Gladiatorial Games Research Articles

Gladiatorial Monuments from Thyateira

This study focuses on five gladiatorial monuments found during the surveys conducted at Thyateira in the northeastern part of Lydia. The monuments, all of which date to the Roman Imperial Period and are now preserved in the Manisa Museum, are marble altars depicting a single gladiator facing to the right. The monuments form a group with five other gladiatorial monuments previously found at Thyateira and provide information about the importance and content of gladiatorial fights in the city. The gladiator monuments from Thyateira constitute an important part of the gladiator inscriptions found in Lydia. This suggests that the tradition of gladiatorial fights in the city may date back to as early as the 1st century BC, and that it flourished and multiplied over time. The fact that the city was home to Roman merchants from the early period and the presence of the Imperial cult here must have paved the way for the spread of gladiator fights, a Roman tradition, in the city. We learn from the inscriptions that there was also a gladiator school (ludus) in the city. The city of Thyateira, which seems to have attached importance to athletic competitions and public performances throughout its history, must have adopted gladiatorial games at an early period and made them a part of social life.

La fin de la cité grecque: métamorphoses et disparition d'un modèle politique et institutionnel local en Asie Mineure, de Dèce à Constantin by Anne-Valérie Pont

Reviewed by: La fin de la cité grecque: métamorphoses et disparition d'un modèle politique et institutionnel local en Asie Mineure, de Dèce à Constantin by Anne-Valérie Pont François Gerardin La fin de la cité grecque: métamorphoses et disparition d'un modèle politique et institutionnel local en Asie Mineure, de Dèce à Constantin Anne-valérie Pont Hautes Études du monde gréco-romain 57. Geneva: Droz, 2020. Pp. xiii + 585. ISBN: 978-2-600-05742-4 Who killed the Greek city? The polis, as an ideal form of collective organization and esteemed as an object of historical (chiefly epigraphic) investigation, has kept ancient historians busy for a very long time indeed. The Greek city, as everybody knows, did not die at Chaeronea. In what is arguably the greatest achievement in this field of study over the last decades, Louis Robert and his disciples pinpointed the decadence of civic life, starting with the last quarter of the second century bce and continuing well into the early Roman period—the socalled Hellenistic turn. In this well-researched and powerfully argued book, Anne-Valérie Pont tells the story of a slow, limited, and tardy death. Hence her title and subtitle: "The Demise of the Greek City: Metamorphosis and Disappearance of a Local Political and Institutional Model in Asia Minor, from Decius to Constantine." [End Page 242] After gradual alteration in the early Roman period, the political bodies of Roman Asia Minor suffered minor though serious ailments in the third century ce, before the policies of the Tetrarchs dealt the final blow. On this account, the first quarter of the fourth century ce really is a watershed. What came after was something else. According to Pont, the city became, after Constantine, a mere tool of imperial governance (citéoutil, a term she uses on page 333), not the lively organism it had been. In her Introduction, Pont characterizes this "civic model," invented in the Greek Archaic period, as the peaceful articulation of the "few" and the "many." In these close-knit communities, those in power and the rest of the population shared in the same view of the "common good," the same collective "energy." Pont, against Mark Whittow's hypothesis of the Greek city's "continuous history," postulates a "meantime" (entretemps) in which the demise of this civic model took place. Her book is divided into three parts of two chapters each and follows a chronological as well as thematic order. Part I explores the two shocks of Christian persecutions (chapter 1) and foreign invasions (chapter 2) from roughly 250 to around 275. According to Pont, there was no crisis of the city in this period. Despite internal as well as external challenges, the civic framework obtained but did not remain unshaken. Jews and Christians, she argues, had been participating in civic life, despite recurrent tensions. Those confessing to be "Christian," however, started to manifest "indifference" toward their home city, thinking of themselves primarily as dwellers of the celestial Jerusalem. Cities also resisted invasions because they had kept a vigorous tradition of military training in the gymnasium and broad participation in athletic contests. Yet, throughout the third century, Roman-style entertainment gradually took over, with gladiatorial games and circus races replacing civic competitions. Pont's thorough and comprehensive review of all the available evidence sets a high bar for the analysis of civic responses to both the repression of Christians and foreign invasions. In Part II, with no less acumen in her treatment of Roman law sources, coin evidence, and epigraphic material, Pont singles out the true culprits. She argues that the cosmopolitanism of civic elites (chapter 3) and the new norms imposed by Roman administration (chapter 4) brought about the demise of the civic framework. Chapter 3 builds on the research of Anna Heller and Henri Fernoux, who both advocated a vitalist view of the Greek city in the early Roman period. Evidence from the third century ce—namely, honorific decrees, coin types representing the demos or personifications of the city, and popular elections of city magistrates—betrays continuing popular participation in civic politics, in contrast to the growing disinterest of the...

