An inscription from Letoon in Lycia (southwestern Turkey) records a rather unpleasant festival that took place about 100 bce in which inadequate numbers of contestants showed up for several of the events, and many of those who did appear were disqualified either for cheating or because they were not judged worthy of a prize (Robert 1978: 282-6 = 1990: 686-90; Crowther and Frass 1998: 58-65). The meaning of some of the technical language used for failure in the competitions mentioned in this text may be unraveled with the aid of various authors of the imperial period, who likewise record that people who were booed off the stage might be flogged. Comments like these invite us to read with some skepticism a letter written at some point in the first decade of the second century CE by the younger Pliny, in which he observes that:
I have spent this whole time with my writing tablets and books. ‘‘How can you do that in the city?’’ you ask. Chariot races are going on, and I am not the least bit interested in that sort of entertainment. There is nothing new, nothing different, nothing that it does not suffice to have seen but once. For this reason I am all the more astonished that so many thousands of people desire so childishly to watch horses run, and see men ride chariots again and again. If they were drawn by the speed of the horses or the skill of the drivers, that would be one thing; now, however, they cheer for a piece of cloth, they love a piece of cloth, and if, in the middle of a race this color would be transferred to that man, and that color to this one, the partisanship and favor would change with it, and suddenly they would leave those charioteers and those horses, that they recognize at a distance and whose names they shout. (Ep. 9.6.1-2)
Pliny’s suggestion that the games would be more interesting if people were interested in displays of skill is deeply misleading: he is trying to draw a contrast between what would be acceptable to an aristocrat such as himself as opposed to the debased passions of a crowd incapable of appreciating the finer points of a particular activity. Loyalty to a faction was a powerful factor in the enjoyment of the games, but so too was the desire to have charioteers take on new challenges and show off their skill in new ways (Potter 1999b: 292). The grandest of all inscriptions commemorating the career of a charioteer describes a career that began about a decade after Pliny’s death {ILS 5287). The text honors a man named Gaius Appuleius Diocles, and tells us that by the time he died at the age of 42, he had won 1463 races; of these victories, 83 came in special ‘‘races of champions’’ featuring one entrant from each of the four factions instead of the usual three, and another 347 victories in races involving just two teams from each faction. He also tells of victories in races with chariots that had six horses, one with seven horses, of races in which the horses were not yoked, races where riders switched teams with those of other factions, and so forth. While he did indeed switch factions, and thus, one may presume, like any modern free agent who changes teams, acquired new fans when he did so {as well as hatred from the supporters of his former faction), this should not be taken as confirming what Pliny has to say. Fans were loyal to their faction, and they expected that their faction would field drivers of talent that they could appreciate. As the inscription for Diocles also reveals - he sets his career in the context of other charioteers, comparing his victory totals with theirs - fans would have been well aware of a charioteer’s statistics.
While Pliny may position himself at one end of the aristocratic mode of discourse, others were less snobbish. As early as the second century bce, the poet Lucilius might use imagery drawn from a chariot race - hold back your chariot and horses like a good driver - and as late as the fifth century ce, Sidonius Apollinaris could put a chariot race into verse with considerable appreciation for the details of a driver’s tactics {Lucil. fr. 1249; Sid. Apoll. Carm. 23.315-427). It is of particular interest that in Sidonius’ poem we see one of Diocles’ races of champions with one team from each faction, and clear understanding of the role of teams, with a driver from one faction working to ensure the victory of one from the faction paired with his own {Blues and Whites were matched against Greens and Reds) {Cameron 1976: 63-4). Sidonius writes of his charioteer’s teammate who sets the pace to wear out the rival teams; in the meantime the charioteer holds back:
You, bent double with the effort, hold back the four-horse team, and with the greatest skill hold back for the last lap. Now, with the return of the sixth lap completed, and now with the crowd calling for the prizes, the other side {pars contraria), not fearing your strength, was running the safe tracks in front, suddenly tightening the reins, tightening your chest, with your foot planted firmly, you pull in the mouths of your swift steeds just like that ancient charioteer, sweeping past Oenomaeus with Pisa trembling. {Carm. 23.385-93)
The driver cuts inside the second place chariot, and then slips ahead of the first place driver who, thinking victory within his grasp, had taken too wide a turn. Trying to recover, this driver tries to run Sidonius’ hero from the track and crashes. The victory is owed to a combination of teamwork and skill. While we cannot know how a driver went from being the sort of ‘‘chariot fodder’’ who cleared the way for the star to being the star himself, we may imagine any number of scenarios in which the sudden failure of the expected champion led to a radical change in race strategy. This would have been one of the things that the audience wanted to see: victory, to be meaningful, had to be difficult.
