The bright sunshine outside the door hurt my eyes and I stopped at every fountain57 to drink and splash more water over my head. It took nearly twenty minutes to walk the short distance to Lucias' house, where my feeble call of "Door! Door! 58" set my head to throbbing. The doorman took one look at me and guided me to a chair, speaking in a hushed whisper.
"I'll get Lord Lucias for you, sir."
"There you are, Arxes," Lucias greeted me in a ringing voice when he came into the hall. "Come on, let's go!"
Fortunately his manner became more sympathetic once we were out of the house.
"By all the gods, my friend, you look as though you should have been cremated59 several days ago."
"I feel like I'm ready for cremation," I groaned.
"What was the initiation like?"
I shook my head. "It's a mystery," I rebuked him60 .
"Wine's no mystery," Lucias laughed, "and you've been worshipping Bacchus as enthusiastically as any sailor!"
I shook my head and set my lips. The mysteries that the god had vouchsafed to me were not to be discussed in the open road. Seeing that he couldn't get anything out of me Lucias changed his tack.
"Did you get your girl yesterday? What's she like?" He sniffed loudly and ostentatiously61.
"She's great!" I exclaimed, glad to have a safe subject about which to talk. "She's from Gaul and she's got yellow hair."
Lucias whistled. "I'll bet that was expensive!"
"She was," I boasted. "My father won't tell me how much he ended up paying, but when he was bargaining I overheard the dealer demanding four thousand sestertii - and Dad was offering nearly two thousand."
"You lucky guy!" Lucias sounded impressed. "I wish I had a girl of my own."
"It's a shame Scapha isn't for sale," I sympathised.
"Who?" Lucias looked startled. "Oh, Scapha."
"Hey!" I punched his arm playfully. "Don't tell me you're keen on someone else now? Who said women were unfaithful lovers?"
Lucias had the grace to look abashed. "You know how I said yesterday that the only girl I want is Scapha? Well, that's not entirely true." His face took on a slightly pinkish hue. "I'm in love - really in love - with another girl; the most beautiful girl in the world."
"Who is she?" I grinned. In the short time62 I had known him Lucias seemed to be always falling in love.
"Her name is Mysticus, the daughter of Euryalus."
I whistled. The girl had a reputation as a great beauty and was made even more attractive by the fact that her father was rich and could be expected to give her a generous marriage portion63. Lucias could expect some tough competition if he hoped to gain her hand - and that was to ignore the prejudice her father was likely to hold against a Roman suitor.
"When did you meet her?" I asked.
"Oh, I've never spoken to her," Lucias was definitely blushing, "but every morning she goes to the market with an older woman - probably her nurse - and a couple of slaves. She passes right by our house. I fell in love with her the first time I saw her."
"But how did you discover her name?"
"That was easy. I followed her to the market one day - that's how I know where she goes - and while she was busy at a shop I bribed one of the slaves to tell me who she was and where she lived."
"And do you want to marry her or have her as your mistress?" I demanded.
"Marry her, of course!" Lucias sounded indignant.
"Have you spoken to your father about her?"
Lucias shook his head. "I'm going to. I've made up my mind to ask my father to try and arrange a wedding once this year's course of lectures was over, provided, of course, that I get a good mark from old Athenodorus. That's why I've been studying so hard lately."
I nodded. I go in considerable awe of Varrus Corfidio Tubero, a stern, strict Roman of the old school who insists that his slaves greet him morning and night and would cheerfully condemn his only son to death, if only to prove that he holds by the ancient Roman virtues64 . Good marks from school are one of the few things that might soften him.
A roar from the crowd in the amphitheatre interrupted any further conversation. I glanced up at the flags that were visible above the house-tops in front of us.
"Have the games started?" I asked.
"They've been bellowing like that for the last hour or so," Lucias replied. "I thought you'd forgotten about the games."
"Not me!" I assured him. "I may not be a Roman65 but I can still enjoy a good fight."
There were the usual food-sellers, prostitutes and jugglers clustered around the arcades of the amphitheatre66, but there were few customers this early in the proceedings. Even the soldiers on guard were lounging in the shade, telling jokes or eyeing the heterae as they walked past with their hips swaying. There were no ticket-sellers, just slaves carrying placards bearing the name of Marcus Sertorius and urging everyone to vote for him.