Bread and Circuses - The Development, Symbolism and Representation of Gladiatorial Games

Bread and Circuses - The Development, Symbolism and Representation of Gladiatorial Games

Silverfish by Rone Shavers

Reviewed by: Silverfish by Rone Shavers Phill Provance (bio) silverfish Rone Shavers Clash Books https://www.clashbooks.com/new-products-2/rone-shavers-silverfish#:~:text=Silverfish%20is%20a%20syncretic%20tour,future%20we've%20already%20lived. 114 pages; Print, $14.95 Where's our world headed? Better yet, as Americans, where are we going as a people? The dynamic ontological extravaganza that is Rone Shavers's Silverfish offers one vision, and it is decidedly dystopian. And yet, brilliantly, [End Page 91] the novella takes a refractive approach to conveying the external realities of its characters' ultra-complex, corporatized milieu, which we're told is in a state of constant war threaded with techno-spiritual intervention. As such, Silverfish is a blistering critique of our past and present, producing an especially apocalyptic prediction for these here already shaky United States. Of particular interest is Shaver's use of voices ranging from those of language gods and biotech angels to those of corporate mercenaries, everyone acutely attuned to micro-blips by the Dow and NASDAQ: the narrator is, in turns, Elegba, the West African Yoruba messenger, various humans, and an AI entity, and we the readers are pulled between the poles of divinity and mortality as Shavers establishes a landscape capable of handling the inbetween, networked dialogue of Silverfish's world. What results is a beautifully blurred reality: here is a talented human being (Shavers), impersonating/possessing the minds/wills of gods, the coders (and encoders) of language (history), and communicating (to those who would hear and learn from them) potential futures. For instance, Elegba offers this in the novella's prologue: "Are you lost yet? Good. Confusion is good: it's the first step towards an attempt at understanding what's beyond what you already know. … But still, I'm here to save you, so once again, let's play language." Steven Dunn's introduction to the work pinpoints succinctly the appeal of this approach: "By blurring the binary between gods and mortals, it allows us to become alternative beings who do the work of both." This is a clear invitation to clarity via abstraction by way of humanity's interpretation of the collective consciousness of language, with its successes and failures to communicate, its knowns and unknowns. In a world where only the most extremely financially fit survive, such liminality countervails the novella's hyper-pragmatized externalities, such as financial advisers who work alongside combat associates on the bloody fields of meta-mercenary battle. In Silverfish, changing jobs has become switching "liabilities"; whereas Orwell's Newspeak in 1984 is over-economized, the linguistic medium of Shavers's world is over-economicized: its entire idiom is driven by financial terminology, bringing to mind what would happen if The Wall Street Journal business section reported on Starship Troopers, Battlestar Galactica, and The Matrix. Case in point, one angel entity, more tech than bio, expresses how "The Dow has been below 75,000 for three days, necessitating a permanent crisis [End Page 92] situation." Great violence must ensue, we're told, to prop up world markets. That said, there are no "soldiers" per se, only "combat associates," and the more blood spilled, the better the markets react. Brilliantly, Shavers has boiled the complex interplay between geopolitics and finance down to its bare bones in a way that is no less true for its simplification of investor markets and the global defense industry into what amounts to gladiatorial games writ large. Meanwhile, angels are biotech, or "wetware," a hypothesis of where humanity might be headed: AI in the novella is the result of God-master coders inserting brains into mechanical shells. Souls are sold into screens and injected into a networked cloud existence, even as so many others live paycheck-to-paycheck. There are hardly more apt imaginings of our present transhumanist hybridization—especially amid the Coronavirus pandemic. But, unlike the plugged-in portion of our population today, these entities aren't self-determined because they are distracted by their own doublethink in an endless conversation that suggests an absurdly self-negating academic discourse continuously playing out on social media. As for the eponymous "silverfish" themselves, they are ferocious, swarming consumers, killers of tech and...

