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Larinum Text on the Aristocracy Appearing in the Arena Courtesy of: Professor Brian K. Harvey Notes: This text is a senatorial decree from early in the reign of Tiberius. It is an attempt to keep persons of high rank from engaging in a base but popular pursuit: participation in the games. Decree of the senate (passed on) ........ on the Palatine in the colonnade adjoining the temple of Apollo. C. Ateius, son of Lucius, of the tribe Aniensis, Capito; Sextus Pompeius, son of...of the tribe..;.....;... Octavius, son of Gaius, of the tribe Stellatina, Fronto, M. Asinius, son of Curtius, or the tribe Arnensis, Mamilianus; C. Gavius, son of Gaius, of the tribe Popilia, Macer, quaestor; A. Didius, son of Aulus, of the tribe Arnensis, Gallus, quaestor were present at the writing. Whereas M. Silanus and L. Norbanus Balbus the consuls declared that they had drawn up a memorandum in accordance with business assigned to them on (?) matters pertaining to ............ or to those who, contrary to the dignity of their order displayed themselves on the stage or in the gladiatorial school or pledged themselves to serve as gladiators as forbidden by the decrees of the senate that had been passed on that subject in previous years, that through fraud they should diminish the majesty of the senate: with regard to what it might please the senate to be done with regard to that matter, the senate's recommendation on that matter was as follows: that it pleased them that no one should bring onto the stage a senator's son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter, great-grandson or great-granddaughter, or any male whose father or grandfather, whether paternal or maternal, or brother, or any female whose husband or father or grandfather, whether paternal or maternal or brother had ever possessed the right of sitting in the seats reserved for the knights, or ask them to fight for a fee in the arena or that they should take the plumes of gladiators or serve as trainer, or serve in any other similar capacity; nor, if anyone offered himself, should he hire him; nor should any of those persons hire themselves out; and for that reason that particular precautions were to be taken in case persons having the right to sit in the seats reserved for the knights had, for the sake of making a mockery of the authority of that order, seen to it that they either suffered public ignominy, or were condemned in a case involving ignominy and, after they had withdrawn of their own free will from the equestrian seats, had pledged themselves as gladiators or had appeared on the stage; nor should any of those persons who have been mentioned above, if they were taking that action in contravention of the dignity of their order, have due burial unless they had already appeared on the stage or hired out their services for the arena or were the offspring, male or female, of an actor, gladiator, manager of a gladiatorial school, or pimp. And with regard to what was written and provided for under the decree of the senate that was passed on the motion of the consuls Manius Lepidus and Titus Statilius Taurus, namely that it should be permissible for no female of free birth of less than twenty years of age, and for no male of free birth of less than twenty-five years of age to pledge themselves as gladiators or hire out their services for the arena or stage..... except any of them who had been consigned by the Divine Augustus or by Tiberius Caesar Augustus to .... it is the pleasure of the senate that the provision should be maintained, except...[rest is lost] Immediate Interest: Details of minimum ages for free born citizens and the details of who was not allowed to fight in the arena. In these laws we can see the foundation of the hatred and eventual murder of Emperors such as Commodus. |