Introduction

The Roman concept of leisure is deeply implicated in Roman notions of status - the rich might spend their otium in literary pursuits; the poor spent their time eating, drinking, and having sex (Fagan, this volume). Even in areas such as a bathhouse where members of different orders might share space, distinctions still had to be observed. When we turn to the world ofspectacle, the same divisions will at first seem to apply. Before the end of the republic, seating at the theater was divided by class, a distinction that was extended to the amphitheater and the circus in the course of the first century CE. Many spectacles were associated with civic events; their provision was the duty of city magistrates. To offer a spectacle was to assert superiority in the symbolic system of exchange that governed social relations within the Greco-Roman city. That at least was the theory.

In practice the realm of spectacle was much less orderly than the theory would suggest. Just as members of the aristocracy might break the rules of otium through over-indulgence in the pleasures of the table, or by wandering the streets to seek the company of prostitutes, so too the divisions of class asserted in the organization of spectacle were liable to break down. Virtually every aspect of Roman hierarchy was open to challenge - public executions could go awry if the crowd demanded the release of the condemned, gladiators could become heroes, charioteers could become millionaires, and actors might challenge the order of society by the way they chose to utter their lines. To be successful, a spectacle had to offer an opportunity for radical changes of fortune; it had to stir the passions of the viewers.

To understand Roman spectacle it is perhaps best to begin with the emotional response that was expected of engaged viewing, and the Roman fascination with sharp contrast. Ancient thought often appears to be binary - chastity can only be demonstrated in the context of sexual temptation, honor implies the risk of dishonor, courage of cowardice. To know that one was strong, one had to be tempted. To be an aristocrat was to be free from the base desires of the common person, yet it was also to provide for those desires. To be an aristocrat was to be in thorough control of one’s passions (Gleason 1999a: 70-8). To do so one had to be victorious in the constant struggle with the incitements to passion with which one was surrounded. One needed to empathize with powerful emotions, to recognize their effect upon others, and at times, one had to run the risk of experiencing them.

Just as the rhetorician Philostratus of Lemnos, in describing the pictures on display at a gallery on the Bay of Naples in the later second century ce, enters into the emotions of each picture, members of an imperial audience expected, or feared, involvement in the emotions of the moment. As he describes the pictures, Philos-tratus seems to have felt the passion of Polyphemus for the nymph Galatea, the grief of Antigone for her brother, or the drama of a boxing match between the carnivorous Phorbas and Apollo. In his descriptions he reveals what it was that people of his age expected to happen when one was confronted with an effort to escape the experience of quotidian reality (Imag. 2.18.3, 30.3, 19.3). So too, Augustine would write much later that he became aroused at the theater, and would tell of his friend Alypius, who thought that he could attend a gladiatorial combat and avoid being caught up in the emotions of the moment. Even though he closed his eyes, he could not close his ears and was soon screaming with the rest of the crowd. The amphitheater was, for Alypius, a test of self-mastery failed (August. Conf. 6.8). Others would not have bothered to attempt such a test: it was precisely in order to become lost in the emotions of the moment that they went.

To experience the passion ofothers, to delight in seeing the past come alive - these are factors in the classical experience of spectacle, be it theatrical, amphitheatric, athletic, or in the circus. So too could be the desire to test oneself, either as Alypius did, or to see if one could measure up to the contestants. Self-restraint is only impressive if the strong possibility exists that people will not exercise it, if peers gave way to their passions, allowed their status to be called into question, even admitted that they actually liked the games.

The vast range of possible spectacles in the Roman world has made it difficult to appreciate similarities that linked their audiences, to understand how a person could move with seeming ease from the theater to the amphitheater and then to the circus. Those who deplored gladiatorial spectacle (or professed to deplore it) were likewise liable to deplore, at least in public, the events of the circus and to be deeply ambivalent about the stage. They might also pour scorn upon professional athletes. So too, a person who liked the games would not be limited to enjoyment of just one sort. In thinking about Roman entertainment then it is perhaps best to put aside the divisions between the different sorts of events that we will see in the next section of this chapter, and concentrate on similarities: fascination with technical skill and, consequently, with celebrity performers, interest in recreating events from the distant past, the desire to cap earlier performances, and sympathetic engagement with the passions presented by the participants. Finally, we need to consider how all of these factors might have contributed to one of the most important developments during the imperial period: the increasing role of women as performers in a wide range of venues.