DO WE REALLY HAVE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR JEWISH GLADIATORS?

In the past, it has been suggested that Jews were both participants and spectators in the gladiatorial games. Yet, all the materials presented to prove the existence of Jewish gladiators seem to be less conclusive than what the authors deem them to be. The present article wishes to re-examine all the archaeological evidence which was considered as proof for the existence of Jewish gladiators. The evidence will be re-examined individually, as well as the ensemble in its entirety, in order to show that such evidence cannot be used as a means to support the claim of the existence of such a phenomenon.

Sana oculos meos

Augustine’s commentary on Alypius’ curiositas at the gladiatorial show (6, 8, 13) recounts one of the most well-known stories in Augustine’s Confessiones. Despite the various interpretations or explications of the story in Augustinian scholarship, this paper argues that the story centres around Alypius’ curiositas as a function of Alypius’ preceding, morally deficient character. The author provides a fourfold, cumulative and philological case for this thesis. He develops this case by means of four evidences. First, Augustine uses the phraseology of animus forti temperantia (6, 7, 12), the virtuous character describing Alypius when he had overcome his love of the gladiatorial games. Second, Augustine distinguishes between “supreme” and “a surface level” virtue, the existence of which is best explained by its application in Augustine’s remark that Alypius had been audax rather than fortis. Third, Augustine uses the language of talis in reference to Alypius, a term describing sorts or kinds of things or persons; in this context, this is the language of character. Finally, Augustine’s use of adhuc implies that there is a type of character Alypius had been, the remedy of which was to acquire an animus forti temperantia. The author then argues that Augustine envisions that the healing of curiositas (as a vice) is from God, especially when a virtuous character – the means by which one is able to overcome curiositas – itself is articulated as a gift of God’s grace. The response to such healing, then, is gratitude. The author concludes that this paper contributes both to a more comprehensive interpretation of the Alypius narrative (6, 8, 13) as well as contemporary scholarship on Augustine’s relation to (psychotherapeutic) healing.

Inspiracje filozoficzne i religijne dla zakazu piętnowania twarzy skazańców. Ze studiów nad konstantyńską humanitas

The aim of this paper is to analyze the constitution by Constantine the Great which prohibited the branding of faces of the condemned to the gladiatorial games (Latin damnatio in ludum) or to the mines (Latin damnatio in metallum). Recognized as the leading exemplar of humanitarianism and an outwardly simple legal act, it inspires one to ask questions about the intellectual and religious inspirations of the lawmaker. This allows one to consider the shape of the humanitas notion during the reign of Constantine the Great.

