An interesting article, though perhaps a future article may be worth considering. No surprise it was brutal to watch or be the entertainment, but did that brutality carry over to the streets of Rome where people lived and worked, and level of violent crime and murder against average people?
I enjoyed this article. When I was a kid there was a tired joke about only having read Playboy magazine for the interviews. Thing was, Playboy actually offered really good long form interviews! So, I promise you, I only read this article for the interesting analysis, not for any prurient depictions of Roman beastliness. Honest.
"The sheer scale of the operation in capturing, transporting, feeding and delivering these beasts was enormous, and it’s hard to imagine any industry less productive than the one that provided wild animals for mass slaughter."
It certainly set a template for the gaining and exploiting of animals for circuses, zoos and various illegal hunting and trading companies in later societies.
Thanks for this essay, I had never considered the sheer scope of the effort needed to maintain the "circus." And it reminded me of a professor I had at university who studied the anti-bellum rural American South. He often said: "It was a violent era and violent men often settled their disputes violently."
Apparently, one reason for the spread of Christianity in its early years was that Christians had a reputation for looking after each other. Their religious conviction was that each person was loved by God and thus was deserving of good treatment in normal times and of charity when in difficulty. This was in marked contrast to the pagan society around them, in which human life was cheap.
Thank you for another interesting and informative article.
Just as an aside, I’m very doubtful as to the veracity of the account of Commodus having killed five hippopotamuses with his bow and arrows.
A hippo’s skin is about 6 centimetres thick and so extraordinarily tough that it is essentially proof against anything short of a very high powered hunting rifle. As British soldiers found, not infrequently to their cost, during the WW1 campaigns in Africa, even a military issue .303 was completely ineffective in stopping a charging hippo, and today a modern safari guide would typically carry a .375 or a .450 nitro express to protect guests against a potential hippo attack - guns with a recoil powerful enough to break your shoulder!
Although, of course, if Commodus claimed to have performed such a feat, it would have taken a brave man to have contradicted him!
Most of the reports of Commodus' actions in the arena come from Dio, who would have witnessed them, sometimes in abject terror, as described in the article. He describes how the emperor sometimes killed hundreds of animals in one day - especially ostriches - and that the fights were never 'fair'.
This, of course, is to be expected because although Commodus was reportedly quite adept, he was no professional fighter and there was no way anyone would let him fight animals that hadn't at first been hobbled in some fashion.
It's not described how he killed the hippos, and the bow is not really a very 'noble' weapon in Roman circles, so I suspect the animals probably died from blood loss from other wounds rather than from him peppering them with arrows.
An interesting article, though perhaps a future article may be worth considering. No surprise it was brutal to watch or be the entertainment, but did that brutality carry over to the streets of Rome where people lived and worked, and level of violent crime and murder against average people?
I touched on this a little in an article about whether Rome had a police force, here - https://jamescoverley.substack.com/p/did-ancient-rome-have-a-police-force?r=2pal2f
But I could certainly write something more in depth!
I enjoyed this article. When I was a kid there was a tired joke about only having read Playboy magazine for the interviews. Thing was, Playboy actually offered really good long form interviews! So, I promise you, I only read this article for the interesting analysis, not for any prurient depictions of Roman beastliness. Honest.
"The sheer scale of the operation in capturing, transporting, feeding and delivering these beasts was enormous, and it’s hard to imagine any industry less productive than the one that provided wild animals for mass slaughter."
It certainly set a template for the gaining and exploiting of animals for circuses, zoos and various illegal hunting and trading companies in later societies.
Thanks for this essay, I had never considered the sheer scope of the effort needed to maintain the "circus." And it reminded me of a professor I had at university who studied the anti-bellum rural American South. He often said: "It was a violent era and violent men often settled their disputes violently."
SCOBIE, ALEX. "Slums, Sanitation, and Mortality in the Roman World" Klio, vol. 68, no. 68, 1986, pp. 399-433. https://doi.org/10.1524/klio.1986.68.68.399
Apparently, one reason for the spread of Christianity in its early years was that Christians had a reputation for looking after each other. Their religious conviction was that each person was loved by God and thus was deserving of good treatment in normal times and of charity when in difficulty. This was in marked contrast to the pagan society around them, in which human life was cheap.
Thank you for another interesting and informative article.
Just as an aside, I’m very doubtful as to the veracity of the account of Commodus having killed five hippopotamuses with his bow and arrows.
A hippo’s skin is about 6 centimetres thick and so extraordinarily tough that it is essentially proof against anything short of a very high powered hunting rifle. As British soldiers found, not infrequently to their cost, during the WW1 campaigns in Africa, even a military issue .303 was completely ineffective in stopping a charging hippo, and today a modern safari guide would typically carry a .375 or a .450 nitro express to protect guests against a potential hippo attack - guns with a recoil powerful enough to break your shoulder!
Although, of course, if Commodus claimed to have performed such a feat, it would have taken a brave man to have contradicted him!
Most of the reports of Commodus' actions in the arena come from Dio, who would have witnessed them, sometimes in abject terror, as described in the article. He describes how the emperor sometimes killed hundreds of animals in one day - especially ostriches - and that the fights were never 'fair'.
This, of course, is to be expected because although Commodus was reportedly quite adept, he was no professional fighter and there was no way anyone would let him fight animals that hadn't at first been hobbled in some fashion.
It's not described how he killed the hippos, and the bow is not really a very 'noble' weapon in Roman circles, so I suspect the animals probably died from blood loss from other wounds rather than from him peppering them with arrows.
Once I learned about sexual revenge (shoving a live fish up a cheating spouse's ass) I kind of checked out.
This is what Mark Zuckerberg valorises? The whole Aut nihil aut zuck ?