"Ave, Rufus," Lucias greeted the centurion who was sitting by the stairs, his helmet resting on his knees.
"Ave, young man, wild animals enter round the other side," the centurion teased.
"Don't you know a gladiator when you see one?" Lucias demanded.
"Where's your net and trident67?" the centurion laughed.
We felt our way up the stairs, in too much of a hurry to stop and let our eyes become accustomed to the shadow, and emerged into the sunshine near the top of the arena. There were a few empty seats here and we pushed our way past sitting people to a place where we could sit together.
We seemed to have arrived at the end of one of the acts, for slaves were dragging the body of a leopard68out of the arena while other slaves walked back and forth pouring sand over the huge bloodstains which showed that someone had put up a tremendous fight.
"What's been going on?" I asked the man next to me when we finally found a seat.
"A fight between that leopard and a hunter with a spear and his dogs. You missed a good show."
"He got the beast," Lucias commented.
"The leopard nearly got him," the man retorted. "Great gash in his arm, all pouring with blood. Terrific! And you should have seen the dogs: kept coming back to the attack even though the leopard was tossing them around like balls. You should have seen the way they shot through the air! 69"
"What was the procession like?" Lucias asked.
The man shrugged. "Usual thing. The editor in his chariot, surrounded by his clients70 and a crowd of slaves carrying 'Vote for Me' placards, then came the priests, augurs and priestesses with a bull for a sacrifice. They were followed by a cohort of soldiers, just to remind us all to behave ourselves, and after them the gladiators and other contestants, with the criminals bringing up the rear."
I sat back and watched the preparations for the next act: slaves hurried about bringing potted bushes and planting them here and there to make the place resemble a garden or a forest. I looked round me at the crowd - families from every class of society - and beyond them to the editor, who was paying for the games in order to win the favour of the mob in the forthcoming elections. He was lolling in the seat of honour cracking jokes with the common people near him in an effort to win favour.
"What's next?" I asked the man beside me.
"I'm not sure," he replied. "I think it's a criminal of some sort." He leaned forward and called along the row. "What's on next?"
A woman sitting at the end of the row with two young children looked up. "It's the peripsema71. They say she's a witch and a poisoner who has killed three people, including her husband and stepson," she added with a shiver.
Lucias nudged me. "What was that word she used?"
"Peripsema," I told him.
"Rubbish or sweepings?" Lucias looked puzzled.
"Well, yes," I conceded, "but it also means someone who has committed a particularly horrible crime and whose death will be pleasing to the gods. It's almost a religious act to watch a peripsema being killed." I leaned forward and attracted the woman's attention. "What's going to happen to the peripsema?"
"There's two of them," the woman said, her eyes sparkling with anticipation. "The mother is going to be thrown to a pack of Molossian hounds and the daughter is going to be punished like Dirce72 ."
I nodded and sat back, trying not to lean against the legs of the people behind me. I should have found a pretty girl to sit in front of, then leaning back would have been a pleasure. I closed my eyes and let the warm sun and the breeze wash over me.
Vaguely, as if from a great distance, I heard a woman screaming and a confused noise of barking and growling and then a great roar from the crowd jolted me awake73. I jerked upright and opened my eyes. A naked woman74 was sprinting across the sand-covered floor of the arena, hurdling the small bushes and crashing through the larger ones. Close behind her bounded a pack of tawny coloured hounds, gaining rapidly.
"Wake up!" Lucias grabbed my arm and shook me. "Oh, you are awake."
"Of course I am," I grumbled. "What's going on?"
"They've just loosed the dogs," Lucias didn't turn his head to look at me. "There! Look! They've got her!"
The woman screamed again as the dogs surrounded her, snarling and snapping, tearing great bloody chunks of flesh from her arms and legs until she collapsed and fell face down. The crowd roared and bellowed, men pounding one another on the back, women screaming and raking their faces with their fingernails and the children jumping up and down and yelling with excitement. Down in the arena the dogs swarmed all over the body, yanking it this way and that as they devoured it.
The dead woman was barely recognisable as human when the arena gate opened and the dogs' owner came in, followed by a dozen circus slaves armed with whips and shields. Everyone seemed a little disappointed when the dogs were successfully gathered up without anyone else getting hurt.
