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The Lure of the Arena: Social Psychology and the Crowd at the Roman Games
Why did the Romans turn out in their tens of thousands to watch brutal gladiatorial games? Previous studies have tried to explain the attraction of the arena by theorizing about its cultural function in Roman society. The games have been seen as celebrations of the violence of empire or of Rome's martial heritage or as manifestations of the emperor's power. The desire to watch has therefore been limited to the Roman context & rendered alien to modern sensibilities. Yet the historical record reveals that people living in quite different times & circumstances (including our own) have regularly come out in large numbers to watch public rituals of violence such as executions, floggings, animal-baiting, cudgeling, pugilism & so on. Appreciating the social-psychological dynamics at work in attracting people to watch such events not only deepens our understanding of the spectator at the Roman games but also suggests something important about ourselves.
- GenresHistory
374 pages, Paperback
First published February 17, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 9, 2023
Recommended by a lecturer for my Violence in Rome module next year.
What the author does well is tackle the subject from various angles and times in the Roman World i.e psychology of the spectators watching the animal fights/ hunts and gladiators etc whilst understanding why some admired/ didn’t take to other scenes.
Interesting read with some noteworthy details and dates.
Important to note that the deadbeats/ criminals were almost likely to have a bad reception if they killed the opponents as the crowd generally desired for wrong doers of the law to be severely punished.
The author also offers some decent pictures/ drawings of various aspects which helps illustrate the themes more.
Some parts of Chapters 2+3 were irrelevant for me as they focused on Medieval Germany and France instead.
What the author does well is tackle the subject from various angles and times in the Roman World i.e psychology of the spectators watching the animal fights/ hunts and gladiators etc whilst understanding why some admired/ didn’t take to other scenes.
Interesting read with some noteworthy details and dates.
Important to note that the deadbeats/ criminals were almost likely to have a bad reception if they killed the opponents as the crowd generally desired for wrong doers of the law to be severely punished.
The author also offers some decent pictures/ drawings of various aspects which helps illustrate the themes more.
Some parts of Chapters 2+3 were irrelevant for me as they focused on Medieval Germany and France instead.
July 11, 2013
Fagan's Lure is at once a narrow study of what we know and are able to surmise about the Roman audience at gladiatorial games and a broad consideration of the near universal appeal of bloody spectacle. As such, it is a study attentive to both sameness and difference, reflections of the past informing understandings of the present and vice versa.
Gladiatorial combats are first attested from 264 B.C.E., continuing into the Christian hegemony. In their developed form they occurred within a broader ludic context, with, generally speaking, animal shows in the morning, executions at midday and the fights themselves in the afternoon. The Colosseum, a preferred venue after its completion in 80 C.E., could hold 50-80,000 and, by all accounts, was regularly filled to capacity for the gladiatorial highlights. Similar games were held throughout—and spread with--the empire.
In many respects the games were comparable to modern sporting events. Advertised by wall posters, detailed in programs, the games were a mass phenomenon, up to 5-8% of the urban population attending a day's Colosseum events. Enormous crowds, apparently led by cheerleaders, chanted for—and apparently wagered upon—favorites, accompanied by organ music punctuated by trumpet blasts. Contestants were, for the most part, skilled professionals, trained in “team” identifying camps, owned by prominent citizens, including the emperor himself.
In other respects the games were quite different, most notably in outcomes. The players weren't free agents. They were usually slaves. Many would actually die in combat, more be disabled, their “professional” lives being harsh, brutal and, usually, short; their fates being in thrall to their owners and to the whims of the crowds.
Fagan, primarily concerned with what drew the crowds and how they behaved, devotes considerable attention to social, particularly crowd, psychology. Much of the content of his book is to outline applications of contemporary theory to attitudes towards and practices of violence. What he provides is a wide consideration of such cases applied to the ancients, ending more with a range of interpretative possibilities than with any tendentiously simple and clear-cut conclusions. Due consideration is paid to cultural differences between ourselves today and Romans then, but an additional historical survey spanning world cultures across the millennia, a chapter entitled “A Catalog of Cruelty,” is sufficient to suggest underlying factors obtaining to the nature of humans and their societies leading to the “unsettling realization that the lure of the brutalities staged in the Roman arena may well lie closer to home than many of us might like to think.”
Gladiatorial combats are first attested from 264 B.C.E., continuing into the Christian hegemony. In their developed form they occurred within a broader ludic context, with, generally speaking, animal shows in the morning, executions at midday and the fights themselves in the afternoon. The Colosseum, a preferred venue after its completion in 80 C.E., could hold 50-80,000 and, by all accounts, was regularly filled to capacity for the gladiatorial highlights. Similar games were held throughout—and spread with--the empire.
In many respects the games were comparable to modern sporting events. Advertised by wall posters, detailed in programs, the games were a mass phenomenon, up to 5-8% of the urban population attending a day's Colosseum events. Enormous crowds, apparently led by cheerleaders, chanted for—and apparently wagered upon—favorites, accompanied by organ music punctuated by trumpet blasts. Contestants were, for the most part, skilled professionals, trained in “team” identifying camps, owned by prominent citizens, including the emperor himself.
In other respects the games were quite different, most notably in outcomes. The players weren't free agents. They were usually slaves. Many would actually die in combat, more be disabled, their “professional” lives being harsh, brutal and, usually, short; their fates being in thrall to their owners and to the whims of the crowds.
Fagan, primarily concerned with what drew the crowds and how they behaved, devotes considerable attention to social, particularly crowd, psychology. Much of the content of his book is to outline applications of contemporary theory to attitudes towards and practices of violence. What he provides is a wide consideration of such cases applied to the ancients, ending more with a range of interpretative possibilities than with any tendentiously simple and clear-cut conclusions. Due consideration is paid to cultural differences between ourselves today and Romans then, but an additional historical survey spanning world cultures across the millennia, a chapter entitled “A Catalog of Cruelty,” is sufficient to suggest underlying factors obtaining to the nature of humans and their societies leading to the “unsettling realization that the lure of the brutalities staged in the Roman arena may well lie closer to home than many of us might like to think.”
December 31, 2012
Very well-researched and well-argued insight into the appeal of violent spectacle in the Roman world.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews