The Main Event
Above, in the crowded stands of the amphitheatre, the jaded Roman mob is growing impatient. Their bloodlust is at fever-pitch after the morning's bloodletting when they'd watched as criminals were horribly executed and gladiators battled one another - sometimes to the death.
Rome's early afternoon heat is oppressive and even as sailors haul the overhead canvas awnings into place, they give very little relief from the sun's scorching rays.
Listlessly, the spectators watch as slaves, using sharp iron hooks, drag the bodies of the dead and dying from the blood-soaked arena to the Spoliarium deep in the bowels of Colosseum. They eat their midday meals and thirstily quaff their wine and watch as other slaves sprinkle sand over the arena's floor to soak up the blood and gore from the morning's entertainment.
Now, with their hunger satisfied, the crowd grow restless and eager for more bloodshed.
The editor of the games - the man responsible for staging the games and keeping the crowd entertained - uses his imagination in arranging his programmes. He draws on incidents of warfare, history, legend and mythology to recreate his tableaux of death. Recently, he'd heard one of his Jewish slaves talking about someone named Daniel who angered his king, Darius the Mede and was placed in a den of lions as punishment. According to the slave, Daniel's god spared his life and he walked unscathed from the lions' den.
The editor of the games - the man responsible for staging the games and keeping the crowd entertained - uses his imagination in arranging his programmes. He draws on incidents of warfare, history, legend and mythology to recreate his tableaux of death. Recently, he'd heard one of his Jewish slaves talking about someone named Daniel who angered his king, Darius the Mede and was placed in a den of lions as punishment. According to the slave, Daniel's god spared his life and he walked unscathed from the lions' den.
This scenario appealed to the editor and he has arranged a confrontation between man and beast as the main attraction of the day. A young slave armed with a short gladius and a lion will battle it out in the arena. The match is uneven; never-the-less the slave will fight desperately to save his life much to the delight of the blood-crazed crowd.
For the editor the result is a foregone conclusion. Unlike Daniel's god, the editor doubts very much if Rome's gods will intervene to save the slave. And the watching mob wouldn't want it otherwise.
NOTE: The artwork for this post is by Amalaric and as mentioned in another post, it is one of his works I discovered recently on my computer. Amalaric called this work "Back stage at the Arena" and most probably he wrote a story to accompany it. Sadly, I don't have his story to pass on - I wish I did - and therefore, I have written my own interpretation.
Beautiful Artwork by Amalaric and also a very beautiful accompanying story by you, Chris.
ReplyDeleteThis fascinating post leads me again to a consideration about the civilization of ancient Rome, that often hit my mind, always with the same feeling of almost unbelievable astonishment, i.e. the absolutely extraordinary level of Sadism that filled practically every aspect of Roman society and everyday’s life, a level that looks almost inconceivable to modern men like us.
Of course all ancient Romans were not “pervert sadists” ……. but it’s indubitable that in all aspects of his daily life a citizen of ancient Rome was “exposed” to a quantity of sadistic sights and situations that most of modern men will never face in their life; and in many cases the ancient Roman not only was easily “getting accustomed” to coexist with such situations and scenes of shocking sadism and savage cruelty, but even learned to “like” them.
Allow me to repeat: it’s almost unbelievable for a modern man …… even for a man with sadistic inclinations ……. to actually realize how deeply the most shocking sadism was permeating many and many aspects of Roman society and life.
The possible examples could be innumerable: e.g. from countless daily “examples” of crucified slaves displayed along roads or in public squares and gardens, to the fact that all rich Roman houses included at least ONE ….. sometimes two or even more ……. “torture chambers” well equipped not only with whips, canes and hot-irons but also often with the most sophisticated torture-tools for inflicting pain, an absolute necessity for controlling and disciplining large crowds of potentially riotous slaves.
So, as described e.g. in some plays by Plautus and Terence, inside a rich Roman house it was quite frequent, for the Masters and their visitors, at every hour of the day or even during night, to hear, from the underground torture-chambers, the muffled hisses of the whips and the blows of the canes, and the wild screams of pain of the punished slaves, flogged and beaten, but also branded with hot irons or whose limbs were dislocated on the rack or on the wheel etc.etc.
Those noises of striking wild sadism looked “absolutely normal” for most ancient Romans, even inside their houses.
It is however indubitable that the most shocking (at least for our modern mentality) aspects of sadism in ancient Rome were the ones for which Sadism was used “per se” as a source of AMUSEMENT and ENTERTAINMENT ……… and quite well appreciated and welcome by most Romans, by the way !
As masterly recalled in the above short story by Chris, the climax of these shockingly sadistic entertainments and shows was not even attained in the most usual public and private fights ….. not rarely to the death …….. of gladiators, wrestlers and boxers, that of course, were slaves.
The peak of cruelty and of sadistic wickedness was reached when the most atrocious and barbaric tortures, mutilations and executions were “inserted” into a sort of “theatrical performances” …… generally inspired to warfare, history, legend and mythology, as Chris rightly says above ……. of which these sadistic scenes of barbaric tortures, mutilations and executions formed the conclusion, that was eagerly expected and enthusiastically followed by the excited spectators.
I do not know if ever a real “Editor of the games” in ancient Rome had the brilliant idea to stage, in a Roman amphitheater, the biblical story of Daniel in the lions' den; probably not …….. but certainly Roman fantasy and sadism did not lack countless inspirations from ancient myths, legends and even history.
According to Latin authors (e.g. Martial in his “LIBER DE SPACTACULIS” (The Book of the Shows), Juvenal in his 8th Satire and other authors) there were a few shows that Roman populace particularly liked and that were frequently staged.
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Hi Karel, Thank you for your comments which adds so much more detail to my post - more than I can include in my vignettes. I know many readers would welcome your further expansions of my posts and I, for one, look forward to receiving them.