Review: Colosseo, Un'icona and Colosseo, Un'icona, edited by Rosella Rea, Serena Romano, and Riccardo Santangeli Valenzani

Colosseo. Un'icona . Colosseum, Rome, Italy. 3 August 2017 – 11 March 2018 (originally 7 January 2018) Rosella Rea, Serena Romano, and Riccardo Santangeli Valenzani (eds.). Colosseo . Milan: Electa, 2017. 406 pp. 39€ ISBN: 9788891813893 After the ticket and security lines at the Colosseum, a steep set of stairs leads to this exhibit, which is installed in an exterior corridor one level above the ground floor. Its entrance is marked by a bright yellow freestanding panel with a mirrored oval flanked by the words Colosseo. Un'icona . The mirror at first seems a nod to the narcissism of the modern tourist, but is perhaps also a reference to an idea articulated by the fifteenth-century German traveler, Nikolaus Muffel, who said that the Colosseum was “a mirror, in which they saw all the things in the world” (quoted in Enrico Parlato's catalogue essay [168]). The focus of the exhibit is this—ideas and images that have been projected onto, invented, and imagined about the Colosseum in the centuries between the close of the ancient gladiatorial games and the dawn of the selfie. The exhibit is divided into twelve sections, each with an introductory panel (all interpretative material is in Italian and English). It includes models, archaeological artefacts, paintings, drawings, and reproductions of images created over roughly the last millenium. Part one is titled “The Amphitheater of the Caesars,” but is dominated by the enormous model of the Colosseum completed by Carlo Lucangeli in 1812, which is divided into halves and installed in two facing vitrines. The model is an artefact of the intensity of attraction to the Colosseum as both a building and as a symbol of a glorious Roman past. The first objects are a small group of large fragments of the decoration of the Flavian ampitheater. An inscription commemorating a fifth-century C.E. restoration of the building—carved on the back of a Flavian-era one—serves as a jumping-off point for the post-antique history of the building. This inscription, together with a slab of stone seating carved with …

‘DAMNATIO AD BESTIAS’ – RODZAJ KARY ŚMIERCI CZY SPOSÓB JEJ WYKONANIA?

‘DAMNATIO AD BESTIAS’ – KIND OF DEATH PENALTY OR MODE OF EXECUTION? Summary Damnatio ad bestias was one of the most amazing institutions of Roman criminal law. It was closely connected to gladiatorial games and this relation caused and influenced its dynamic and complex nature. The goal of this paper is to answer the question about the legal characteristic of damnatio ad bestias, whether it was a kind of death penalty or only a mode of its execution. On the basis of legal sources one can affirm that, at least in the roman jurists’ opinion, damnatio ad bestias was a poena, although sometimes it was omitted in the legal catalogs of penalties used in the field of Roman criminal law. This fact may be reasonably explained by the nature of this punishment – it depended on organization of the games with wild animals, so not everywhere there was appropriate infrastructure and necessary beasts. On the other hand, texts describing this penalty, mostly concerning martyrdom of Christians, may suggest that it was a mere mode of execution. But as it seems, these sources refer to the moment of infliction of damnatio ad bestias and other aggravated forms of death penalty, like burning alive and crucifixion, and to the governors’ jurisdiction. All these three penalties were interchangeable accordingly to the circumstances, which fact may create an idea that they were only forms of execution.