Then came the poisoner's daughter, a moderately pretty young girl, naked except for a garland of flowers around her loins that only emphasised her puppy fat. Half a dozen brawny slaves held a bull still while the girl's wrists were tied to its wide-spread horns. For a long moment after they let go and scattered nothing happened, but then the bull snorted and tossed its head. The girl's body jerked and the bull seemed to take fright. It moved forward, scooping the girl up onto its head, and then it went wild, charging in all directions, snorting and leaping as it tried to rid itself of its burden. The girl's body flailed back and forth and she sceamed desperately for a minute or two until her arms broke and she must have gone unconscious. After that it was fairly boring; the frantic bull eventually smashed into the side of the arena, crushing the girl and breaking one of its horns and a hunter came and killed it with a spear.
Games are always the same: moments of intense excitement interspersed with periods of boredom as the slaves clear away the remains and set the stage for the next act. I closed my eyes as the carefully planted shrubbery was uprooted and carried off and the bodies dragged out by the Gate of Death.
"You provincials," Lucias sounded scornful. "In Rome we have things much better organised. Hundreds of slaves who can clear the arena and set the stage in moments."
"Big deal!" I nodded towards the editor, who was standing up in his box and shouting something. "That wouldn't give our generous friend enough time to win any votes."
"Hey! Prizes!"
While the circus slaves scurried around clearing up, the editor's personal slaves wheeled a tiny ballista into the centre of the arena and pulled the arm back. One of them busied himself at the business end and then the editor gave a signal and a slave pulled the trigger, firing half a dozen tiny pots into the crowd opposite us.
"Over here! Over here!" the crowd beside me roared, waving frantically to the slaves down in the arena.
Slowly the slaves wound the arm of the ballista back again and heaved the whole machine round so that it was aimed a few degrees further to the right. A dozen shots later it was pointing straight at us and Lucias and I tensed our muscles to jump and catch one of the flying pots.
The slave pulled the trigger, but not one of the little jars came anywhere near us, which was probably just as well. One landed about ten rows below us, almost in the lap of an attractive young girl who was sitting there with her nurse. Instantly a hundred men and women launched themselves at the pair and there was a frightful commotion as people fought for the prize. When the struggle was over and attendants had carried off the nine people who were injured - including the attractive girl and her nurse - we learned that the prize was only a bead necklace to be claimed at the jewellers behind the Pireine Fountain, though rumour declared that someone over the other side had won a farm in Attica75 .
The next act was a venatione, when half a dozen hunters stalked double their number of Spanish aurochs76. That was followed by a couple of boxing matches, the first between a wild bear and a timid young fellow from Scythia, who was so cowardly that he had to be urged on with red-hot irons - and ended up losing; the bear had to be dispatched with javelins. The second was between two giants, one from Germany and the other from Egypt. They fought with spiked gloves weighted with lead77 and Lucias and I cheered the barbarian because all the blues were yelling for the Egyptian. We were delighted when our man split open the skull of his opponent after first mashing his face to a pulp.
"My father says that the games are good for me," Lucias remarked as we waited for the next act to be set up. "He says that when someone who is free-born sees how slaves can fight it makes him more courageous78 ."
I nodded. Slaves could be surprisingly brave, even if usually they were cringing cowards. Greek history was full of stories of helots who fought beside their masters in an emergency, Roman history told of whole armies of freed slaves raised at different times, and, of course, there was always the story of Spartacus, when an army of slaves and gladiators held out for years against the might of Rome.
"We Greeks," I boasted, "we prefer to see free men competing. You wait till you see the Isthmian games, when there are races and athletic contests. Each man is striving for honour: the only prize is a wreath of pine-needles79."
A burst of pipe music announced the arrival of a wedding party, the bride and groom pacing in sedately while five richly dressed men danced a complicated Attic dance before them. Half a dozen torchbearers walked on either side of the procession while a crowd of relatives and well-wishers brought up the rear, shouting the usual blessings and well-wishes. For a moment I was too taken up with ogling the half-naked flute girls to pay any attention to the dancers, but when I finally shifted my gaze to them I couldn't help chuckling. Despite their purple robes and festive garlands, I've never seen a rougher bunch of toughs in my life. Their dance wasn't complicated: it was incompetent!
