Horrors of the Colosseum | Hacker News Reader

Horrors of the Colosseum

livescience.com

51 pointsdiodorus15 comments

These words by Paul, writing to the Corinthians circa 55 AD, are prescient:

"For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake [...] when reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things."

The author goes on a bit about how Rome lost its values and this was the beginning of the collapse. That's fair enough since the Romans spent a good amount of time telling each other the same thing.

But it's a mistake to apply what we think today to how they felt about things. One of the things the Romans lamented was the fact that after the Greek conquest, some Romans were taking to using beds at night! Beds! Every real Roman slept on the ground, where it was natural.

Likewise with the "Horrors of the Colosseum". We think of the animal acts as horrendous -- and they were, to us. To Romans, who knew death on a much more personal level, it was entertaining but not profoundly obscene. (Can you imagine what it would be like to live in a huge city in Roman times without modern medicine? You had to pass dozens in the street every day either dying or almost dead)

They were not without standards. In the history of one of the Christian martyrs, Perputua, there's a story of women stripped naked and put in a net -- in order for the animals to take them. The crowd was horried, however. Why? Because one of the women had just given birth and was still producing milk. So they demanded she be clothed, she was, and the animals proceeded to destroy them all.*

The Romans were a bloodthirsty bunch, for sure. But they did have what they considered to be high moral standards. Those standards just don't match up to the ones we have today. (I'm not trying to make a case for relative morality, simply pointing out that you have to learn and accept the Romans in their own terms. Otherwise you'll be making all kinds of assumptions that simply aren't true)

1. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/maps/...

* Also interesting was that the Romans selected female animals to kill the women. Because of course that was the right thing to do.

That's just relativism, and falls very far short of what we know based on the MSS available.

I doubt the victims felt no pain, or felt no injustice. Mob violence has been around for centuries.

we are still the same disgusting species

I thought the case for these atrocities being inflicted on Christians was patchy - written by mostly Christian converts, hundreds of years after that occured.

There are plenty of record of numerous games where the same events occurred, and there are non-Christian records of Christians being persecuted. The balance of the evidence seems to be mostly that it did occur - they were pretty brutal times, and we should probably be more surprised if they hadn't.

Christians weren't exactly saints if we take an overall look of events.

But I guess that's besides the point.

Tacitus wrote about Nero's persecution of Christians and blamed him for making people feel sympathy with those losers by excessive cruelty.

If you go to the colosseum, the official guides / explanation boards actually state that there is no evidence of Christian martyrdom in the colosseum, and that most was retroactively invented in the Middle Ages..

Makes you question other tales told in the article. Though it's an interesting read.

...should at least make you question the official guides.

No extant suggestion or evidence (fairly disputable that there's none) is not the same as "never happened in the Colosseum", and certainly "retroactively invented" in entirety (highly disputable) does not follow from "never happened in the Colosseum".

Here's what a non-Christian Roman Senator and preminint historian of his time, who spent some of his time in charge of foreign cults in Rome, and was alive during the time of Nero, had to say:

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But neither human help, nor imperial munificence, nor all the modes of placating Heaven, could stifle scandal or dispel the belief that the fire had taken place by order. Therefore, to scotch the rumour, Nero substituted as culprits, and punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices,27 whom the crowd styled Christians.

28 Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus,29 and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judaea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue.

First, then, the confessed members of the sect were arrested; next, on their disclosures, vast numbers 30 were convicted, not so much on the count of arson as for hatred of the human race.

31 And derision accompanied their end: they were covered with wild beasts' skins and torn to death by dogs; or they were fastened on crosses, and, when daylight failed were burned to serve as lamps by night. Nero had offered his Gardens for the spectacle, and gave an exhibition in his Circus, mixing with the crowd in the habit of a charioteer, or mounted on his car.

Hence, in spite of a guilt which had earned the most exemplary punishment, there arose a sentiment of pity, due to the impression that they were being sacrificed not for the welfare of the state but to the ferocity of a single man.

