CLST 260 (Games, Gladiators, and Spectacles)

Midterm February 11, 2015

Instructor: Dr. Siobhán McElduffTAs: Bethany Brothers, Maude Cotê-Landry

Answer Key

You have 50 minutes for this exam.

This Exam has 11 pages and 3 sections

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Please do not turn this page until you are told to. 2. Write in pen 3. All cell phones and other electronic devices must be switched off and inaccessible during the exam4. When you are finished, place this exam sheet inside your exam booklet and hand them both back5. If you have questions, please raise your hand

Thrilling bonus questions to while away some time!

1. What is a cameleopard? Giraffe

2. What magic method for capturing lions did a Gaetulian shepherd discover?

Throwing a cloak over their heads

3. What is the name of the chariot horse that Caligula wanted to make a senator?

Incitatus

4. How large was the snake that Augustus exhibited to the Roman people in the Comitium?

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50 cubits = 23 metres

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Section I: Short answer section. On this exam paper answer 15 out of the following 20 questions. If you answer more than 15, we will only mark the first 15.

1. a. Who was the first person to harness elephants to a chariot in Rome? b. Who was the first person to harness lions? c. In what period did this happen?

a. Pompey the Great

b. Mark Antony

c. Late Republic (we gave partials points for Republic)

2. Describe the remarkable nature of M. Aemilianus Scaurus’ building (2-3 lines only please.) How much was its minimum cost?

- three stories, 360 columns: one story marble, the next glass, and top gilded boards

- 3,000 bronze statues; cloth of gold- at least 30 million sesterces

3. In what site for spectacles in Rome is the altar of the god Consus buried?

Circus Maximus

4. What are crupellari and in what province would you find them?

a. heavily armed gladiators b. Gaul (as there are so many gladiators you should be specific when describing types, or as specific as you can be)

5. a. Which gladiator type fights with a trident and net? b. Which type fights from a chariot?

a. retiarius b. essedarius

(The eques is on horseback)

6. a. In the Augustan era where did most women sit when attending events at the theatre or amphitheatre? (Give the Latin name for full points). b. What women were not legally required to sit there?

a. maenianum summum in ligneis

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b. Vestals (if imperial women sat there they had to have special permission so they are not legally entitled to do so)

7. a. Who built the first stone amphitheatre in Rome? b Under what emperor was it built?

a. Statilius Taurus

b. Augustus

(Probably not a good idea to guess another emperor who ruled decades after Augustus in these situations)

8. “Here where, the starry Colossus now gazes on the heavens and tall scaffolds rise in the middle way, the palace of a savage king– a thing to be hated - gleamed and only a single house stood.”

a. Who is the ‘savage king’ Martial is attacking? b. What was the name of this ‘single house’?

a. Nero

b. Domus Aurea (or also Golden House)

9. a. Who or what are the venatores immunes? b. Who or what are the ursarii?

a. soldiers in the Roman army whose job it was to catch animals

b. soldiers in the Roman army whose job it was to catch bears.

(For full points here you needed to know that these were military positions and, in the case of usarii, that they specifically caught bears.)

10. a. What does a lanista do? b. What is their legal status?

a. gladiatorial trainer/manager

b. infamis (although we preferred the Latin term we accepted all answers that showed you knew what this status was; we gave some partial points if you were approaching the answer)

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11. List three ways that Augustus’ seating legislation radically changed seating arrangements in the theatre and amphitheatre.

Please note the word radically in the question. Even before Augustus senators and equestrians had their own seating section: Augustus just enforced this, and refined it on a more minute scale for all classes.

a. women no longer sat with their families

b. separate seating for boys and their teachers

c. Vestals get their own box

d. stratified seating among the groupings – senators

e. separation of plebs into those who could afford togas and those who could not

12. Name three of the suburban Roman circuses.

Note the word suburban in this question. As this proved so problematic for people I accepted the Circus Maxentius, but not even the most broad-minded person can consider the Circus Maximus as a suburban circus.

a. Bovillae b. Circus of the Arval Brethren

c. Lorium d. Antium 13. What sport did Diocles take part in? How much money did he make over the course of his career?

a. Chariot racing

b. 35-36 million got you full points; we gave partial points if you came close

14. What are the names of the two gladiators shown on this inscription? What is unique about this inscription?

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a. Amazonia b. Achillea

c. Only ancient inscription showing female gladiators (please note: we have other inscriptions referring to female gladiators, but they don’t show images)

15. Give three examples of lavish spectacles that Julius Caesar gave or attempted to give that were unparalleled or ground-breaking.

a. Tried to have 300 gladiators at games for his father

b. Having games for his daughter and far after her death

c. covering the entire forum in silk awnings

d. creating tunnels under the forum

e. Elephants carrying torches after his triumph

f. first naumachia

h. first to show giraffes in Rome

16. Two types of early gladiators vanish by the 1st century BCE: what are they?

a. Samnites

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b. Galli (or Gauls)