The educated fan was not above attempting to handicap races on his or her own, and it is of particular interest - again as an example of how misleading Pliny’s letter is when it comes to the actual conditions of the race - that curse tablets tend to be directed at specific charioteers. Thus in one case, replete as well with the technical language of the race, a petitioner of the demons asks:
Most holy Lord Charakteres, tie up, bind the feet, the hands, the sinews, the eyes, the knees, the courage, the leaps, the whip, the victory and the crowning of Porphyry and Hapsicrates, who are in the middle left, as well as his co-drivers of the Blue colors in the stable of Eugenius. From this very hour, from today, may they not eat or drink or sleep; instead from the (starting) gates may they see daimones (of those) who have died prematurely, spirits (of those) who have died violently, and the fire of Hephaestus... in the hippodrome at the moment they are about to compete may they not squeeze over, may they not collide, may they not extend, may they not force us out, may they not overtake, may they not make sharp turns for the entire day when they are about to race. May they be broken, may they be dragged on the ground, may they be destroyed. . . . (SEG 34 no. 1437)
The list of tactics in this spell would appear to pretty much summarize the moves that might be expected of a charioteer once he had managed to avoid the spirits of those who had died prematurely or violently and go speeding around the racetrack. Like the charioteer in Sidonius’ poem, he might push over to an inside lane, he might sprint (the meaning here of‘‘extend’’), overtake, and make good sharp turns. The charioteers themselves, as suggested in the inscription honoring Diocles, would be well known, as would their teams. To race with a different or new team, as Diocles suggests, would place special demands on the driver, and again this was something that fans would like to see, at least in the case of someone who had shown himself especially skillful. The interested fan wanted to know: was it just the horses, or was it Diocles?
Chariot racing enables us to observe the tendency to applaud the star in a team context. In other areas, where the star system is just as pronounced, we may see how it altered the very nature of the entertainment. This is especially true of theatrical events. Plays, both tragic and comic, continued to be written in both Greek and Latin into the imperial period, sometimes taking their cue from forms of literature that developed in the imperial period; such is the case with the extraordinary fragment of a mime dealing with a theme that is characteristic of the Greek novel (P. Oxy. 413). In the early imperial period, it was plainly possible for a writer of traditional tragedy, at least in Latin, to make a great deal of money: in 29 bce Varius Rufus received one million sesterces for a Thyestes. Later we have evidence for the continued production of new tragedies at Athens (Lebek 1996: 35; C. P. Jones 1993: 44-5). Well into the second century, rich men who wanted to make a splash at that city would assume the traditional role of sponsor, or choregos, bearing the cost of the performance at one of the civic festivals. At times the playwright might act in one of his own dramas, as did the author of one comedy. But these events need to be interpreted with some caution: all known actors and victors in new dramas put on at Athens in the imperial period are native Athenians. The wealthy who are noticed for their contributions are members of the elite functioning in an agonistic context. It may be that we should view their activity as a feature of the cultural antiquarianism of the period whereby classical events were recreated precisely because they were classical: drama was as characteristic of classical Athens as was, for instance, the traditional training of young men through the agoge at Sparta, where tourists watched naked young men undergo severe floggings (Cartledge and Spawforth 1989: 201-7; Smith, this volume). The Spartan system, as it was known in the imperial period, was a creative anachronism instituted some time after 146 bce, long after Sparta had any pretence of being a power in Greece.
