Roman Gladiators
What do you have against us, spiteful schoolteacher? We know you are hated by all the boys and girls you teach. Before the crested rooster has even crowed, you shatter the silence with your harsh voice and with lashes of your whip. . . . Shouts in the Colosseum, when the crowd is cheering on its favorite gladiator, are not so deafening as your thunderous voice. . . . So send your students home. Would you be willing, you old windbag, to accept the same pay for being silent as you now receive for shouting out lessons?
Nero [r. 54 - 68 A.D.] presented a large number of different types of entertainments: youth athletic meets, chariot races, theatrical performances, and gladiatorial shows. . . . throughout the entire period of the Greatest Games, gifts were distributed among the people; every single day a thousand birds, all different kinds, were given away, as well as numerous food baskets and vouchers for grain, clothing, gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, paintings. . .
At the gladiatorial show. . . he allowed no one to be killed, not even convicted criminals . . . He staged a sea battle on an artificial saltwater lake with sea monsters swimming in it. He also staged some Greek ballets . . . [among these] was one in which a bull actually mounted Pasiphae who was concealed in a wooden cow or that's what many of the spectators believed. In another ballet, Icarus fell when he first tried his wings, crashed near the emperor's couch, and spattered Nero with blood.
The gladiatorial troop hired by Aulus Suettius Certus will fight in Pompeii on May 31. There will also be a wild animal hunt. The awnings will be used.
CELADUS, THE THRACIAN, MAKES ALL THE GIRLS SIGH.
CRESCENS, THE NET FIGHTER, HOLDS THE HEARTS OF ALL THE GIRLS.
Severus, a freedman, winner of 13 matches, lost.
Albanus, a freedman of Scaurus, winner of 19 matches, won.
Because of his shrewd understanding of political science, the emperor [Trajan, r. 98-117 A. D.] 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 neglect of the entertainments brings damaging unpopularity . . .
I know that you certainly didn't worry about missing the athletes, since you have always been scornful of gladiators. . . . And then there were wild animal hunts . . . very expensive ones no one can deny that. But what pleasure can a civilized man find when either a helpless human being is mangled by a very strong animal, or a magnificent animal is stabbed again and again with a hunting spear?
What good had Norbanus ever done us? He arranged a show with gladiators, sure! They were worth about two cents, the whole lot. So old and decrepit they would have fallen over if you blew on them. I've seen better wild animal fighters. . . . Finally, at the end of the show, they were all soundly flogged. They had heard the whole audience shouting, "Hit him! Hit him!" They were clearly cowards, pure and simple.
There is nothing more harmful to one's character than attendance at some spectacle, because vices more easily creep into your soul while you are being entertained. When I return from some spectacle, I am greedier, more aggressive, and more addicted to pleasurable sensations. . . . Recently I happened to stop at a noon-hour entertainment . . . it was pure and simple murder. The combatants have absolutely no protection. . . . There are no helmets or shields to deflect the swords. . . . The spectators demand that combatants who have killed their opponents be thrown to combatants who will in turn kill them. . . . For every combatant, therefore, the outcome is certain death. . . . Don't you understand that bad examples recoil upon those who set them?
And now the day arrived. Now the people had assembled for the spectacle of our suffering. Now the bodies of those about to die had been put on display throughout the arena and led along in a parade of their own death. . . . I was chosen to be the designated sacrificial victim of the arena. . . . On all sides, everything growled with the preparation for death. One man was sharpening a sword, another was heating up metal strips in the fire. . . . Even before our deaths, the coffins were brought in and the funeral procession began. Everywhere there were wounds, moans, and blood.
During his aedileship, Caesar . . . arranged wild animal "hunts" and theatrical performances . . . He also arranged a gladiatorial exhibition, but with somewhat fewer pairs of gladiators than he had originally planned. For since the group he had hired was so large, and their sheer number had terrified his political enemies, these enemies passed legislation restricting the number of gladiators which anyone was allowed to keep in Rome.
When they arrived at the amphitheater and took seats where they could find them, the whole place was feverish with the most savage blood-lust. Alypius closed his eyes and forbade his mind to pay attention to such great atrocities. . . . Thinking that he was prepared to scorn and rise above whatever he might see, he opened his eyes. . . . As soon as he saw the blood, he drank in the savagery. He did not turn away, but rather fixed his gaze on the sight, and swallowed the madness, and lost rational control. He was thrilled by the viciousness of the combat and became drunk with blood- lust. . . . He watched, he shouted, he became inflamed, and he took away from the spectacle an insanity which then goaded him to return.
I am writing this letter to you while staying at the villa which once belonged to Scipio Africanus [ca. 236 -184 B. C.]. . . . a feeling of pleasure crept through me as I compared Scipio's customs with our own. . . . In this little nook, the "terror of Carthage," . . . washed a body which had been exhausted by farm work. . . . Who is there nowadays who could bear to bathe in such a place? . . .
. . . it didn't matter much to Scipio whether he bathed in murky water, because he came to the baths to wash off sweat, not oily perfumes! . . . And he didn't bathe every day. Writers who have passed on to us the ancient customs of Rome say that our ancestors washed only their arms and legs every day, since these parts of the body were covered with dirt from farm work. The rest of the body was washed only once a week. Of course, someone will at this point say, "Sure, but they were very smelly men." And what to you think they smelled of? Of the army, of farm work, and of manliness!
Seneca (c.4 B.C.- 65 A.D.), Letters