Other people must have noticed this at the same time, for a wave of laughter washed around the amphitheatre as these unlikely revellers tripped and stumbled over their robes and each other. After a minute or so, however, the spectacle began to pall and I was just about to turn away and say something to Lucius when out of the corner of my eye I spotted one of the torchbearers reach out and touch his torch to the back of one of the dancer's garments. Instantly the robe burst into flames and the unfortunate dancer leaped around in good earnest, beating desperately at his garments. The sight of his frantic efforts was as good as a picnic! We all roared with laughter, even after he collapsed and lay still in a smouldering heap.
What made the spectacle even more funny was the reaction of the other dancers. Seeing their comrade go up in smoke led them to redouble their efforts and the flute girls were hard put to keep pace with their leaping and skipping. Eventually, however, they tired and slowed and someone must have given a signal, because again one of the torchbearers lowered his torch and another robe burst into flames.
Finally there was only one man left and this was where the real fun began. You could see the sweat pouring down his face as he tried desperately to keep time to the music, but as he circled, first one and then another of the torchbearers would make a pass at him with his torch and the dancer would shy and spring away. It was so funny that even the flute girls kept breaking into laughter and the music itself would stagger and stumble. Then the circle of torchbearers began to close in on the dancer, who whirled from one side to the other, trying to evade the advancing flames, until at last either he stumbled onto a torch or the editor gave a signal and a burst of orange fire marked the end of the act80 .
Even then the crowd was not satisfied; half of them expected to see the bride and groom burn as well and as the wedding procession passed out of the gate there were yells of "Burn the bride! Burn the bride!" It was noticeable that the bridal pair quickened their pace considerably at this, because when the mob took over and started demanding something it was usually safest to give them what they wanted, even if that meant a totally unrehearsed death or two81.
The next act was the punishment of another criminal, a slave who had attacked his master and was torn apart by red-hot pincers. The man screamed for mercy and hopped about amusingly when the pincers were applied, but after a while the spectacle became repetitious and boring and it was rather a relief when he stopped twitching and was cleared away. The day ended with a series of gladiatorial combats where the score was one man dead and another with his right arm chopped off82 .
"Come on!" Lucias jumped up as soon as the issue of the last pair of gladiators seemed certain, "Let's go before we get caught in the crowd."
57 The site of Corinth had a number of springs but, like most Roman cities, a plentiful supply of water was required. In later times this was supplied by an aquaduct all the way from Stymphalos. Pausanias, in his Guide to Greece II.iii describes some of them: "Behind him [a statue of Herakles in the agora] is the entrance to the water of Peirene. They say of it that Peirene was a human being who by her weeping became a water-spirit. She was wailing for Kenchrias her son, whom Artemis killed by accident. The spring has been ornamented with white stone and chambers constructed like grottoes, from which the water runs out to the basin in the open air; the water is sweet to drink."
A little later he adds, "Corinth has plenty of baths, some publicly constructed and one put up by the emperor Hadrian. The best known of them is near Poseidon. . . . A great number of public fountains have been constructed all over the city, as they have abundant streams and also Hadrian's aquaduct from Symphalos. The best fountain to see is by the statue of Artemis: Bellerophon stands over it and the water come rushing through the hoof of Pegasos."
