World History

State and Society in the

High Roman Empire

The Roman Empire

The Amusements of Rome

During the rule of Claudius, 159 days in the year were designated public holidays, on 93 of those days, shows were offered at public expense. Originally the games had religious significance, but under the republic more and more secular games were introduced, ostensibly to celebrate notable events, some of which lasted as long as two weeks.Two kinds of games: ludi scaenici, or theatrical events, and ludi circenses. Ludi circenses took place in the custom-built circuses, or race-tracks, and amphitheatres.

The Amusements of Rome

The Romans were not very attracted to the theater.Only three principal structures: those of Pompey, Marcellus, and Balbus.

The theater was derived from the Greeks and was built in the form of a semicircle, the seats being apportioned, as in the case of the circus, to different classes of persons.

The shows consisted largely of dramatic exhibitions, of mimes, pantomimes, and dancing. It is said that the poems of Ovid were acted in pantomime.

ludi scaenici, or theatrical events

Theatrical events were a big part of Roman entertainment; Roman dramas were extremely popular, amongst the populace, and they used orchestras for every production.

Roman Music: Audio

The Amusements of Rome

Romans had a passion for chariot-racing… each devoted to the particular team they supported, with its colors of white, green, red, or blue. The public adulated the most successful drivers, and there was heavy gambling on the races.

In the reign of Augustus there might be ten or twelve races in a day; during and after the time of Caligula, twenty-four a day was common.

Chariot-racing game

The Amusements of Rome

The Circus Maximus in Rome was the greatest of the venues for entertainment. It was an enclosure about two thousand feet long and six hundred feet wide. Within it were arranged seats for different classes of citizens, a separate box being reserved for the imperial family. The games consisted chiefly of chariot races. The excitement was due to the reckless and dangerous driving of the charioteers, each striving to win by upsetting his competitors. There were also athletic sports; running, leaping, boxing, wrestling, throwing the quoit, and hurling the javelin. Sometimes reenactments of battles and sea fights took place.

Circus Maximus

Superimposed image of the Circus Maximus with a contemporary map of Rome (Google Maps).

The Amusements of Rome

The most popular and characteristic amusements of the Romans were the sports of the amphitheater. The amphitheater was a double theater, forming an entire circle or ellipse. Such structures were built in different cities of the empire, but none equaled the colossal building of Vespasian. The sports of the amphitheater were chiefly gladiatorial shows and the combats of wild beasts. The amusements of the Romans were largely sensational, and appealed to the tastes of the populace. Their influence was almost always bad, and tended to degrade the morals of the people. The ludi circenses of the amphitheatres give the Romans the bad press of a thirst for bloodletting, though evidence suggests Etruscans attached religious significance to the gladiatorial combat.

The Amusements of Rome

Gladiator bouts pitted similarly armed contestants or teams of contestants against each other. The most usual contest was between a moderately protected and helmeted swordsman and a retiarius, armed only with a net and trident. It was each man for himself, and any who appeared less than enthusiastic were prodded into activity with red-hot irons, while other attendants stood by to drag off the corpses and to pour new sand over the pools of blood.Gladiators were slaves, or condemned criminals, or prisoners of war, all of whom were regarded as expendable. So were wild animals, which were rounded up in their natural habitats and transported in their thousands to be hunted down and slaughtered in the confines of the arenas of the Roman empire.

The Coliseum

The Coliseum