM
REDACT[A]
SOLI DONUM DEDIT
Emperor Caesar Augustus
Son of divine Caesar, Pont. Max
Imp 12x, Cos 11x, Trib Pot 14x
PIAZZA DEL POP
CIRCUS MAXIMUS
Reconstructions:
Starting Gates
Spina
Seating units
Other Entertainment: Cruisin’ at the Circus
Ovid, Ars Amatoria, I. 135-158
In your search of a lover, don’t neglect the noble race track:
The teeming sands of the Circus are rich with opportunity…
Just sit down next to your lady, there’s nothing here to prevent it,
Sidle yourself right up and press your hip to hers;
The crowded seating, like it or not, works in your favor,
And regulations compel you to squeeze in tight and touch…
When horses appear, look excited and quickly ask whose,
And whatever racer is her favourite.. amazing!.. he’s yours as well!
If any speck of dirt should land on your lady, be concerned to brush it away,
And even if the dirt is absent, brush it off anyway…
If the folds of her robe should slip and touch the ground,
Gently gather them and rescue the fabric from filth…
You new arrangement of cloth will give you a glimpse of her leg..
Make sure to check behind you as well…
No knee from the bench above will be jabbing her tender back…
Flavian Amphitheatre
Seating in the Flavian Amphitheatre
Graffiti from the corridors of the Colosseum
Colosseum seating today
Colosseum reconstructed in the mythic
realm of Maximus Decimus Meridius
Seating Profile
Named seats, Flavian amphitheatre
Numbered entrances
Interior Mosaic from the Colloseum
Location of the Amphitheatre in
Pompeii
The oldest Amphitheatre: Pompeii
Ca. 75 BC,
When Pompeii
Was established
as a colony under
Sulla.
External
entrances
Seating hierarchy
3
2
1
‘Women’s boxes’
Internal corridor
Announcement of games
Greek Theatre at Epidaurus
The Greek Theatre
Greek theatre
model>
Symmetry, Equality
&Nature:
Seating, Entrances,
&the Stage
Roman Theatrical
Performances
Polybius’ account: Remaining Roman, Performing Greek…
Histories XXX.14:
“At first they (the performers) did not know what to make of this, until one of
the lictors showed them that they must form themselves into two
companies, and facing round, advance against each other as though in a
battle. The fluteplayers caught the idea at once, and, adopting a motion
suitable to their own wild strains, produced a scene of great confusion.
They made the middle group of the chorus face round upon the two
extreme groups, and the fluteplayers, blowing with inconceivable violence
and discordance, led these groups against each other… But when one of
the chorus, whose dress was closely girt up, turned round on the spur of
the moment and raised his hands, like a boxer in the face of the fluteplayer
who was approaching him, then the spectators clapped their hands and
cheered loudly... The effect of these various contests going on together
was indescribable.”
Female Athletes: the origin of
the bikini
Greek Theatre at Taormina, Sicily
Original ca. 7thc. BC, Roman brick
Dates later…
Scaenae Frons at Theatre in Sabratha
(Libya)
3rd c. AD. Plan of a theatre: Vitruvius Book V, chapter
6
Roman Theatre at Orange
Theatre at Guelma (Spain)
Seating and
the Lex Julia
Theatralis
VIP
FIP
RIP: Don’t care if they live or die
Where to mingle
&
Zliten, mosaic
Zliten, mosaic
Epitaph of T. Flavius Stephanus
Pompeii, Stabian Gate
necropolis: tomb relief
Gladiator Tomb in Aphrodisias
(Turkey)
Pompeii, tomb painting
Pompeii, tomb graffiti
Smirat, Mosaic of Magerius
Breaking Bad: games gone wrong
• Petronius, Satyricon 45
‘After all, what has Norbanus ever done for
us? He produced some decayed two
penny-halfpenny gladiators, who would
have fallen flat if you breathed on them; I
have seen better ruffians turned in to
fight the wild beasts.’
Flavian Amphitheatre dedication
CIL VI.
Flavian amphitheatre
Ludus magnus, model
The Ludus Magnus: today
GraecoRoman
Theatre at
Ephesus
Foundations ca. 200
BC
Renovated numerous
times until the 4th c. AD
Life & Death: Villa Borghese
The Emperor & the Games I
Fronto, Elements of History 18 = Shelton n.379:
Because of his shrewd understanding of political science, the
emperor Trajan gave his attention even to actors and other
performers on stage or on the race track or in the arena, since
he 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 serious problems does the
greater harm, but neglects of the entertainments brings
damaging 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
the shows placate everyone.
The Emperor & the Games part II
Imperial lives, Severus Alexander 24.3
“The Emperor Alexander Severus [ca. AD 230]
placed a tax on pimps and both male and female
prostitues, with the stipulation that the income
thus raised go not into the public treasury but the
towards the cost of restoring the Theatre, The
Circus, the Amphitheatre, and the Stadium.”
Riot at
Pompeii