Outside of Athens, older plays, classics, seem to have been more to the taste of major artists. This may, perhaps reflect the fact that old drama was part of the curriculum for new rhetoricians - Marcus Aurelius thought that Old Comedy (comedy written in the fifth century bce) was particularly beneficial (Med. 11.6; C. P. Jones 1993: 44). Orators read these plays so that they could practice the crucial art of ethopoesis, necessary for success in their own performances. It is the connection with rhetorical training that perhaps sparked an interest in actually appearing on stage not only on the part of Nero, but also on that of Thrasea Paetus, who often attacked Nero for his conduct (with results both utterly predictable and fatal) (Dio 62.26.4). Marcus’ interest in Old Comedy seems also to have been stimulated by his education.
If one could make a case for performing on the stage as an aristocrat in old style drama, no such case ever seems to have been made for participating in drama that fell in the epideictic tradition. Although we know that Augustus and other emperors delighted in pantomime, we do not know of any aristocrat who ever desired to play a part in a mime. Before turning to these events, it needs to be noted that star performers in traditional tragedy and comedy were less well paid than performers in either mime or pantomime, and that actors might also choose to perform ‘‘greatest hits’’ from selected plays. A papyrus containing a portion of Euripides’ Chresphontes appears to be marked up so that actors could find selected excerpts; the same appears to be the case with a play written during the imperial period that features Priam and members of his family (P. Oxy. 409; 2458; 2746). In altering their scripts, actors were assimilating, at least to a degree, to the performances of pantomime; it appears that they would sing their parts as soloists in company with a chorus and a flute player (Plut. Mor. 63a; D. Chr. 19.5; E. Hall 2002: 12-24). A variation on this form of performance in the agonistic context would involve fresh settings of choruses from tragedies to music where the stress would appear to have been on the skill of the composer(?)/flautist who accompanied the chorus. A victory monument from Isth-mia celebrates the triumphs of one Gaius Aelius Themision, who set the choruses of Sophocles, Euripides, and Timotheus to music, while a papyrus from Oxyrhynchus records the contract for just such a performer, a man named Epagathus (BE 1954 n. 111; Cockle 1975: 59-65).
Pantomime was the ultimate soloist event. It may have been the personal interest of the emperor Augustus that first established pantomimes as the superstars of the theater. It was in his reign that two great dancers - Bathyllus and Pylades - competed to dominate the art form. Bathyllus appears to have represented a more traditional style in which the dancer sang to limited musical accompaniment, and may have performed routines that could include comic themes. Pylades is said to have been the first pantomime who had a singer and may have changed the style of music to include a significant percussion element. The characteristics of Pylades’ performance are said to have been ‘‘passion and variety of character’’ (Ath. Deip. 20d), while another observer - Lucian - notes that the dancer tried to present, and enact, both characters and emotions (Salt. 67). Sometimes the material might be adapted directly from plays by classical dramatists (TrGF 1 p. 344); at other times, it was a fresh composition on a traditional theme. With the passing of time, competition for new scripts appears to have been fierce; Juvenal remarks with some bitterness that Statius made lots of money for producing the libretto on the theme of Agave for a famous pantomime, and nothing for his great epic poem, the Thebaid (Juv. 7.82-7). Equally interesting is that Statius, who was not shy about describing his own career as a competitive poet, never mentions works of this sort. The Agave, which would have told the tale of the mother of Pentheus, who in a Bacchic rage unwittingly participated in the gruesome murder of her son, was a typically demanding role for a pantomime.