17. What part of the ludi circenses is shown on the following image?

Pompa Circensis (we gave full points for answer that showed you knew this was the parade with the gods before the ludi circenses )

18. Who first held a gladiatorial munus in Rome? When was it held? (Give the exact date.)

a. Decimus Junius Brutus (we only gave partial points for saying Brutus alone as there are about 500 of them in Roman history: it’s like saying they were called John)

b. 264 BCE

19. Give two ways the senate tried to clamp down on or block the growth of spectacles in the Late Republic. (This could be laws passed or actions aimed at specific individuals.)

a. Limiting when people could have games so they could not have them right before they ran for election

b. clamping down on numbers of gladiators

c. clamping down on the importation of animals from North Africa

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e. stopping Julius Caesar having 300 gladiators at games to honour his father

20. What remarkable thing happened at the funeral of Felix, the charioteer of the Reds?

A supporter fell in the fire (or threw themselves in)

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Section II: Ancient images. Write a paragraph for 2 of the 4 images below. Identify the sport or spectacle depicted on, or connected with, the images you select, and discuss their importance for understanding Roman spectacles or a particular spectacle. You may also want to comment on whether an image is a good overall representation of that sport or spectacle or stresses some particular aspect of that sport.

Please double-space your answer and say which image you are talking about.

Each paragraph is worth 10 points/section total 20 points.

Image I

- clearly related to chariot racing: in this case this is a two horse chariot race as this is a biga

- testifies to the popularity of chariot racing if items of this sort were generated, especially in bronze, which is an expensive substance and thus not a cheap item to purchase

- light chariot shows the type of chariot used in the race and the dangers of chariot racing

- action pose of the chariot shows the interest in action and is typical of images of chariot racing (when they don’t go for the victory parade), which suggests the appeal of the sport

- shows the harness around the neck (Roman and Greek horses had to pull from the neck, not the chest)

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- a great deal of our other images are of four horse chariots or charioteers standing and holding a single horse; this suggests that perhaps the two horse chariot race was less impressive or interesting to the audience

- was found in Rome (supposedly in the Tiber)

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Image 2

-mosaic from Piazza Armerina (very expensive villa which was once thought to have belonged to a Roman emperor) in Sicily- shows animals being captured for and transported to venationes in Rome - this is only one of many animals being captured: here a tiger is lured by running away with its young (yes: that is very clearly a tiger)- focus of this as a heroic and dangerous pursuit, but reality most of these type of animals would have been captured in pits and quite a few of them would have been immature and taken from their mothers too young and died in transit- thus not a great representation of the reality of capturing animals but of the way that Romans wanted to imagine it happening (there were extra points for bringing up Pliny the Elder here)- aristocrats surrounded themselves with these images suggesting their investment in these spectacles either as editores or as spectators: this compares to the disdainful tone of some of our literary sources, and shows us that we can’t rely on texts alone to understand the appeal of the games, including the venationes

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Image 3.

- mosaic (mosaics are expensive and usually found in private houses of some wealth; paintings are also expensive – these are not mass produced items)

- the bout is retarius vs secutor and shows their equipment and styles of fighting

- shows the summa rudis, the referee for the bout, with his staff- the theta shows the death of Astyanax- narrative nature of the image, but focus on the action and the

gory denouement (in common with other images of gladiators)- expensive –shows the appeal of these images among the classes- deceptive in some part because we know that most gladiators

did not die in the arena, despite the focus of these images on the death of one of the combatants

- in fact killing gladiators at one point could only be done with imperial permission, so it was a big deal – perhaps why someone commemorated it in this mosaic (it is clearly a record of an

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actual match, given the names) – possibly it costs so much money to have a gladiator killed that you want a record of it

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Image 4.

- mosaic (hence expensive) - shows the charioteers from all four factions (red, green, blue,

white)- notice that they wear very little – no protection and their sex

appeal is part of the whole package and shows the danger and appeal of the sport

- small horses typical of ancient horses- stereotyped pose (which is reflected in other images of

charioteers with single horses) suggests this was a standard way to represented all four factions if you did not want an action image of them racing in the Circus Maximus or other circus

- not a good representation of the sport because although it is typical to show all four factions in these images, people clearly devoutly supported one faction. This suggests that the Romans, despite their fan mania, related to the factions in a very different way than we do

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Section III. Ancient Texts. Write a paragraph for 2 of the 4 images below.In your answer identify the author of each of the following texts (and the sport or spectacle, if relevant). Then, on the exam booklet provided, write a short paragraph discussing what that text tells us about some facet of ancient spectacle and what limitations it may have as a source.

Please double-space your answers and say which texts you are writing on.

