Ancient World Review

The Circus Maximus

Like gladiatorial contests, horse and chariot races were originally religious in nature. The chariot race apparently originated in ancient Greece. According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised), "in the funeral games for Patroclus [described by Homer] the chariot race is the premier event. The heroes drive two-horse chariots normally used in battle over an improvised cross-country course, round a distant mark and home again. Similar funeral games for other heroes are recorded, and heroes as well as gods were remembered at the Panhellenic festivals."

According to Wikipedia, "[t]he Romans probably borrowed chariot racing from the Etruscans as well as the racing tracks, who themselves borrowed it from the Greeks, but the Romans were also influenced directly by the Greeks." The races eventually developed into a fantastically popular sport and circuses -- chariot-racing arenas -- were built all across Italy and "in many parts of the empire," according to the OCD. "In the east, those of Antioch and Alexandria were famous, while Spain provides notable examples such as Merida (Emerita Augusta) and Urso, the latter famous for its racing stables."

The Circus Maximus was probably the most important arena of any kind in Rome, even after the construction of the Colosseum. Chariot racing was apparently even more popular than the gladiatorial shows and the races drew huge numbers of fanatical fans.

"The drivers were the sports superstars of their day," according to UNRV. "They could win greater name recognition across the Empire than even gladiators. One celebrity driver was known as Scorpus. He supposedly won over 2000 races before being killed in a collision ... at about 27 years old. Gaius Appuleius Diocles had perhaps the most recognition of all. He was a quadriga charioteer who drove in over 4200 races. His record included 1437 second place finishes and 1462 wins."

According to the University of Chicago, "[c]harioteers could win fabulous wealth, at least those who were freedmen, who always could threaten to drive for another faction. Prize money ranged from fifteen to thirty thousand sesterces to as much as sixty thousand for a single victory. Juvenal complains that a chariot driver could earn a hundred times the fee of a lawyer ... and Martial writes of Scorpus winning fifteen bags of gold in an hour. Diocles, a charioteer from Lusitania who competed during the reign of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, won prize money totaling 35,863,120 sesterces before retiring at age forty-two."

The Wild Beast Spectacles In Ancient Rome

"Venationes -- 'hunts' involving the slaughter of animals, especially fierce ones, by other animals or human bestiarii (fighters of wild beasts) -- and sometimes of criminals by animals -- were a major spectacle in Rome from 186 BC." Source: "Venationes," Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edition, revised.

These popular spectacles featured a wide variety of hunts and animals, and the difference between "hunters" and "fighters of wild beasts" basically revolved around whether they were there to be punished or to entertain:

"Although bestiarii (beast fighters) and venatores (hunters) both fought wild animals, there are distinctions. The bestiarii often were wretched creatures, condemned criminals or prisoners of war, who had little chance against the animals they fought [according to Seneca, who regarded the games in general as 'pure butchery.']. With no real training and often no defense, they were thrown to the beasts as punishment and spectacle." Source: University of Chicago. Basically, the hunters were there to slaughter animals and in many cases the bestiarii were there to be slaughtered for the entertainment and edification of the Mob.

News report from 2015.

The hunts weren't just for entertainment, though; they also had a political purpose. According to the OCD, the venationes "displayed the ingenuity and generosity of the governing politician and the reach of Rome, and its power over nature, in procuring exotic species (lions, panthers, bears, bulls, crocodiles, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, elephants); they admitted a privileged city-audience to the glories of traditional aristocratic hunting. Along with gladiatorial fights, they were a principal reason for building amphitheaters."

Ambitious Roman politicians were expected to sponsor games to win support from the plebs, who were admitted free of charge. The more exotic and expensive the games, the better. The costs of putting on these spectacles, not to mention the expenses involved in electoral bribery and maintaining their lifestyles, frequently drove the nobility into massive debt which could only be paid off through war and corruption (the governorships of rich provinces were especially sought after for this reason).

The emperors, being emperors, put on the best shows. For example, "5,000 wild and 4,000 tame animals died in the inauguration of Titus' Collosseum in 80 [AD], and 11,000 at Trajan's Dacian Triumph," according to the OCD. Trajan was celebrating his victories in the Dacian Wars and his triumph is said to have lasted 123 days.