A successful pantomime, despite the epideictic context of his performance, might become virtually immortal as those who performed in his tradition took his name. The Augustan Pylades was succeeded by as many as six other Pyladeses between the first and third centuries (Leppin 1992: 284-8). Another potent name was Apolaus-tus: the earliest on record performed in the mid-first century ce; the latest of whom we know was dancing in the age of Commodus (Leppin 1992: 204-10). The first dancer named Paris whom we know to have become famous worked in the reign of Nero, the third was active under Commodus, while the second Paris was still remembered in the reign of Hadrian as a potent figure (it was he who bought the Agave from Statius) (Leppin 1992: 270-6). The point of these names - it appears that only one person in each generation might hold it - was to assert primacy in the field, and, though the evidence for this is scanty, quite possibly to claim to be the head of a particular school of dance. In the imperial period, as in the republic, famous actors would train others to follow in their footsteps. To be identified as a favored pupil appears to have been sufficient to put someone on the fast track to riches and fame (Lebek 1996: 38-9; Potter 1999b: 269-70).
Membership in a professional association was as important to athletes as it was to actors as a mark of status. Despite critics who regarded professional athletes as blockheads who would have been better off attending lectures in philosophy, or who regarded the regimen of athletic training as unhealthy (Poliakoff 1987: 93103), those whose victories enabled them to gain a place in the international synod of athletes would enjoy privileges comparable to those of major cultural figures. The extensive certificates of membership provided by the synod asserted the special status of athletes by offering a potted history of their relationship with the imperial government. By the third century ce a typical document attesting the induction of a person would include a copy of a letter from Claudius, an edict of Hadrian, two letters from Septimius Severus, and one from Severus Alexander, all attesting the privileges of the synod, as well as a letter from an official of the synod attesting that the new member should enjoy them (Frisch 1986: no. 1).
Documents such as those certifying admission to the synod stand as stunning reminders that, contrary to a view once common in scholarship, Greek games were not considered inferior by the imperial government. Not only would members of the international synod gain a wide range of exemptions from local responsibilities, they might also be drafted into the upper-level organization of their sport. It is common to find that a retired athlete will serve as a xystarch, or leader of a gymnasium, by imperial appointment. Other athletes would have comprised the staff of the central office of the synod at Rome. Indeed, one of the interesting features of the extensive career inscriptions that honor athletes for their accomplishments around the empire is that they link local dignity with fame (and office) won abroad. Although these texts are rarely informative about the way that a person won, Marcus Aurelius Asclepiades proclaims that he won all the contests for which he registered, was never disqualified for stalling, and never appealed a judge’s decision - something that may be connected with his further claim never to have won by ‘‘royal’’ favor (Moretti 1953: no. 79, with Poliakoff 1987: 126 n. 21). In another case, an inscription honoring Tiberius Claudius Rufus of Smyrna reproduces a letter from the hellenodikai (tournament officials) at Olympia explaining that he was declared the winner in a match that technically ended in a draw because he contended against an opponent who had benefited from a bye (SIG3 1073). Elsewhere there is ample evidence that people discussed the specifics of matches well after they had happened. Philostratus of Athens (writing in the early third century) has his fictional character, Protesilaus - a Homeric hero who gives oracles from the region of his tomb on the Gallipoli peninsula - describe specific advice that he gave pancratiasts as to what moves will be successful. Perpetua (on whom see Evans Grubbs, this volume) dreamed that she had become a pancratiast and seems to have been able to envision a fight in some detail. The Philostratus who is the author of the Pictures tells us that:
Pancratiasts engaging in wrestling that is fraught with peril, for they are subject to blows in the face that are dangerous for wrestlers, and clinches which they can only win by pretending to fall, and they must have the skill to choke an adversary in various ways at various times, they are both wrestling with the ankle and twisting the opponent’s arm, dealing a blow and leaping upon him; all these things, save only biting and gouging, can be done in pankration. (Imag. 2.6.3)
This Philostratus seems to have had a passion for these sports - describing elsewhere a group of wrestling (and cheating) cupids, boys wrestling in an Arcadian gymnasium (again stating that the form of wrestling combined with boxing is best), or Apollo as a boxer (Imag. 1.6.4; 2.32.2,19.3). He is less interested in other sports, though he can provide a portrait of a discus thrower in great detail (Imag. 1.24.2). His interests seem to reflect those of contemporaries who honored pancratiasts, boxers, and wrestlers more highly than those who competed in the less violent track and field events.
World History