HERODIAN JUDEA: GAMES, POLITICS, KINGSHIP

This article will detail the kingship of Herod the Great in Judea and his enrollment of Greco-Roman architecture and culture during his reign in the first century BCE. Herod, it seems, made a deliberate break from his Jewish kingdom for the electrifying ways of the Greco-Roman world. Herodian Judea faced many changes over its history, but none more drastic in terms of architecture and culture than during his reign amidst the Roman domination in Judea, a period that begins with Pompey the Great in 63 BCE and ends with the Muslim invasion in the 650’s CE (Herod died in 4 BCE). Herod the Great is widely regarded as both a Roman sympathizer (OGIS 414) and a promoter of Greco-Roman culture (Roller 1998; Smallwood 1981). He is believed to have underwritten the construction of monumental buildings including harbors, temples, and arches as well as theaters and amphitheaters (Josephus AJ 15.421). These architectural endeavors, which bear strong Greco-Roman cultural significances, suggest Herod may have been influenced by Greek designs which were filtered through Roman culture (Smallwood 1981; Geiger 2005). The aims of this article are twofold: 1) to offer an explanation for Herod’s adoption of Greco-Roman architecture and Greco-Roman games; and 2) to better understand the socio-political crafting of Herod’s kingship. To this end, I will look into possible relationships between Herod, the Roman aristocracy and Jewish norms as documented by ancient accounts. I will also examine the physical remains of Herod’s building program in Caesarea Maritima. Our journey will begin with Herod’s three trips to Rome in the years 40, 17-16 and 13-12 BCE in an effort to attain the crown and bring stability back to Judea as detailed by accounts of Josephus (Josephus Ant. 15.342-3). It also will discuss select architectural remains from Herod’s building program at Caesarea Maritima (Raban, Holum 1996) and the ancient accounts of the Jewish general, Josephus. Along with select architectural remains at Caesarea Maritima, Greco-Roman architectures in other cities in the Roman East (Alexandria, Priene and Vergina to name a few) will be examined in order to link Herod’s program with other Greco-Roman cities. By connecting material remains and architectures with written accounts of Judea, archaeology can tease out what effects Herod’s building program and inclusion of Greco-Roman games had on Herod’s kingship along with the socio-political ramifications they had with Rome. I will start this process with the architecture then move to the written accounts to better understand what historians regard as Herod’s “passionate obsessions” (McRay 1991). The third and final section will consist of brief histories of Greco-Roman games in an effort to draw out the distinction between Greco-Roman indulgence and Judean rejection (Schwartz 2010). The games to be studied will include the athletic festival competitions at Olympia and the origins and eventual contribution of the gladiatorial games in Rome. Based on these uses of “pagan culture”, I argue that Herod reconstituted his Jewish province in accordance with the latest Greco-Roman trends.

The day Commodus killed a rhino: understanding the Roman games

The Roman emperor Commodus wanted to kill a rhinoceros with a bow and arrow, and he wanted to do it in the Colosseum. Commodus' passion for hunting animals was so fervent that he dreamt of shooting a tiger, an elephant, and a hippopotamus; his prowess was such that people claimed he never missed when hurling his javelin or firing arrows from his bow. For fourteen days near the end of AD 192, the emperor mounted one of the most lavish and spectacular gladiatorial games Rome had ever seen. Commodus himself was the star attraction, and people rushed from all over Italy to witness the spectacle. But this slaughter was simply the warm-up act to the main event: the emperor was also planning to fight as a gladiator. Why did Roman rulers spend vast resources on such over-the-top displays - and why did some emperors appear in them as combatants? Why did the Roman rabble enjoy watching the slaughter of animals and the sight of men fighting to the death? And how best can we in the modern world understand what was truly at stake in the circus and the arena? In The Day Commodus Killed a Rhino, Jerry Toner set out to answer these questions by vividly describing what it would have been like to attend Commodus' fantastic shows and watch one of his many appearances as both hunter and fighter. Highlighting the massive logistical effort needed to supply the games with animals, performers, and criminals for execution, the book reveals how blood and gore were actually incidental to what really mattered. Gladiatorial games played a key role in establishing a forum for political debate between the rulers and the ruled. Roman crowds were not passive: they were made up of sophisticated consumers with their own political aims, which they used the games to secure. In addition, the games also served as a pure expression of what it meant to be a true Roman. Drawing on notions of personal honor, manly vigor, and sophisticated craftsmanship, the games were a story that the Romans loved to tell themselves about themselves.

GAME PHERSU: PRO ET CONTRA

Having examined the frescoes from Tarquinia: the Tomb of Augurs, the Tomb of the Pulcinella, and the Tomb of the Olympiads dated back to the sixth century BCE that depict scenes with a personage Phersu, the author deals with Etruscan inscriptions, data of the Antique tradition about origin of scenic and gladiatorial games, as well as a number of interpretations of these scenes to prove that the Etruscan ritual ‘game Phersu’ is a prototype of the Roman gladiatorial games and ‘venatio’. Being a part of Etruscan funeral rite, the ritual game was a substitutive sacrifice that symbolised a fight of a human being against the demon of death Calu – an abductor of souls from the world of the living. The fight was supposed to be guided by an invisible and disguised power, being personified in the image of Phersu.