Supplying the beasts for these hunts was an expensive, difficult and dangerous business which led, among other things, to the development of a wild-animal trade and the stockpiling of exotic animals in various locations around the empire. Transporting them for long distances across sea and land, sometimes under harsh conditions, would have been particularly difficult.

"Available ancient textual and artistic data point to a number of groups who presumably captured these wild beasts during Roman times. Representations in mosaics show a mix of soldiers and what appear to be professional hunters undertaking these tasks. Soldiers were probably utilized; in fact, capturing wild beasts could be regarded as a military exercise of sorts. Exotic goods, including items such as ivory, spices, precious gems, and so forth, were often demanded from subject states of the Roman Empire, sometimes procured as tribute, and Roman soldiers stationed in these areas could help in the capture and transport of any requisitioned animals. No doubt some civilians and "native" peoples were also recruited (or coerced) to assist as required..." Source: "Supplying Exotic Animals For The Roman Ampitheatre Games," Michael MacKinnon (2006) (PDF), The Alexandria Archive Institute.

Note: There's at least one glaring error in this clip. Trajan didn't build the Colosseum. Construction was started by Vespasian and finished by his son Titus in 80 AD, eighteen years before Trajan became emperor.

Everyone's familiar with the stories (many fictional) about criminals and Christians being fed to the beasts in the Colosseum, but the story of the soldiers and professional hunters who actually had to collect these animals, keep them alive and  ship them across the empire is much more obscure and interesting. The logistical problems they had to deal with must have been mind-boggling.

Related: Could You Stomach The Horrors Of "Half-time" In Ancient Rome?

Hnefatafl - Board Game Of The Vikings

"In central and eastern Sweden from 550 to 793 CE, just before the Viking Age, members of the Vendel culture were known for their fondness for boat burials, their wars, and their deep abiding love of hnefatafl." Source: Hakai Magazine.

"Also known as Viking chess, hnefatafl is a board game in which a centrally located king is attacked from all sides. The game wasn’t exclusive to the Vendels—people across northern Europe faced off over the gridded board from at least 400 BCE until the 18th century. But during the Vendel period, love for the game was so great that some people literally took it to their graves."

A huge amount of information can be found in the article Hnefatafl - The Strategic Board Game Of The Vikings. The background image on this page makes it difficult to read unless you zoom in on the text.

Circus Factions At Rome And Byzantium

"There were two main factions of supporters at the games in Rome and Byzantium, the Blues and the Greens. Before Professor Cameron published his book [Circus Factions: Blues and Greens at Rome and Byzantium], scholars believed—under Marxist influence or on the somewhat optimistic assumption that people are not willing to kill or be killed for no good reason—that these two factions, whose clashes often caused many deaths and much destruction, must really have been expressing some deep social antagonism. The Blues were therefore believed to have represented the rich and the Greens the poor, but Professor Cameron demolishes that supposition with what seems to me something very much like finality." Source: Taki Magazine.

Comment: This is an interesting article about the tendency of crowds to divide into violent factions over trivial differences like their support for opposing sports teams. The Blues and Greens in ancient Rome are a classic example of this, but we can see the same thing happening with the violent soccer riots that take place in the modern world. Most of this violence is completely meaningless -- a kind of sport in itself -- but it gets so mixed up with politics and social problems that it's hard to separate political violence and popular unrest from simple Clockwork Orange hooliganism and exuberant ultraviolence.

In the case of the Romans, the factions developed around the chariot races that took place in the Circus. According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised), "four, six, eight or twelve teams of horses competed under different colors, red and white at first, then also green and blue." Like the gladiators, most of the chariot drivers were slaves, but they could become superstars in their own right and chariot racing was a massive draw. According to the now-defunct Roman-Empire.net, "Roman passions ran high when it came to chariot racing and most supported one of the teams and its colours, - white, green, red or blue. Though passions could often boil over, leading to violent clashes between opposing supporters."

