Reasons for the Games.

Author: Graham Ashford 2001

There is little doubt today of the fascination of the gladiatorial games. Films such as Spartacus and most recently Gladiator have portrayed their main characters as men within a barbaric world of butchery and death attempting to bring something of our modern day sensibilities and virtues within it.

The majority of people today regard this facet of Rome's ancient life with intrigue and bewilderment. The deaths of men within an arena for the enjoyment of others is regarded today with a sideways glance. Many attempts are made by modern scholars to show that the Roman people did not view this savagery with just lustful eyes, that to the people the games where seen as a justice system or a means to show the mastery of man over nature. Yet the simple fact remains which many try to dismiss - the majority of people enjoy watching violence in one form or another. How though did this enjoyment of single and massed combat for entertainment begin?

264BC

Fortunately we are left a reasonable account on the early beginnings of the Roman take on this spectacula. The first written record of any gladiatorial games being held in Rome took place at the funeral proceedings of one Decimus Junios Pero (or Brutus Pero depending upon whom you use as a source), it was held by his two sons and featured the talents of three pairs of fighting gladiators who fought in a cattle market in succession. This appears to have been a progression of the Roman funeral rites possibly borrowed from the Etruscans as early as the 6th Century BC when unfortunates would be sacrificed at the funerals of wealthy or influential people, although recently this theory has been loosing credibility. The concept of blood sacrifices at funerals is possibly one of the oldest forms of religion/superstition that history leaves us, to Romans the sacrifices at funerals did not hold the dead at bay, rather it would stop them interfering with the affairs of the living. Tertullian tells us that 'what was offered to appease the dead was counted as a funeral rite... it is called a munus (or a service) from being a service due'.

For reasons unknown to us at this time the brothers Pero decided that instead of making a human sacrifice at their father's ceremony they would rather have six gladiators fight one another in pairs. Whether they were the first to undertake such an action is doubtful but they are the first that we have a written record of. Reasons that could be offered might include that it was financially better sense to do things this way, after all if six people are to be sacrificed this way possibly three survive or less cynically this may have been a way to have the memory of their father last far longer then it otherwise would have done - lets face facts we have heard of him over two thousand years after his death!

Munus

The next munus that there is a written account of comes 58 years later at a similar rite in 216BC. At the munus of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus a total of 22 pairs fought in his honour. There can be little doubt that over the silent years between these two events there would have been a good number of munera, this can be guessed at because of the massive increase in the gladiators at each event, a leap from 6 to forty four is extreme. More likely the munus were gaining in popularity as people sought to out do previous events.

Indeed this popularity grew at an alarming rate, in 160BC the people attending a performance of Hecyra left to watch a gladiatorial game. In fairness though there is the possibility that the theatre act was really that terrible that everyone left as a protest to watch something more entertaining.

However, the popularity of the munus grew so much that politicians eager to gain votes would offer one for some recently deceased family member to gain favour with the local population. This political manoeuvre was banned by the Senate in 63BC by not allowing the election of any magistrate who had held a munus up to two years previously.

Rite or Entertainment?

From the action of the Senate in 63BC and the general rise in the popularity of the gladiator fights we can begin to see that the line between religious activity and entertainment was beginning to blur if not disappear. As time continued this distinction almost vanished apart from one or two links back to its past. Many priests in Rome where expected to keep gladiatorial troupes and offer games for the people to watch in thanksgivings for elections and other events however, for the average pleb there can be little doubt that they just enjoyed watching the events.

The Christian writer Tertullian again informs us circa 200AD that, 'of old, in the belief that the souls of the dead are propitiated with human blood, they used at funerals to sacrifice captives or slaves of poor value whom they bought. Afterwards it seemed good to obscure their impiety by making it a pleasure. So they found comfort for death in murder' and before this the Greek writer Athenaeus talks of 'men trained in the art of the banquet when referring to gladiators.

During the late Republican and early Imperial Ages of Rome the excuses for munera where actively sought by both the givers and the plebs. Reasons extended from the standard festival Saturnalia on 25th December to birthdays, victory celebrations, anniversaries and even foundation ceremonies for new buildings and centenaries. In fact it seemed that just about any excuse to hold a munus could be laid claim to and used by the people for some blood shed, certainly a far cry from the early pious intentions for the munus.

With every new game came the age old problem of ensuring it was more spectacular than previous efforts. Livy gives us a pithy example of just how much things had grown out of hand, 'amongst the humble origins of other institutions it has seemed worth while to set down the early history of the play, that it might be seen how sober were the beginnings of an art that has nowadays reached a point where opulent kingdoms could hardly support its mad extravagance.' Examples of such mad extravagance can be seen when Julius Caesar held festivities in 46BC which lasted for weeks in which people were crushed to death in the crowds outside the new Forum Romanum that Caesar built which became the forerunner of the Colosseum's design. In one combat he has 500 infantry, twenty elephants and thirty cavalry pitted against another group of the same men at arms.

The Provinces

Final thoughts.

The munus began as a religious rite and ended in the strangest and most violent of spectacles left us by any ancient European civilisation. For a great many of us the idea of men fighting to the death for public entertainment can seem very barbaric and a good deal distant from our own ways of thinking. That gap between our own ways of thinking and the Romans may not be as far apart as we at first believe. Indeed public execution and public spectacle of individuals has only recently (historically) ended in most western cultures. As sports become increasingly violent and dangerous and Hollywood makes tremendous amounts of money out of movies which almost all depict scenes of increasingly graphic violence we should consider whether or not we aren't to unlike the ancient people of Rome.