DeleteYou are correct of course. It is highly improbable that the any editor of the games would have known about the biblical Daniel let alone include his story in his 'programme of death'.
Why then did I make this post about Daniel? As I mentioned elsewhere, I recently rediscovered a long forgotten file of Amalaric's earlier works and when I saw the artwork that accompanies this post, I was reminded of the story of Daniel in the lion's den and so I used it as the theme for this post. It was a case of me using 'writer's licence."
During those shows, actors or mimes were acting in most of the play, performing the various scenes of the story. However, when they arrived to the last scene …… the scene in which ALWAYS one of the main characters was tortured or mutilated and executed etc. the actor or mime playing that role was substituted by a slave ! …….. chosen sufficiently young and strong so to be able to undergo all the atrocious tortures and executions without dying “too early” !
ReplyDeleteAccording to ancient authors the “most preferred” shows by the Roman populace were some shows of appalling cruelty and sadism. For example:
- from Roman History the story of the Roman Consul Atilius Regulus that during the First Punic War had been captured by Carthaginians and barbarically executed with his body torn to pieces with long nails …….. it’s easy to imagine how the poor slave obliged to play Regulus was horribly tortured and killed with long nails that tore to pieces his muscles and flesh;
- the myth of Attis, the beautiful lover of goddess Cybele, who died after having self castrated. In this “theatrical performance” a young and good looking slave was barbarically tortured in his genitals, finally castrated and made to slowly die by bleeding;
- the myth of Marsyas and Apollo. In the last scene of this show, a slave was substituted to the actor playing Marsyas. Like in the myth, the slave was tied or nailed to a tree and then barbarically slowly skinned alive ! ….. among the enthusiastic cheers of the Roman spectators, of course !
- however it seems that the most famous and most frequently staged “sadistic play” was the legend of the infamous bandit Laureulus. After various “adventures”, in the last scene of this play, Laureulus was finally punished for his crimes.
So the actor playing his role was substituted by a poor slave. The slave was first of all crucified on a low cross, so that the torturers could easily torture him in the cruelest ways.
When his tortured, disfigured and mutilated body was an almost formless mass of blood and naked flesh …… but still breathing and screaming ! ……. a wild bear was incited against him, and he was torn to pieces and eaten alive by the savage beast.
Such shows amused and excited ancient Romans, and were followed with enthusiastic applauses and cheers by the bewitched audience of thousands of plebeians and Lords !
Karel
Certainly, the Roman games were brutally cruel and bloodthirsty events. It is hard for us to imagine how crowds of upwards of 100, 000 men, women and children could derive pleasure from them and cheer and applaud as helpless victims suffered such agonising deaths. As you know, the crowds eagerly looked forward to the 'ludi meridiani' (midday executions) when even more barbarous methods of killing were employed. I recall the bestiarius, Carpophorus who was responsible for training the animals to kill was under constant pressure to invent new methods of killing and became known as the 'King of the Beasts'. It is said he trained animals to rape humans in emulation of the god Jupiter who, in mythology, took many animal forms to rape humans. Although, written about by artists and poets, this is disputed by some modern historians.
ReplyDeleteBut also several private citizens were not inferior to their Emperors: the most infamous and shocking example, that I had already the chance to recall in past comments, was probably Vedius Pollio, an amazingly wealthy courtier of Emperor Augustus, who was really a psychopathic sadist.
ReplyDeleteDuring his banquets he used to offer to his guests and friends the most gruesome and barbaric shows of various tortures, mutilations and executions inflicted on a group of his slaves, and performed in extremely “fancy” and sadistic ways that he himself was boasting to invent.
His most infamous and notorious “invention” was the torture and execution of a slave in the “pool of moray-eels”. In this atrociously sadistic capital torture a young and very robust slave ……. so that he could resist as long as possible before dying and after having suffered as much as possible ……… of course stark-naked and tied by his wrists over his head to a rope and a pulley fixed in the ceiling of the dining-hall, was, very very slowly, lowered from the ceiling into an underneath pool in the center of the dining-hall.
The pool was full of hundreds of ferocious and starving moray-eels, with enormous mouths and with long and sharp teeth, similar to the ones of small sharks.
As soon as the limbs of the wretched slave touched the water and were slowly immersed, immediately the hundreds of famished wild snake-like fishes, mad with the taste of flesh and blood, frenziedly threw themselves on the immersed limbs of the miserable slave, and frantically, with their long pointed teeth, started to greedily bite off tear pieces of living flesh …… first the feet and the calves …… then the thighs …… then the lower abdomen, with the genitals and the buttocks …….. after that the upper abdomen …. then the torso and the pectoral muscles ec.etc. …….. among the wild screams and wiggling of the eaten slave and while the water of the pool was becoming more and more red with blood.
While watching this shockingly gruesome show, it seems that Vedius Pollio and his guests were betting on the time that the slave would have resisted before dying, while he was slowly eaten alive ! …… and of course we can imagine that some of them, the ones who had bet on short times for the slave to die, were cheering and applauding at every new bite, inciting the wild fishes to finish off and devour as soon as possible the unlucky youth ……. while others, who had bet their money on the fact that the strong male slave would have resisted longer before dying, were of course “inciting” with rabid yells the poor slave to resist as long as possible before dying !
If this barbaric show is amazingly shocking per se, it sounds even more incredible and shocking for our modern minds, to think of how these Roman Lords and Ladies could continue …….. without feeling sick and vomit …….. to merrily eat and drink and playfully jabber, while in front of their eyes there was such gruesome and nauseating vision of a young man slowly eaten alive !
Mysteries of a totally different “sensitivity” towards sadism and towards the most appalling and ghastly shows ?
Karel