Observers have pointed out that modern sports fans are just supporting the team names and uniforms because the players themselves move around so often. But the fans of today aren't really all that different from the fans who lived in ancient Rome. Theodore Dalrymple, the author of the Taki Magazine article, quotes a letter from Pliny the Younger who said the exact same thing:

"It amazes me that thousands and thousands of grown men should be like children, wanting to look over and over again at horses running and men standing on chariots. If it were the speed of the horses or the skill of the drivers that attracted them, there would be some sense in it—but in fact it is simply the colour. That is what they support and what fascinates them. Suppose half way through the race the drivers were to change their colours, then the supporters’ backing would change too and in a second they would abandon the drivers and horses whose names they shout as they recognize them from afar. Such is the power of a single worthless shirt."

Britain's Lost Roman Circus

The Roman circus at Colchester is apparently the only known circus in Britain. It first came to light in 2000 when the Colchester Archaeological Trust "observed three parts of one or two Roman foundations in the sides of a narrow trench which was dug for electric cables to provide new lighting" around a football pitch. More remains were uncovered over the following years and the discovery was confirmed in 2004.

Background: Colchester was occupied by the Romans after they conquered Britain under Claudius in a gradual process that began around 43 AD. People were living in the town as far back as the Stone Age and I'm not sure what it was called before the Romans took over and named it Camulodunum.

According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised), the Romans built a fortress for Legio XX Valeria beside the town and founded a colony on the site in 49 AD. "This became the first provincial capital, with the temple of Divus [Deified] Claudius and a theater with an adjacent forum."(The legionary fortress was decommissioned when the Romans turned the town into a colony).

Camulodunum was sacked and burned during the relatively short-lived Boudican Revolt in 60/61 AD, a revolt which was triggered in large part by a heavy-handed Roman tax-collector. The brilliant Roman governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, crushed the revolt that same year and Camulodunum was rebuilt.

Around 70-85 AD, a "defensive town wall [was] built around the town" and the Roman circus was constructed outside the wall," according to the Colchester Archaeological Trust. The circus was in use until the "end of the 3rd century" when it "went out of use and deteriorated. During the following centuries, [it] was demolished and people removed its materials for re-use in other buildings, even digging trenches to 'rob' the stone of its foundations below ground."

Related: The Colchester Roman Circus Mosaic.

The Mystery Of The Headless Romans

Note: "The haunting mystery of Britain's headless Romans may have been solved at last, thanks to scars from a lion's bite and hammer marks on decapitated skulls." Source: The Guardian (2010)

"The results of forensic work ... on more than 80 skeletons of well-built young men, gradually exhumed from the gardens of a York terrace over a decade, suggests that the world's best-preserved gladiator graveyard has been found."

This theory was the subject of a TV documentary back in 2010. According to the National Geographic (2010), "the headless skeletons [prove] that the victims lost their heads a long way from home."

Roman York was called Eboracum (Eburacum). A provincial capital and "the largest town in northern Britain," Eboracum had a legionary fortress on the east bank of the River Ouse which was "founded during the campaigns of Petillius Cerialis in AD 71-4 [and] rebuilt by Agricola [Tacitus' father-in-law] c.79 and under Trajan, 107/8," according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD 3rd ed revised).

At least two legions were stationed at Eboracum over the years. According to the OCD, "Legio IX Hispana replaced VI Victrix perhaps in the 120s [AD]."

Note: According to the Daily Mail (2016), a DNA analysis "found that six of the individuals - presumably indigenous Britons - were similar to the modern Welsh, but different from populations living in Yorkshire today ... However, one of the individuals had genetic affinities with people from North Africa and the Middle East, providing evidence of long-scale migration in Roman times."

More information with photos of the skeletons can be found here (Live Science 2016).

Bring Back The Games

"Two millennia after sword-wielding gladiators fought to the death on the blood-soaked sands of the Colosseum, Italy's culture minister has given the green light to cultural events once again being held within the arena." Source: The Telegraph (2014).

"[Culture Minister] Dario Franceschini has thrown his weight behind a proposal to rebuild the wooden floor that once covered the arena and provided the setting for wild animal hunts and gladiatorial combat."

Comment: I've got mixed feelings about this proposal. On the one hand, rebuilding the floor of the colosseum could damage the site, but even if it doesn't, the project seems like an act of vandalism. On the other hand, the construction, if handled correctly, could be seen as an act of restoration, a way to transform the colosseum from a dead relic of the past into a living part of the city again.