Gladiatorial games in the Greek East: a complex of reliefs from Cibyra

AbstractThis article presents a body of architectural reliefs and two stelae from the ancient town of Cibyra in the Roman province of Asia and, in most cases, now kept in the provincial Burdur Museum. The pieces show different aspects of gladiatorial games, such as duels between gladiators and the hunting of animals. It is argued that the architectural reliefs once belonged to three different monumental tombs of munerarii, commemorating specific games sponsored by them, while the stelae were set up for single gladiators after their deaths. An analysis of the style of their execution indicates that the reliefs were produced in the second half of the second century AD. The iconography and composition of the gladiatorial combats depicted on these reliefs seem to have been influenced by a specific Hellenic view of the games, while the venatio scenes emphasise the richness of the show. In total, the material may contribute to a better understanding of the reception and transformation of the munera in the Greek East.

How Gladiatorial Movies and Martial Arts Cinema Influenced the Development of The Ultimate Fighting Championship

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was born as a marketing tool for the Gracie family to publicize their style of martial arts, in spite of the fact that it did not fit the image of what a martial art should look like according to cinematic representations. The success of the Gracie family in UFC contests forced the martial arts world to revise long cherished stereotypes regarding what constitutes an effective fighting style. The UFC, however, came<br />under attack when several politicians, including presidential candidate John McCain, campaigned to ban what they considered a ‘blood sport’ reminiscent of the ancient Roman gladiatorial games. Even after the UFC was able to gain widespread acceptance, it<br />continued to market itself using gladiatorial iconography. This article considers the ways in which the cinematic representations of ancient Roman gladiators as well as martial arts movies have both influenced the UFC, and how they have been influenced by it. Over time, UFC promoters modified the rules in order to encourage the kind of fighting seen in movies, and martial arts films modified their choreography to include the type of techniques performed by UFC fighters. This article shows that a similar relationship exists<br />between UFC and gladiatorial films.

“Not for an Olive Wreath, but Our Lives”: Gladiators, Athletes, and Early Christian Bodies

In this article, I dwell on the blurring of the lines between gladiators and athletes in the first and second centuries c.e. , showing that attention to gladiators, athletes, and the spaces in between helps one to see interesting processes by which identities are constructed—Greek, Roman, and Christian alike. The material and literary “texts” that I examine here show wealthy Greeks using gladiatorial games in the construction of provincial identity, Greek gladiators resignifying themselves as athletes, and a Paul who blurs the lines between athletes and gladiators in his correspondence with the Corinthians (particularly 1 Cor 9:19–27 and 2 Cor 4:7–13). In each case, I argue that we can locate the production and reception of these texts in a context in which Greek athletics and Roman games had begun to blur, both discursively and practically, for those discerning audiences who flocked to the amphitheater to see physical and violent enactments of virtue and vice. In this broader context, Paul’s own ambiguous appropriations of the stadium and the arena emerge as one site among many where the language of sport and spectacle opened up spaces for rethinking and refashioning identity.