In a later book (VIII.xxii) he says, "There is a Stymphelian spring from which the emperor Hadrian has brought water to the city of Corinth." This must have been well over thirty miles away. Return
58 According to Menander's plays, this was the common way of attracting the attention of someone in the house. Often people knocked as well. For example, in Old Cantankerous, a cook helping to prepare a sacrifice at a shrine discovers that his female assistants have forgotten a cooking pot. "What are we going to do now? Have to bother the god's neighbours, I suppose. [He knocks at Knemon's door] Door! Honestly, I can't imagine a more useless set of girls anywhere. Door! Nothing in their heads but sex. Door, please! And then lies, if anyone catches them at it. Do-or! What the devil's wrong here? DOOR! Not a soul at home." (p. 35) Return
59 Pliny, in his Natural History VII.liv records, "Cremation was not actually an old practice at Rome: the dead used to be buried, but cremation was instituted after it became known that the bodies of those fallen in wars abroad were dug up again. All the same, many families kept on the old ritual." The Greeks, however, commonly cremated their dead. Return
60 It was not merely piety that held Arxes back from revealing the secrets of the mysteries to Lucias. Initiates into the mystery of Bacchus were threatened with dire punishments, rather like those initiated into the Masonic mystery. In his On the True Doctrine Celsus claims that the Christians "babble about God day and night in their impious and sullied way; they arouse the awe of the illiterate with their false descriptions of the punishments awaiting those who have sinned. Thus they behave like the guardians of the Bacchic mysteries, who never tire of talking about the phantoms and terrors that await those who reveal the secrets to outsiders." (p. 77) Not all the punishments were divine: Plutarch tells us that Alcibiades was exiled from Athens because he acted out a parody of the Eleusinian Mysteries in the presence of non-initiates. Return
61 Men wore perfume to make themselves attractive before sleeping with their wives or girl-friends. Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews IV.i, tells us that after the assassination of Caligula, Agrippa, who had been active about the body of his friend, wanted to appear uninvolved. "When he had said this to Claudius, he retired home and, upon the senate's sending for him, he anointed his head with ointment, as if he had lately accompanied with his wife and had dismissed her, and then came to them." Return
62 In his The Twelve Caesars Suetonius tells us that Julius Caesar made a new law. "Since the population of Rome had been considerably diminished by the transfer of 80,000 men to overseas colonies, he forbade any citizen between the ages of twenty and forty, who was not serving in the army, to absent himself from Italy for more than three years in succession." (p. 32) Lucias' father, therefore, cannot have been in Corinth for more than a year or two. Return
63 Dowries, dowry-hunters and husbands who embezzled their wives' dowries, were stock subjects of Greek drama. The Arbitration, a play by Menander, is constructed around such a theme. The following lines of dialogue (p. 100) between Onesimos, a slave, and Smikrines, an offended father-in-law, may be of interest, not only for what they say about dowries but also for the insight they give into Greek conceptions of God.
Onesimos [opening door]: Who is it? Oh, it's Smikrines, old Grumpy, come to fetch his dowry and his daughter.
Smikrines: Yes, it is, blast you.
Onesimos: Quite right too. A smart man, one with all his marbles, doesn't waste time. And embezzlement of a dowry is so remarkable an occurrence.
Smikrines: God in heaven . . .
Onesimos: Do you really think God has so little to do, Smikrines, that he can dole out good and bad every day to every individual?
Smikrines: I don't understand.
Onesimos: I'll explain — in words of one syllable. There are, in round numbers, a thousand cities, right? And thirty thousand inhabitants in each. Does God bless or punish every one of them individually?
Smikrines: Of course not. That would make his life a burden!
64 Suetonius, in The Twelve Caesars, remarks concerning the emperor Galba (born 3 BC) that "even as a young man he faithfully observed the national custom, already ancient and obsolescent, which survived only in his own household, of summoning his slaves twice a day in a body to wish him good-morning and good-night, one after the other." (p. 249)
There are a number of stories of Roman generals ordering the immediate execution of their sons who had disobeyed orders. In these stories the father is praised for putting discipline before affection and the son for accepting paternal condemnation in a fitting spirit of filial piety. Livy, in his History of Rome XXIV.xxxvii, quotes an officer exhorting his troops: "We Romans believe that to abandon one's post is a capital offence; even fathers have put their sons to death as punishment for that crime." However, in the earlier part of his history (IV.xxx) he remarks, "The memory of these splendid achievements is darkened by a story that the dictator's son, who, seeing a chance of distinguishing himself, had left his post without orders, was executed for insubordination in the very moment of success. One hesitates to believe this tale." He also mentions another such incident with which the name of Manlius is connected and which gave rise to the phrase "Manlian discipline". Return
65 The Greeks engaged in athletic competitions such as foot-races, discus and javelin throwing and wrestling. Blood sports grew out of the Roman custom of funeral games (and before that, probably, out of human sacrifice at the grave) and included animal hunts, public executions, live sex shows and gladiatorial combats. Cultured Greeks looked down their noses at these degrading exhibitions but the ordinary populace quickly took to them. As a Roman colony, Corinth had an amphitheatre early, whose shows became so popular that eventually the town theatre was adapted to take games and combats, and drama was relegated to the much smaller Odeion. Return
66 Both were for the convenience of the games crowd. The games usually went on all day, hence the need for the food-sellers, and the adrenalin and lust aroused by the sight of men killing each other or women being raped and tortured provided the occasion for the prostitutes.