It could also be an opportunity for a true pagan revival. Screw the "cultural events." If they're going to restore the colosseum, they should do it for real and bring back the games.

New Gladiatorial Games Discoveries In Roman Carnuntum

"After the discovery of a gladiator school in 2011, [researchers] have now done a complete scan of the ancient town of Carnuntum (east of Vienna, Austria) by using ground penetrating radar. This project has been undertaken on behalf of the county of Lower Austria." Source: Past Horizons.

"The scientists have revealed, without excavation, an entire city area next to the stone built amphitheatre, containing bakeries, taverns and shops – an essential infrastructure for Roman spectacles. Hidden under the later city wall, the radar system detected the remains of a wooden amphitheatre located at an intersection of a road that followed the Roman frontier (Danube Limes) and the main road leading back to Rome; a temple for the Quadriviae (Roman goddesses of the cross-roads) was located right next to the building. With this information, we can add yet another chapter to the early history of Roman Carnuntum, one which underlines the significance of Bread and Games on the frontier of the Roman Empire."

"Carnuntum on the Danube ... was an important military base and the seat of government of Pannonia (Upper). At first part of Noricum, Carnuntum was probably added to Pannonia c. AD 14 when Legio XV Apollinaris was transfered there from Emona, but the legionary fortress was not constructed until Claudius." Source: Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised).

Carnuntum had a long and complex history. At one point it was the home of the famous Stoic philosopher-emperor, Marcus Aurelius. "For two years (172-74) Carnuntum was the headquarters of Marcus Aurelius, who made it the starting point of his retaliatory strike against the Marcomanni and wrote the second book of his Meditations in the fortress." Source: A Guide to the Ancient World, Michael Grant.

Marcus Aurelius spent most of his reign fighting against the Germans and Sarmatians. Carnuntum was destroyed during the Marcomannic Wars, but later rebuilt only to be seriously damaged by an apparent earthquake in the middle of the 4th century, according to the OCD. "Extensive remains of structures in both civilian and military areas have been revealed by excavation during the last century and, more recently, by aerial photography [and ground-scanning techniques]."

Fact & Fiction Of The Roman Colosseum

Notes: "[The Colosseum is] the medieval name of the Amphitheatrum Flavium, near the colossus of Nero on the site of the lake of Nero's Domus Aurea. Begun by Vespasian, it was continued by Titus, and dedicated in June AD 80. Domitian was probably responsible only for the complex substructures of the arena," according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD 3rd ed. revised).

"The arena was floored in timber, covering cages for beasts, mechanical elevators, and drains. Audiences, estimated at 50,000, were marshaled outside the building in an area bordered by bollards, and held tickets corresponding to the 76 numbered arcades, whence an elaborate system of staircases serviced all parts of the auditorium."

If the attendance figure of 50,000 is accurate, this means that the crowds at the Colosseum were about the size of the average crowd at an Oakland Raiders football game.

Damnatio Ad Bestias

"Damnatio ad bestias (Latin for 'condemnation to beasts') was a form of capital punishment in which the condemned were maimed on the circus arena or thrown into a cage with wild animals, often lions. It was brought to ancient Rome around the 2nd century BC. In Rome, damnatio ad bestias was used as entertainment and was part of the inaugural games of the Flavian Amphitheatre. From the 1st to 3rd centuries AD, this penalty was mainly applied to the worst criminals, slaves, and early Christians." Source: Wikipedia.

Notes: "Elaborate sets were [sometimes?] constructed [for these executions], according to the University of Chicago. "Strabo witnessed the death of a brigand who had raided the area around Mount Etna. 'I saw him torn to pieces by wild beasts at an appointed combat of gladiators in the Forum; for he was placed on a lofty scaffold, as though on Aetna, and the scaffold was made suddenly to break up and collapse, and he himself was carried down with it into cages of wild beasts—fragile cages that had been prepared beneath the scaffold for that purpose."

(Video below from 2015.)

Venationes, the staged slaughters of exotic beasts by gladiators and other animals, often included the execution of prisoners. These spectacles were so popular in Rome that they spawned an entire industry centered around the capture and transport of animals from all around the empire by soldiers and professional hunters.

Note: Top image copyright Rached Msadek.