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Comment by fnord77 | Hacker News Reader

what changed in the world that ended these types of death spectacles?

Christianity. When Emperor Constantine converted Rome to Christianity, he began laying out various restrictions on the games including prohibiting it being used as a punishment or even as an option for criminals, forbade the branding of gladiators, and so forth. Emperor Honorius would then completely ban the games, which had already dwindled by then, in honor of the martyrdom of Saint Telemachus. [1]

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Telemachus

I guess, but the Catholics brought the death spectacles --- human sacrifice, essentially --- back in another form and kept them going until the 1600s.

Could you please elaborate what you are talking about?

The Catholic Church, amongst others, regularly executed heretics, often by immolation.

Most of the time it was not the church that did the execution. The church was more an expertise if you will and delivered the suspect to civil authorities with a judgement. The civil authorities then did what the law called for.

In the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, this is a distinction without a difference. Further, throughout much of the European history of the Catholic church, the distinction between the church and the executive function of the state was practically nonexistent.

I'm just saying we shouldn't get on a high horse about "death spectacles".

A lot of things in history, with regards to the negative impacts of religion, have been rather exaggerated. For instance during the Spanish Inquisition a total of ~3,000 people were put to death [1] over a period of 356 years. So that's a total of 8 people per year. And of course that was throughout the entire Spanish Empire and not just modern day Spain. So, in other words, on average substantially more people were killed by lightning per year than by the Spanish Inquisition.

The reason not to get on a high horse over it however is simply because comparing the norms of one time to the norms of another is quite pointless. The Romans did great things and they did awful things. Like pretty much every culture to have ever existed and most likely like every culture that ever will exist. And comparing which did worse, outside of obvious extremes, is not meaningful if even possible.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition#Death_toll...

I could litigate the first paragraph you wrote but we agree about the second one.

Witch burning, with the capacity to have any woman for any reason marked as a witch.

Witch burning ran largely on public sentiment. It wasn't democratic per say, but relied on a community turning on its members, either out of paranoia or jealousy. More akin to a slow and formalized mob lynching than some top down affair.

But they also ended the human sacrifice in Latin America.

While continuing it themselves in a different capacity.

(I'm Catholic; I'm not dunking on Catholicism.)

The last public execution in the USA was in 1936.

There have been recent (1990s and later) discussions on televised executions in the USA.

This is not only anathema, but also abhorrent to people who live in countries without the death penalty.

These "death spectacles" are far from ended. There are definitely people who would welcome their return.

Here's a serious analysis from the USDOJ in 1999 named "Televising Executions, Primetime "Live"?"

Its annotation is "This article examines the pathways to a televised execution, including First Amendment issues, principles of open government and victims' rights."

https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/televisi...

Bullfighting is still a thing.

I think you should ask the reverse: What was unique about that time period that created these spectacles?

Entertainment and fighting have always existed (and still do), but usually not to the death.

> and still do), but usually not to the death

It usually wasn’t to the death in ancient Rome either. Unless your were being executed.

I don’t think that the violence part was unique in any way, Romans were the first commercialize it and scale it up to such an extent though.

> what changed in the world that ended these types of death spectacles?

I'm afraid that the only thing stopping it are legal barriers to transport and hold such animals.

lack of lions

Lack of gladiators?

The "news" brings you all the death you want, daily. If you want to try it out for yourself there's plenty of Antifa-type organisations to give it a go. If activism isn't your thing you can join a football (the real type, not that silly American game) hooligan tribe for your ritual combat urges. Still not your thing? Join a gang.

Gladiator 'games' were part of the 'panem et circensis' or 'bread and circuses/games' strategy to keep the populace from revolting against the powers that be. They've been replaced by the above, and more. If the silly plebs still seem to be restless there's always another crisis at hand to keep them down, from climate to COVID to whatever comes next.

> what changed in the world that ended these types of death spectacles?

Nothing. Today we have Hollywood and "news" television. 24/7 violence.

We like to pretend that stuntmen do not get injured and die all the time in hollywood productions.

Are you sarcastic or is it that bad to be a stunt man?

It's rather bad.

Sometimes you don't even need to be a stuntman for it to be bad. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Lee

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