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One of Ancient Romes most important forms of public entertainment took place in amphitheaters. These were the gladiatorial games. Although there were more renown and primordial forms of entertainment, such as the chariot races, gladiatorial activities became a widely popular and powerful form of leisure for Romes powerful and common citizens. Roland August writes: It only remained for the emperors to learn the lessons of experience.
They hastened to appropriate, to their own advantage, as far as they could, a means of propaganda whose efficacy was to be proved by history. The organization which thenceforward controlled the right to give mineral showed a more and more open tendency to monopoly, which was expressed by legislative measures and considerations of fact; in Rome at least all the gladiatorial combats were offered to the people by the emperor (28). August gives insight as to just how important the games were for people in Rome, especially the powerful. The gladiatorial games of Ancient Rome had many affects on Roman society.
Gladiatorial games developed from a more passive state and different motives to the image that many people in todays society believe it to be. Before the times of the emperors, gladiators were used primarily for funerary remembrance. The family of the person who had passed away would try to honor the deceased by having a display of power and wealth and other skills between men, gladiators, to show the prowess the deceased had possessed in life. This form of gladiatorial combat had been going on in Rome and its surrounding provinces since the mid- 3 rd Century B. C. and was often followed with a banquet and gifts (Beacham, 14).
One of the earliest attempts at using gladiatorial combat for reasons not pertinent with showing the deeds of the deceased came in 45 B. C. Julius Caesar announced to Rome that he would honor his daughter Julia with a menu. This was when Caesar was in the midst of a consulship and had the power to put on a show of great magnitude.
He told the people that he would put on a show so enormous that it would be nothing like they had ever seen. However, in his attempt to win over any Roman that had yet to concede to his leadership, the Senate intervened and put restrictions on the amount he could spend (Weidemann, 6). This move by the Senate would be followed during the rest of Romes history concerning the amount allowable on future gladiatorial combats. When the games were used to the advantage of the person running for an office, they had lost most of their original ideology behind them.
The transition from funerary purposes to social purpose was a gradual one. During the Republic, when one died they, depending on the amount of wealth left behind, might be given a gladiatorial combat and banquet in their honor. The ideology behind these games was to show the kind of person and life they had left behind. Thus, Roman gladiatorial games originally started out as a kind of passage from life to death.
If used correctly, the ability to put on ltd, or games, was a strong ally. The games were a significant part of a Romans everyday life. Before gladiators fought publicly, the forms of entertainment were not much more than theaters that would perform Greek and Roman plays, and the local Circuses that often showed chariot races. These events would very often be sponsored and supported by Senators and other Romans who would want to run for office and become more popular. It was against the law to give bribes and donations to people to get their votes for or against something; however, bribes would still take place.
Besides doing the honest deed by campaigning strongly for such heralded positions as Consul and Tribune, these prospective candidates would put on shows in their name. After the shows a festival would often be given to and for the people of Rome. The show and the banquet would often be very expensive expenditures. These would often be beneficial to the candidates, as the Romans would favor these candidates more because they could put on a show. These passive forms of bribery soon expelled others from running for offices. Romans came to expect these voluptuous banquets and magnificent shows from the candidates.
As a result, poorer candidates who could not afford to sponsor a game were overlooked by the people (Beacham 15). Around 44 B. C. , the games started to become less about funerary purposes and more of an entertainment theme. In 45 B.
C. Julius Caesar had given the biggest spectacle of entertainment Rome had ever seen. With restrictions by the Senate, he was not able to involve as many gladiators as he advertised, but more important than that, he started a new trend. The following year, on 14 February 44 B. C. , at the annual Lupercalia Festival, Julius Caesar was given the title Dictator Perpetual. Thus came the end of the Republic and the beginning of a new Rome.
The death of the Republic was not celebrated by a mortal combat between men with few clothes and a weapon; it was followed by constant war until Octavian Caesar took control of Rome in 27 B. C. Thus gladiatorial combats as funerary games ended. They were replaced with games that would be presented as part of a calendar of public events meant to ensure the continuity of the state and its emperors. The games became associated with the continuation of Roman life and values (Futrell, 46 - 47).
From the start of the Roman Civil War, with the assassinations of the Gracchi brothers in 131 and 121 B. C. respectively, politics in Ancient Rome turned into a violent and increasingly competitive state. The leaders of Rome used spectacles like gladiators to direct the attention away from the negative aspects of the Republic. They used bloodshed in the arena to try to balance the amount of mayhem that was happening inside and outside the walls of Rome itself.
With the ever-increasing importance of gladiatorial combat as both an accessory for the people and a weapon against political opponents, places to watch these shows would need to be constructed, and they were. Amphitheaters had political ideas built into their construction. The location of construction of amphitheaters in Rome was not always built in densely populated areas. Before its use in Imperial Rome, the amphitheater held an independent status. The placement of theaters in and around Rome did not correspond to developed areas. In the provinces of Rome the theaters were often built in and around military frontiers.
In Gaul, for example, there was an amphitheater built in complete isolation from any central village or town (58). Gauls theater shows that there oftentimes there were very few determining factors of their placement. The few factors would have been their societal and political impact on Romes conquered peoples as well as an attempt to assimilate Roman values and ideals into their everyday lives. The construction of amphitheaters also shows political and sociological views of the Romans. One of the more important features of the theaters was the seating. The theaters would be built to hold vast numbers of people.
The better seats would be given to the more important people in Roman society. The Senators decree provided that every public performance, wherever held, the front section must be reserved for senators (Beacham, 122). As gladiatorial games became more popular, the size, magnificence, and seating capacities greatly increased. The pinnacle of every amphitheater ever built was the Colosseum in Rome.
Built on the grounds of the former Golden House of Nero, it was a project started by the emperor Vespasian (r. 69 - 79 A. D. ) and completed by the emperor Titus in 80 A. D. It was four stories in height and could hold an amazing 50, 000 people! These houses of games were the products of ambitious, young Romans who sought to help themselves while helping Rome.
The Roman Republic did not use these games the way the future emperors would. One...
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Research essay sample on 44 B C Forms Of Entertainment
