The imperial period saw a peak of activity in various organized forms of public entertainment, games, and shows. In this, the euergetism of the period was expressed. The local benefactors provided the populations of their cities not only with distributions of food or with contributions to public works but also, and often primarily, with all kinds of entertainment. That was true above all of the greatest living benefactor, the Roman emperor himself. For the emperor, the slogan “bread and circuses” was a necessary political program. The masses of the metropolis Rome had to be fed and entertained, and thus kept content with the regime. A contented populace would cheer the emperor and confirm his power, and also be favorably disposed toward the senatorial elite. But discontented masses were always unpredictable and therefore potentially dangerous.
Public entertainment during the empire took many forms, most of which already had a long history. Traditional were the games of the Greek type—running, boxing, wrestling, and the like—of which the Olympic Games were still the most famous, although in the big cities of the empire many more had been introduced in imitation of the Olympics, especially in the Greek east. Since the Hellenistic age, the participants were all professional athletes, so that the games provided the public with passive entertainment. Chariot racing was often a part of such games but was also held on other occasions, especially in the west. Its popularity grew immensely during the empire. In the big cities, races were organized on a regular basis with the passionately engaged public divided into several supporters associations. The most spectacular ones were held in Rome in the hippodrome of the Circus Maximus at the foot of the Palatine hill on which the palaces of the emperors rose. The close connection between imperial palace and racetrack was typical of the later empire: the emperors were only too aware that in order to “relate to” the people, they had to attend the races as often as they could. In the new imperial residences of the late 3rd and early
Figure 43 Graffito of a gladiator from Pompeii (before 79 AD) and gravestone of the gladiator Apollonius, from Asia Minor (late imperial period). The graffito on the left was found on a waU in Pompeii (regio I, insula VI) and dates from sometime before 79 AD. We see a gladiator, a Samnis or secutor, that is, a swordsman, armed with a short sword, a helmet with visor, a shield, and a single arm guard and a single shin guard. According to the accompanying text, his name is Oceanus, he is a libertus (a freedman), and he has been victorious 13 times. Graffiti with texts about and images of gladiators are found on several Pompeian walls and illustrate the huge popularity of this “sport.” To the right is the gravestone of one Apollonius from Asia Minor, now in the Museum of Antiquities in Leiden. It dates back to the late imperial times. The inscription says: “Apollonius [has] 48 victories [to his name]. Zosime, his wife [put this up] to honor his memory.” Apollonius, portrayed on the small relief as a retiarius, the gladiator armed with a net and a trident, is the “top scorer” among aU gladiators of whom we know the number of victories. Whether Apollonius died in his bed or was killed in his last fight, we will never know. The fact that this gravestone is from Asia Minor should remind us of the enormous popularity of these bloody Roman games in the Greek east. Drawing: from Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, volume IV, 8055a; Photo: © Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden, NL
4th centuries, palace and racetrack (the circus) were always built adjoining each other, for instance, the grand palace and the hippodrome in Constantinople.
The stone amphitheaters were a largely new phenomenon in the empire, replacing the wooden and often temporary constructions of the late republican period. They were meant for animal shows and gladiatorial games. The shows with animals originated in the period of the classical republic and had become very popular. Different, often exotic animals were incited to fight each other or were chased and killed by human hunters. The more animals from exotic places were offered up to be killed, the more prestige accrued to the organizer of the games. During the empire, convicted criminals also could be sent into the arena (that is, literally, the “sand” in the middle of the amphitheater) with only token
Weapons, or no weapons at all, sometimes even tied to a pole, to be mauled or torn up by the beasts. Sometimes, mythological stories about heroes and ferocious animals could thus be re-enacted. These shows were extremely expensive, for the animals often had to be imported from far away. Hardly less popular were the gladiatorial games. Among the stone amphitheaters built for these shows since the last days of the republic, the one nick-named the Colosseum in Rome, built under Vespasian and Titus, was the largest and most famous. It could hold 50,000 spectators. The gladiatorial games also originated in the time of the classical republic, and in the 1st century AD they became popular all over the empire. Originally, the gladiators had been war captives who were forced in ritual combats to fight to the death as a kind of funeral sacrifice for a deceased nobleman, but soon their combats had become pure entertainment. The fighters were originally prisoners of war, slaves, or convicted criminals, but during the empire, when it had been forbidden to send slaves as gladiators into the arena, more and more volunteers chose this profession. Their training, their equipment, and the staging of the combats themselves were again very costly, so that holding gladiatorial games was always a hugely expensive affair. This explains why not all the gladiators got killed, not even if they were defeated in combat, for they were too expensive to die. Many sought this profession, for the winner could earn considerable prize money. Nevertheless, death certainly was an occupational hazard, and the lives of many gladiators were at some point rudely cut short. The men themselves were often admired for their courage and skill but at the same time despised for throwing away their lives. It was the local rich who in the provinces provided the shows on a relatively modest scale; in Rome, the quaestores had to celebrate their magistracies by holding gladiatorial games at their own costs, although often the emperor would subsidize the poorer among them. But the most frequent and the most expensive shows in Rome were held by the emperor himself. There were special schools for gladiators in Rome, as well as a whole menagerie of animals that were fed and constantly replenished at imperial expense. Altogether, the costs for the amphitheater shows in Rome must have swallowed up a considerable part of the imperial budget, probably the second largest part after the costs for the military.
Apart from the bloody shows in the amphitheater, there were other performances in the theaters. Classical drama, however, lost much of its appeal during the empire and was gradually replaced by mime and pantomime, in which music and dance played major roles. When in the course of the 4th century the Roman Empire became largely Christian and various elements of urban life began to change or to disappear altogether, the shows and games too decayed, both as a result of constant protests by the church against these forms of entertainment and because of a lack of funds. The Greek-style games disappeared altogether shortly after the last Olympic Games were held in 393 AD. Gladiatorial games outside Italy disappeared in the course of the 4th century, and in Italy itself shortly after 400 AD. Animal shows continued longer, but they were increasingly limited to shows with “local” animals, again because of the costs involved and the breakdown of long-distance trade in much of the empire in the 5th century. Mime shows, however, were still staged in Constantinople in the 6th century, while chariot racing would continue for even longer, albeit on a much reduced and less costly scale.
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