The Last Games

[Horatius]

I didn't want to post this in Gini's thread about the last Roman senators but it is realated and reminded me of this. "The last games were held in A.D. 549 on the orders of Totilla the Goth, who had seized Rome in 547 and established himself as emperor. He lived in the still-glittering ruins on the Palatine and apparently thought the chariot races in the Circus Maximus would lend credibility to his charade of an empire. It must've been a pretty miserable show because the decimated population numbered something like 500 when Totilla recaptured the city." http://www.frommers.com/destinations/print...ns&search_type= Don't know where frommers got their info here but 500 people in Rome! That must really have been a tumultuous period. Any good sources for this specific incident still around? Guess with 500 people there wouldn't be many hehe. What a strange and sad episode if true, holding chariot races in an empty city that once ruled the world. Sounds like a good movie scene to me

[Favonius Cornelius]

Interesting topic. Anyone recall when the last official Roman games were?

[Primus Pilus]

http://www.frommers.com/destinations/print...ns&search_type= Don't know where frommers got their info here but 500 people in Rome! That must really have been a tumultuous period. Any good sources for this specific incident still around? Guess with 500 people there wouldn't be many hehe. What a strange and sad episode if true, holding chariot races in an empty city that once ruled the world. Sounds like a good movie scene to me

 

General consensus is that Rome's lowest population post empire was about 20 to 25,000 people and fluctuated somewhere between that and 50,000 up until it's resurgence in the Renaissance period.

 

Perhaps the article is suggesting remnants of citizenship rather than actual inhabitants. Perhaps it's just blatantly false.

 

Procopius (the secretary of Belisarius) records that the last races at the Circus Maximus occurred in 550 in his "Gothic Wars" (Book III, chapt. 37).

[Gini]

Sad is the word. It makes me feel absolutely gutted. Strange to have such as reaction to something so long ago!! I think the population had largely left because of war, starvation and the plague around that time. The Italian countryside has been impoverished as well because of the wars.

Noone has made an accurate movie of this have they?

[Neos Dionysos]

Sad is the word. It makes me feel absolutely gutted. Strange to have such as reaction to something so long ago!! I think the population had largely left because of war, starvation and the plague around that time. The Italian countryside has been impoverished as well because of the wars.

Noone has made an accurate movie of this have they?

 

Nope, and they may never will. Hollywood I don't think the fall of Rome or the period thereafter is worth since people don't want to see such a period. Though I would argue I'm kinda glad since I'd rather have B or C Movies made on the period instead. Sure there isn't great effects and the budgets very low but they also tend to be far more accurate than A movies...

[Kosmo]

Maybe it was not a disaster, but a return to a more economically efficient size. When Rome was great it was a terrible drain on a weak budget.

[caldrail]

Games were held in the provinces well beyond this. The prohibition by Constantine (under pressure from christian campaigners against bloodshed) in 325AD was not fully enforced, and the games fell into decline within Rome certainly. Out on the frontiers, at least in some places, it continued for much longer. I've already come across a reference to gladiators in Burgundy in the early 700's AD. Not a widespread activity anymore, and possibly not continuous to that time either.

[Northern Neil]

As far as I am aware, the population of Rome suffered a fall during the 'reconquest' of Justinian. Prior to that it was as populous and vibrant as it ever had been. The Lombard invasions of the 590's marked the next drop in population, and for many the hiatus between Rome's ancient and mediaeval periods. Henceforth Roman material culture was destroyed and the fusion of Roman Senate and Roman church had become final. But certainly, up to about 550 and possibly a few decades later, 'Roman' life carried on much as before. Complete with games and races.

 

The above post states that the games continued in the provinces for a few more centuries; In Spain, As far as I am aware, the games continue, in modern, purpose built amphitheatres little changed from their imperial forbears.

Edited June 2, 2006 by Northern Neil