A Requiem for American Football? Galen to Camp to Hounsfield

Figure 1. Gladiators in the circus arena, Zliten mosaic, 1st century A.D. Ttorial games of the Roman Empire immediately come to mind as the epitome of such a practice. Etruscan in origin, the games were later cultivated in Campania where early schools for training in gladiatorial combat were founded in Paestrum and Pompeii (310 B.C.) (Figure 1). Adopted in Rome 100 years later, they ultimately grew popular throughout the Empire. The gladiatorial games remained a highly popular and politically charged practice until their demise approximately 600 years later. The 50,000-seat Flavian Amphitheatre in Rome remains a remarkable testimony to this practice. Backlash to extremism proved to be a major contributor the ultimate termination of the games. The gladiatorial arena served as a “laboratory” for Claudius Galenus (A.D. 129e200), one of the greatest physicians, surgeons, and philosophers in medical history. First in Pergamon for 4 years and later at the suggestion of Commodus, in Rome, Galen attended to the combatants, leaving a legacy of increased comprehension of the importance of proper diet, fitness, and personal preventive measures for the combatants. Wounds served as “windows to anatomy” and comprehension of the body’s structure and function. Concurrently, Galen refined medical and surgical management techniques associated with the observed trauma. His presence and actions were reported to have had a remarkably beneficial effect on both recovery and mortality rates. His studies impacted medicine and surgery for the next 1500 years. The American sport of football bears a striking similarity to what might be termed its “gladiatorial ancestors.”The game evolved out of English rugby football. It was largely created in metamorphosis by a Connecticut native and New Haven Clock Company chairman during the late 19th century. Walter Camp (1859e1925) attended the New Haven Hopkins Grammar School and graduated from Yale College in 1882 (Figure 2). He was active on various national rules committees as a collegiate player and was instrumental in establishing the rules of the game until his death in 1925. He initiated an evolution in rules and style of play that remains fluid until this day. American football is now a multibillion-dollar industry and consummate sport spectacle of the “contact” genre. Over time, forces of speed, contact, and skill of players have escalatedwith the expected toll on the entire spectrum of human tissues. Despite the sophisticated development of protective devices, many of which have served only to act as weapons and to facilitate infliction of impact, observed injury and both immediate and late consequences of prolonged participation continue to mount collectively (2, 3).

Between Epigraph and Epigram: Pompeian Wall Writing and the Latin Literary Tradition

It has become a scholarly commonplace to remark that the ancient Roman city had, at least after the time of Augustus, a wide, varied, and almost omni-present regime of writing in public. This regime included texts of many different types, commercial, political, dedicatory; written with charcoal, paint, stylus or chisel; on stone, wood, plaster and mortar; on private houses, public monuments, temples, shops, baths, fountains and tombs. In part, this is due to what has come to be known as the ‘epigraphic habit’, the characteristically Roman practice of recording acts and events on stone. From the late Republic onwards, both public and private individuals who had even marginal means to hire a stonecutter left behind inscriptions—honorific, commemorative, funerary—which document multiple aspects of social life, from birth to death. Many of these texts have direct ties to civic authority: decrees of the Senate or the Emperor; dedicatory texts on buildings by consuls, tribunes or other magistrates; milestones, boundary markers, altars, statue bases and the like, all of which record the names of the officials responsible for their placement. The production of such publicly-readable texts, however, was not simply the purview of the state: wealthy private individuals also could and did erect monumental inscriptions, which often recorded some act of public beneficence like the construction of a building or the presentation of gladiatorial games. Other writing was less formal: thus, in Pompeii, the famouscaue canem(‘beware of the dog’) mosaic which marked the threshold of the House of the Tragic Poet; the bakery which featured a terracotta plaque with a phallus and the perhaps aspirational legendhic habitat felicitas(‘here dwells good fortune’); or the cookshop of Euxinus whose front sign announcesphoenix felix et tu(‘the phoenix is lucky, and so may you be!’). As William Harris once noted, ‘Roman cities…were full of things to read’.

Ceramic crustulum with the representation of Nemesis-Diana from Viminatium: A contribution to the cult of goddess nemesis in roman provinces of Central Balkans

The analysis of iconographic representation from ceramic medallion/cast for cakes (crustulum) from Viminatium showed that we are dealing with a very rare type of iconographic representation of goddess Nemesis-Diana. The monuments with syncretistic presentation of goddess Nemesis-Diana are not only very rare, but they imply a very close connection of the goddess with imperial cult and with games and gladiator fights in amphitheatre. Overview and analysis of all so far known cult monuments of goddess Nemesis, opened a question about the correlation of goddess and presumed amphitheatre in Viminatium and also a question about new aspect of honouring Nemesis in the territory of Roman provinces of Central Balkans - as a patroness of agonistic competitions and protectress of gladiatorial games and gladiators.

