CLAS / HIST 4091 / 5091: The Roman Empire

Reading Handout 10. Attitudes to Spectacle

Reading for Friday November 4, 2011

Reading

LR section 40 (pp. 142-49)

Augustine Confessions 6.8(13) (on the back of this sheet)

Seneca Letter 7 on e-reserves at Norlin Library: password "romanempire"

Tertullian The Shows at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0303.htm

Tertullian, the son of a Roman centurion, was born c. AD 160 near Carthage and he remained in North Africa until his death c. 240. He may have been educated as a lawyer and certainly possesses a rich knowledge of the law. Indeed, he uses his gifts of advocacy and rhetoric to great effect in his numerous works promoting the rigorous practice of Christianity. We are going to read a short treatise of his known as “On the Spectacles” in which he vigorously attacks the attendance at spectacles so popular throughout the Roman empire. As we will see from the text, apart from the bible, Tertullian uses mainly his own intellect as his source. In many ways this makes our reading more interesting since his argument derives inspiration from direct experience of the spectacles and from the accumulated lore about their origin and purpose that might have circulated in the streets of Carthage. Eventually, Tertullian joined a sect of rigorist apocalyptic Christians called the Montanists, and he later founded his own group of Tertullianists who held themselves to even higher standards of Christian morality. It is thus natural that Tertullian would oppose anything as “decadent” as the games. This same prejudice should, however, caution us against regarding his rigorous views as typical among the ancients or even among Christians.

To supplement our reading, we will also look at a letter written by the famous literateur Seneca the Younger. Seneca was born in Corduba, Spain in AD 2 and excelled so much as an intellect that he became court tutor and advisor to the emperor Nero, who eventually had him executed in 65. Seneca followed the ancient philosophical school of the Stoics, which was also rigorous in its demands for decorous and unimpassioned behavior. Here again caution is in order, though we know at least that Seneca’s view was not colored by Christian morality.

Finally, we will look at a brief passage from the “Confessions” of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in Roman North Africa from c. 390-430. The Confessions, a sort of spiritual biography, get us very close to the viewpoint of the average citizen; this is why I have asked you to look at a passage which describes the struggles of Augustine’s friend Alypius, also a Christian, who had his own struggles with a love of spectacle.

Questions

1. What can we learn from these sources about the ways spectacles were conducted: what happened in the theater, on the race course, in the amphitheater?

2. Did spectacles just involve races, plays and combats? What other things would go on to make them a total festival experience? Think of religion, feasting, politics, social cohesion.

3. Does Tertullian lay out the case in favor of spectacles fairly? What do he and Augustine say was attractive about them? What sorts of passions or emotions did they arouse?

4. Were Christians the only ones to object to the games? Did others understand their dangers? Did others understand their benefits?

5. Would Tertullian have been successful at convincing the Christians of his day to stop going to the games? What defense might a Christian have offered for watching them?

6. Does one sense opposition to Rome and Roman culture itself quite apart from horror at the spectacles in Tertullian? Were Rome and spectacles necessarily linked?

7. Were Tertullian’s arguments against the games the same as those we would use today in condemning these events? Are there parallels between the Roman love of spectacle and that in contemporary America?

Aug. Conf. 6.8(13): He [i.e. Augustine's friend Alypius] had gone on to Rome before me to study law--which was the worldly way which his parents were forever urging him to pursue--and there he was carried away again with an incredible passion for the gladiatorial shows. For, although he had been utterly opposed to such spectacles and detested them, one day he met by chance a company of his acquaintances and fellow students returning from dinner; and, with a friendly violence, they drew him, resisting and objecting vehemently, into the amphitheater, on a day of those cruel and murderous shows. He protested to them: "Though you drag my body to that place and set me down there, you cannot force me to give my mind or lend my eyes to these shows. Thus I will be absent while present, and so overcome both you and them." When they heard this, they dragged him on in, probably interested to see whether he could do as he said. When they got to the arena, and had taken what seats they could get, the whole place became a tumult of inhuman frenzy. But Alypius kept his eyes closed and forbade his mind to roam abroad after such wickedness. Would that he had shut his ears also! For when one of the combatants fell in the fight, a mighty cry from the whole audience stirred him so strongly that, overcome by curiosity and still prepared (as he thought) to despise and rise superior to it no matter what it was, he opened his eyes and was struck with a deeper wound in his soul than the victim whom he desired to see had been in his body. Thus he fell more miserably than the one whose fall had raised that mighty clamor which had entered through his ears and unlocked his eyes to make way for the wounding and beating down of his soul, which was more audacious than truly valiant--also it was weaker because it presumed on its own strength when it ought to have depended on Thee. For, as soon as he saw the blood, he drank in with it a savage temper, and he did not turn away, but fixed his eyes on the bloody pastime, unwittingly drinking in the madness--delighted with the wicked contest and drunk with blood lust. He was now no longer the same man who came in, but was one of the mob he came into, a true companion of those who had brought him thither. Why need I say more? He looked, he shouted, he was excited, and he took away with him the madness that would stimulate him to come again: not only with those who first enticed him, but even without them; indeed, dragging in others besides. And yet from all this, with a most powerful and most merciful hand, thou didst pluck him and taught him not to rest his confidence in himself but in thee--but not till long after.