Emperors and Gladiators » książka
Emperors and Gladiators
ISBN-13: 9780415000055 / Angielski / Inna / 1992 / 264 str.
Of all aspects of Roman culture, the gladiatorial contests for which the Romans built their amphitheatres are at once the most fascinating and the most difficult for us to come to terms with. Since antiquity, a number of theories have been put forward to explain their importance. They have been seen as sacrifices to the gods or, at funerals, to the souls of the deceased, as a mechanism for introducing young Romans to the horrors of fighting and as a substitute for the warfare which the Roman people were no longer directly invoved in after the emperors imposed peace in the first two centuries AD.
Of all aspects of Roman coulture, the gladiatorial contests for which the Romans built their amphitheatres are at once the most fascinating and the most difficult for us to come to terms with. A number of theories have been put forward to explain their importance: they have been seen as sacrifices to the gods or, at funerals, to the souls of the deceased; as a mechanism for introducing young Romans to the horrors of fighting; and as a direct substitute for warfare after the impostion of peace. Thomas Wiedeman considers why these theories cannot by themselves explain the importance of the `Games' , their association with the emperors, and their decline as the Roman world became Christian. He argues that gladiators were part of the mythical struggle of order and civilisation against the forces of nature, barbarism and law breaking, representing the possibility of a return to new life from the point of death. And that, rather than Christian Romans rejecting gladitorial games on a humanitarian basis, it was because they were a rival representation of the possibility of resurrection: Easter and Christmas replaced gladiators.
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