As far as the effect on the viewer was concerned, the Roman circus and modern television are virtually indistinguishable. To the student of ancient literature, the "modern" debate about the influence of sex and violence upon those who watch has a curious feeling of deja vu. Seneca is supposed to have had the following conversation with a spectator at the games.
"'But,' my neighbour says to me, 'that man whom you pity was a highway robber.'
"'Very well then, hang him, but why nail him to a cross and set wild beasts on him?'
"'But he killed a man!'
"'Let him be condemned to death in his turn. He deserves it. But you, what have you done that you should be condemned to watch such a spectacle?'"
67 Gladiators were divided into categories according to the weapons with which they fought. Retiarii carried a fishing net with which they tried to entangle or trip their opponent, whom they then dispatched with their trident. Return
68 Leopards were well known in the ancient world, but the first use of the word "leopard" in Greek is in Ignatius' Epistle to the Romans, which was penned about 108 AD. Return
69 Veteran games-goers affected a certain sophistication in their brutal tastes. Pliny, in his Natural History VIII.vii describes a battle between soldiers and elephants: "Also in Pompey's second consulship, at the dedication of the Temple of Venus Victrix, twenty (or as some record, seventeen) elephants fought in the Circus, their opponents being Gaetulians armed with javelins, one of the animals putting up a marvellous fight. Its feet being disabled by wounds, it crawled against the hordes of the enemy on its knees, snatching their shields from them and throwing them into the air and these, as they fell, delighted the spectators by the curves they described, as if they were being thrown by a skilled juggler and not by an infuriated wild animal." Return
70 The Romans - and Corinth was a Roman colony - had a complicated system of social climbers known as 'clients' who attached themselves to one politician or another. Clients would come to greet their 'patron' every morning, attend him at public meetings and support him with their fists or their votes as required. In return they received gifts of money and the patron's influence in the courts or in society. Pliny, in his Natural History VII.xxxvi mentions a certain Publius Catienus Philotimus who "loved his patron so dearly that he threw himself upon his funeral pyre, although left heir to the whole of his property." Return
71 This word, translated 'off-scouring' in the KJV, occurs in 1 Corinthians 4:13. Return
72 According to Greek legend, the twin sons of Antiope killed Dirce and her husband Lycus in revenge for the way they treated Antiope. In his first Letter to the Corinthians IV.ii Clement speaks of Christian martyrs, saying "Through jealousy women were persecuted as Danaids and Dircae, suffering terrible and unholy indignities. They steadfastly finished the course of faith and received a noble reward, weak in the body though they were." In a footnote Professor Lake says, "No satisfactory interpretation has ever been given of this phrase." A mosaic in Pula, Croatia, depicting the punishment of Dirce, shows that she was killed by a bull, which meant being tied to the horns of a bull which was then let loose. Return
73 In his Confessions VI.viii St
Augustine tells the story of a certain Alypius, one of his friends, who
"went to Rome ahead of me to study law and there, strange to relate, he became obsessed with an extra-ordinary craving for gladiatorial shows. At first he detested these displays and refused to attend them, but one day, during the season for this cruel and bloodthirsty sport, he happened to meet some friends and fellow-students returning from their dinner. In a friendly way they brushed aside his resistance and his stubborn protests and carried him off to the arena.
"'You may drag me there bodily,' he protested, 'but do you imagine that you can make me watch the show and give my mind to it? I shall be there but it will be just as if I were not present and I shall prove myself stronger than you or the games.'
"He did not manage to deter them by what he said and, perhaps, the very reason why they took him with them was to discover whether he would be as good as his word. When they arrived at the arena, the place was seething with the lust for cruelty. They found seats as best they could and Alypius shut his eyes tightly, determined to have nothing to do with these atrocities. If only he had closed his ears as well! For an incident in the fight drew a great roar from the crowd and this thrilled him so deeply that he could not contain his curiosity. Whatever had caused the uproar, he was confident that, if he saw it, he would find it repulsive and remain master of himself. So he opened his eyes and his soul was stabbed with a wound more deadly than any which the gladiator, who he was so anxious to see, had received in his body. He fell, and fell more pitifully than the man whose fall had drawn that roar of excitement from the crowd. The din had pierced his ears and forced him to open his eyes, laying his soul open to receive the wound which struck it down. This was presumption, not courage. The weakness of his soul was in relying upon itself instead of trusting in You.