Book Review of Blood and Entertainments: Sports and Gladiatorial Games in Hellenistic and Roman Thrace, by Lyudmil F. Vagalinski

Blood and Entertainments is the first monograph dedicated to the intriguing subject of sports and gladiatorial games in Thrace during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Having originated as the author’s doctoral thesis, the book represents an updated and supplemented edition and discussion of the various types of evidence pertaining to athletic contests and gladiatorial spectacles. Part 1 presents the sources of information for sports in Hellenistic and Roman Thrace: architectural and epigraphic monuments, numismatic evidence, sports accessories, and sculptural evidence.

Claudius, the handicapped Caesar (41-54 A.D.)

Claudius, fourth Caesar of the Roman Empire, proved himself an able administrator, but physically and emotionally handicapped from birth. His parents, members of the imperial family, considered him mentally deficient and he was isolated from the general public and put in the care of an uneducated tutor who firmly disciplined the youngster. The historians report that he had a weak constitution caused by frequent illness, and when he appeared in public he was muffled in a protective cloak. To avoid possible embarrassment the ceremony of the toga virilis, at approximately 14 years of age, was a secretive affair held at midnight and devoid of the traditional procession. His grandfather, Augustus Caesar, had some sympathy for the young lad, but did not consider him capable of managing any position of public office appropriate for his age and position. This would also be the approach of the succeeding emperor, Tiberius. Claudius spent the fi rst four decades of his life in relative idleness, isolated from his family and upper class Romans, consorting with the lower classes, playing dice and revelling in excessive eating and drinking. He did, however, also involve himself seriously in a study of the sciences, literature, Greek and history – his role model in the latter being Livy. During his life time he published quite extensively, including dramas, an autobiography, a work in defence of Cicero, histories of Rome, Carthage and Etruria, and a book on dice. His first public office (besides an augurship under Augustus) was at the age of 47 years when the new emperor, Gaius (Caligula) made him a consul for two months. The Knights and a section of Senate now warmed towards Claudius, but Gaius and the majority of aristocratic Romans still despised him as dull-witted. After the assassination of Gaius, the Praetorian Guard in an extraordinary step, proclaimed a protesting Claudius (50 years old) as emperor, and convinced an astounded Senate to endorse this action. In spite of having had no significant preparation for the task, Claudius proved a most sensible and effective manager, improving the effectivity of Senate, putting the legal system on a sound footing, enlarging the borders of the Empire (including the conquest of England), extending citizenship to some of the provincials, foreigners and freedmen. Sensible building programs were initiated as well as the upgrading of roads and communication systems and the ensuring of an efficient food supply to Rome. Grand and regular gladiatorial games and other forms of public entertainment endeared him to the people. But he was also periodically responsible for mismanagement, corruption and brutality; much of this was subsequently blamed on the inordinate influence of people near him, and his trusted freedmen and wives in particular. The last two of his six wives (Messalina and Agrippina) were particularly guilty, and his death of poisoning at the age of 64 years (54 A.D.) was engineered by Agrippina. Through his life Claudius showed evidence of significant physical and psychological/emotional impediments. By many he was considered mentally deficient, but his impressive record as student of literature and history, and his administrative skill as emperor are ample evidence of his intellectual abilities. Physical abnormalities included an ungainly gait due to weakness of his right leg and probably arm. He had a tremor of the limbs and involuntary shaking of the head. He spoke indistinctly in a coarse, stuttering way, his mouth often drooled, his nose tended to run, and he had an uncouth laugh. He was emotionally labile, and when upset the above symptoms worsened and he became prone to irresponsible actions. We suggest that this symptom complex fits in with the diagnosis of cerebral palsy, and probably its extrapyramidal variant, although one-sided weakness suggests an additional component of hemiplegic paresis.