Each paragraph is worth 10 points/section total 20 points.

Text I

Tragic Victory; shatter your Idumaean palms. Favour, strike your bare chest with wild blows. Honour, change your clothing. Sad Glory, cast your crowned locks as a gift for the unjust funeral pyre. Alas for the shame of it! Scorpus, cheated and cut down in your youth and so quickly yoking the horses of death. Your wheels always hastened the race – but why was the finishing line of your life so close?

- Martial: chariot racing- testifies to the celebrity of these charioteers – Scorpus has

three poems on him by Martial- appeal of poetry on this subject shows the appeal of

charioteers across a number of social classes and that texts dismissing the appeal of chariot racing among the elite in particular don’t show the full story

- riskiness of the sport is clear: Scorpus (as we know from elsewhere) died at 26 or 27 – though that was still at least a 10 year career

- dates from the Flavianic period: Martial wrote under Domitian, who added new factions to the circus – perhaps a peak time for chariot racing?

- Notice that Martial calls on the gods to mourn this infamis charioteer: shows the disjuncture between charioteer celebrity and legal status

- this is not about Felix!

Text II

I have spent the past few days among my papers with the most pleasing serenity you could dream of. You will ask how that can be possible in the middle of Rome? Why, the Ludi Circenses were taking

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place, a form of entertainment which does not appeal to me at all. The games have no novelty, no variety, nothing, in short, anyone would want to see again. This makes me even more astonished that so many thousands of grown men should be repeatedly possessed with a childish passion to look at galloping horses and men standing upright in their chariots. If, indeed, they were attracted by the swiftness of the horses or the skill of the men, we could account for such passions. But it is actually a scrap of cloth they favour, a scrap of cloth that captivates them. And if during the running the racers were to exchange colours, their supporters would change sides, and instantly abandon the very drivers and horses whom they were just before recognizing from afar, and loudly cheering by name. And that is the level of favour, of weighty influence, that one cheap tunic has with not only the common crowd who are more worthless than the tunics they wear, but with certain important people!

- Pliny the Younger: chariot racing- shows the factionalism in chariot racing and its mass appeal - Pliny’s attitude is not very representative of most people’s, and

should not be taken as typical of aristocrats, especially as we know about so many emperors hung around with charioteers and wanted to race chariots

- Mass appeal of the sport is such that almost the entire city is at the ludi: why then is Pliny so keen on being different? Is this an elite pose?

- We also know from a number of inscriptions that people did follow gladiators from faction to faction, so Pliny’s perspective is not very accurate in that regard about the fans

Text III

Around the same date, a trivial incident led to a serious riot between the inhabitants of the colonies of Nuceria and Pompeii, at a gladiatorial show given by Livineius Regulus, whose expulsion from the Senate I have mentioned. During an exchange of insults, typical of the touchiness of country towns, they turned to abuse, then to stones, and finally to swords; the people of Pompeii, where the show was being exhibited, won. As a result, many of the Nucerians were carried maimed and wounded to the capital, while a very large number mourned the deaths of children or of parents. The inquiry into the affair was delegated by the emperor to the Senate and by the Senate to the consuls. When the case was presented once more to the Senate, the Pompeians as a community were banned from holding any similar assembly for ten years, and the associations which they had formed illegally were dissolved. Livineius and the others behind the outbreak were exiled.

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- Tacitus: gladiatorial munera; historian 1st century CE- only riot at a munus (that we know of): most likely the lack of

serious factions and the fact that the crown had a direct role in the outcome of the match (they voted on who go mission) probably had an impact on the result of the games

- event took place in 59 CE and may have had nothing to do with the games

- there were tensions between these colonies from long ago and had to do with competing statuses as colonies of Rome

- this is a very serious punishment that was handed out to them – losing games for this long usually indicates that there is something else (potential treason or issues with the emperor) behind the punishment

- very clearly not about Nika given that Tacitus says this is about a gladiatorial munus and also lived some 300 years before those riots.

Text IV

We still have to examine the most famed and popular spectacle: it is called munus from being an officium, for munus and officium are synonyms. People in the past thought they were performing a duty to the dead with this form of spectacle after they moderated its nature with a more refined form of cruelty. Long ago, since they believed that the souls of the dead are appeased by human blood, they purchased captives or slaves of poor quality and sacrificed them at funerals. Afterwards, they preferred to disguise this unholy practice by making it something to enjoy. Thus, after they trained the people they had obtained these ways to wield the weapons they had as best they could (training them to learn how to die!), they then exposed them to death at the tombs on the day appointed for sacrifices in honor of the dead. And so it was that they consoled themselves with murder. That is the origin of the gladiatorial munus.

- this went wrong for most people the moment they did not know it was by a Christan – despite the fact that this was the first reading in the reader. I think we should not delve into the disasters that ensued when people did not realize that.

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