"When he saw the blood, it was as though he had drunk a deep draught of savage passion. Instead of turning away, he fixed his eyes upon the scene and drank in all its frenzy, unaware of what he was doing. He revelled in the wickedness of the fighting and was drunk with the fascination of bloodshed. He was no longer the man who had come to the arena but simply one of the crowd which he had joined, a fit companion for the friends who had brought him.
"Need I say more? He watched and cheered and grew hot with excitement, and when he left the arena he carried away with him a diseased mind which would leave him no peace until he came back again, no longer simply together with the friends who had first dragged him here, but at their head, leading new sheep to the slaughter. Yet You stretched out your almighty, ever merciful hand, O God, and rescued him from this madness. You taught him to trust in you, not in himself. But this was much later." Return
74 Procopius, in The Secret History, describes the antics of Theodora, Justinian's wife, and remarks in passing, "Often in the theatre, too, in full view of all the people she would throw off her clothes and stand naked in their midst, having only a girdle about her private parts and her groins - not, however, because she was ashamed to expose these also to the public, but because no one is allowed to appear there absolutely naked: a girdle round the groins is compulsory." (p. 84) The pagans were less scrupulous, for Eusebius, in The History of the Church, describes the sufferings of the Christians: "Women were tied by one foot and hoisted high in the air, head downwards, their bodies completely naked without a morsel of clothing." (p. 265) Return
75 Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews XIX.xiii, describes one such distribution of goodies in a theatre: "As there was abundance of autumnal fruit thrown among the spectators, and a great number of birds that were of great value to such as possessed them, on account of their rareness, Caius [Caligula] was pleased with the birds fighting for the fruits and with the violence wherewith the spectators seized upon them." Return
76 The aurochs was some sort of wild bull, now extinct. Return
77 The caestus consisted of leather straps studded with lumps of lead and, in later times, with nails as well. These were wound around the boxer's knuckles, a far cry from the padded gloves of modern times which are designed to lessen injury, not create it. Return
78 Cicero is supposed to have said, "It does the people good to see that even slaves can fight bravely. If a mere slave can show such courage, what then can a Roman do? Besides, the games harden a warrior people to sights of carnage and prepares them for battle." Return
79 The Isthmian Games were held in the spring of every second year and nearly rivalled the Olympic Games for prestige. The games began in 582 BC and were still being held (in odd numbered years) in Paul's day. Pliny, in Natural History XV.ix, tells us that "the winners in the games at the Isthmus are crowned with a wreath of pine leaves." Isthmia was only about six miles from Corinth. Return
80 Plutarch, in his essay On God's Slowness to Punish, inveighs against those who think that the apparently successful wicked are really happy. "Some people, however, behave exactly like children: they gaze at criminals in the theatre, who may well be dressed in robes shot with gold and in purple cloaks, wearing garlands and dancing victory dances, and they are so impressed and amazed that they think they are happy, until they see them being stabbed and lashed and see those florid, expensive clothes bursting into flames." (p. 264) The robes were, in fact, soaked in flammable substances and known as tunica molesta. Return
81 Compare this with the martyrdom of Polycarp. Eusebius, in his History of the Church, tells us that the aged saint was treated with dignity and respect until he reached the amphitheatre in Smyrna. Even there the Asiarch, the governor, showed him favour but the crowd "loudly demanded that the Asiarch Philip should set a lion on Polycarp. He objected that this would be illegal, as he had closed the sports. Then a shout went up from every throat that Polycarp must be burnt alive. . . . The rest followed in less time than it takes to describe: the crowds rushed to collect logs and faggots from workshops and public baths, the Jews as usual joining in with more enthusiasm than anyone." (p. 121) Return
82 Gladiators were expensive to train and keep. Particularly in the smaller provincial towns - such as Corinth - fights were not pressed to the death and, indeed, were often choreographed and 'fixed'. Of course, when you are playing with sharp swords accidents are bound to happen, even in the best-run affairs. Return