I had heard this story on a podcast history of Rome but the original is great to see (I knew it as Nero sought to blame Christians and even went as far as to light his parties by burning Christians on crosses. The Roman public, instead of blaming the Christians essentially said that guys gotta go)

Between Nero's persecution in AD 64 and the Decian persecutions in 250, there's very little evidence for state-led persecutions of Christians.

The timeline is roughly (apologies if dates are inexact, but this is roughly correct from memory):

AD64: Nero perseuctes the Christians in Rome, who at that time were a tiny community

AD 65-249: Christianity is largely ignored and left to grow in peace. During this time, Rome enjoys a golden age under five virtuous emperors, then begins to disintegrate under the reign of various tyrants and opportunists.

AD 250-260: Rome is falling apart under various civil wars and there's two major state-led persecutions (by Decian and Valerian) of Christians. (The motivation being "rid the Empire of this impious cult which is weakening our social fabric").

AD 260-300: The "long peace of the Church", where Christianity is officially tolerated.

AD 300-310: Diocletian comes to power and starts a brutal series of persecutions to wipe out Christianity for good. It's from the Diocletian persecution that most of the images of brutal Roman suppression come from.

AD 310-325: Various civil wars, leading Constantine to come to power.

AD 325: Constantine establishes Christianity as the state religion.

So though there's one small persecution in 64, then two medium-sized persecutions in the 250s, then a massive persecution in the 300s, between these Christianity is either ignored or tolerated by the Roman state. There's evidence of mobs of Roman citizens attacking Christians independently of any state backing, but aside from that, Christians were largely left alone for a 200 year period.

This is the age of the 5 "enlightened" emperors - Trajan's attitude is informative. The Romans saw Christians as impious atheists (for not worshipping the Roman gods) and superstitious cultists (for following a novel religion), and they were troubled by the growth of this sect; Trajan took it for granted that Christians who refused to worship the Roman gods should be punished. But, he also states that actively seeking out Christians would be "out of keeping with the spirit of our age"- a weird Roman kind of tolerance, but there you go.

"You observed proper procedure, my dear Pliny, in sifting the cases of those who had been denounced to you as Christians. For it is not possible to lay down any general rule to serve as a kind of fixed standard. They are not to be sought out; if they are denounced and proved guilty, they are to be punished, with this reservation, that whoever denies that he is a Christian and really proves it--that is, by worshiping our gods--even though he was under suspicion in the past, shall obtain pardon through repentance. But anonymously posted accusations ought to have no place in any prosecution. For this is both a dangerous kind of precedent and out of keeping with the spirit of our age."

(Trajan's letter to Pliny here: http://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/pliny.html)

"Between Nero's persecution in AD 64 and the Decian persecutions in 250, there's very little evidence for state-led persecutions of Christians."

"So though there's one small persecution in 64, then two medium-sized persecutions in the 250s, then a massive persecution in the 300s, between these Christianity is either ignored or tolerated by the Roman state. There's evidence of mobs of Roman citizens attacking Christians independently of any state backing, but aside from that, Christians were largely left alone for a 200 year period."

That's reductionist and misleading. Sure, the state did not always actively mandate pogroms, as you quote Trajan ("they are not to be sought out"), except at least for the dates you describe (and not only those) when it actively did.

But for the rest of the time, neither did the state uphold the rights of Christians. The rights of Christians were at times essentially nil. The state tolerated the persecution of Christians and often partook when requested. Governors were free to execute Christians merely on the basis of being denounced. If anything else, the Trajan letter you quote should make that clear.

To say therefore that this lack of active mandate by the state implies a lack of persecution is careless, and against the grain of evidence.

Take this with a grain of salt. After all, Europeans could only contemplate why Colosseum was needed somewhere at the start of XX century. Before that, the modern concept of "stadium" as a place of mass watching of sport performed by professionals was unknown.

Yes, we only then caught up to Rome.

Gladiators were perhaps boxers and ice hockey players of Roman age. Yes, it was dangerous and traumatic, but rarely lethal and very famous.

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