The Romans: So Greek it hurts

[caldrail]

Yesterday evening Channel 4 showed two programs about ancient Greece. The first concerned the olympia festival, the second was featured an expose of athenian democracy and all its foibles. As programs they were interesting, but the first program, the one that discussed the ancient version of the olympics, was the one that made my jaw drop on the floor. Now admittedly I was a complete dunce about things hellenistic, but I had no idea just how influential greek culture was. The modern sanitised view of the greeks accentuates their culture, their politics. Truth is, they were actually quite cruel.

 

The modern olympics are based on he premis that its the taking part that matters, not the winning. Even the last man across the line can receive applause if he makes a supreme effort. Not so the greeks. For them it was all about winning. Each olympic festival was named after the winner of the first sprint race. Physical perfection was lauded and the gymnasium has a greek origin, a place where men meet to train and socialise - and yes, to involve themselves in relationships.

 

Thats all very well, but why does this concern the romans? The roman way of life has a great deal of greek influence, even if well-to-do romans sniffed at such things. The roman baths were also gymnasiums. Besides getting clean, romans could work out or compete in sports. This was especially true of contact sports. Wrestling was never entirely popular in Rome - it was a little bit too greek and 'soft' for roman tastes.

 

Boxing was something different. The greeks originally used leather thongs to bind and protect the fist - the 'soft' boxing glove. This later gave way to a leather sleeve = the 'hard' boxing glove. By all accounts, the greeks were only too happy to watch two men batter each other to pulp and apparently facial disfigurement was nothing unusual. This has a parallel in roman times, where the leather 'grip' originally used to support the fist gave way to the metal 'glove', the caestus, which not only protected the hand but allowed considerable damage to be caused by a punch. Both cultures had exactly the same outlook on the violence apart from one important aspect. For the greeks, young men of any social background could enter the games as a boxer, whereas the romans considered it a sport worthy of the infama, the 'infamous', much the same way as gladiators.

 

The Pancration was a sort of all-in fighting, where anything goes except biting and gouging of eyes (which apparently happened anyway). I was astonished to find that this was a greek sport adopted by the romans, and that many descriptions of fights given in books of roman history were in fact descriptions of greek fights.

 

Now I've always said that the ancient world was a violent place, but I had no idea that the greeks were so closely aligned with the romans in terms of their tolerance and admiration of it. The only real difference is that the greeks pursued contact sports for religious reasons, whilst the romans turned it into public entertainment. This also draws into question the origin of gladiatorial combat. I've always accepted the conventional view that etruscan burial rites started it. There are images of a man with a hood over his head using a club against an angry dog. But then again, weren't the etruscans greek influenced themselves? I've read recently that increasingly the etruscan origin of gladiatorial games seems unlikely - that instead there is some sort of greek origin that hasn't come to light.

 

The cultural tolerance of violence that I always associated with the romans is therefore not unique. It seems to be a facet of mediterranean peoples of that area. Last night I learned something important. The romans were so greek it hurt.

Edited July 22, 2007 by caldrail

[Ursus]

With the Greeks, athletics was another manifestation of their cultural ideal of arete, of striving to be the best in everything, the great Homeric ideal that infused every other aspect of life as well. It was another forum of competition and excellence (which implied you might have to trounce your competition to win). From that sense, Greek athletics was different than the Roman spectacles which existed for entertainment and commercialism rather than excellence.

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

One must remember that the way the Greek fought during olympiads and other competition was also a way to prepare for the hoplitic battles which could ( and did not so rarely ) degenerate into a fistfight : the books by Hanson ( inspired by Keegan's "Face of Battle" give a clear view of that fact ). Also the great athlets were from at least the hellenistic time costly and highly trained individuals so that, like the gladiatorial champions of late republican and imperial time, one took care of them with a legislation and a "world league" which oversaw the great championship tour of the Empire.

[Fergalus Carolanii]

It was probably only natural that the Romans incrporated Greek ideas and games into their culture. The helenistic age of Alexander had spread Greek culture and customs throughout the world known to the Romans. Also the Romans would have been in constant contact with Greeks throughout their history. There were greek settlements in both southern Italy and Sicily. At one stage the majority of the Roman Empire was mostly places of the 'Helenistic' world.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Salve, guys!

MODERN BOXING IS CERTAINLY SO GREEK, ROMAN AND ANTIQUE THAT IT HURTS!

From where I am, dementia pugilistica ("punch drunk") should be more than enough to BAN BOXING.

Edited July 27, 2007 by ASCLEPIADES

[caldrail]

One thing I do need to stress is that gladiatorial combat is strictly a roman phenomenon, although its tempting to look for some sort of greek ritual that gave birth to it. I suspect on reflection that the greek arete was blended with roman military virtue to arrive at the first combats, which again it must be stressed were religious in origin, because the fight between two slaves to the death was to spill blood and therefore honour the dead.

 

Boxing, wrestling, pancration etc seem to present in roman life right from the earliest days yet they don't acknowledge this. The first reference to an athletic contest strictly in the greek style is mentioned around 180BC I believe, and such contests only became popular during imperial times and then never really accepted by the general public in the same way as chariot racing or games. Its interesting to note that roman boxing, pugilatio, was very close close to the greek mode apart from the contestants, who became professional slave career fighters much like gladiators. Without the mystique of gladiators these boxers became very brutal in order to win applause, so the adoption of the metal glove was not really suprising. Typically, a roman boxer was recognised by his shaven forehead, a precautionary measure so your opponent couldn't grab hold.

Edited July 23, 2007 by caldrail

[Kosmo]

Greek boxing was a sport that was brutal and dangerous. Even more so was chariot racing the most appreciated sport in Antiquity.

Still the greeks had other sports that did not involved violence like athletics. The romans did not like those soft sports. They turned boxing more violent, they loved the chariot races and the spectacular crashes and they added the ultimate violence, gladiatorial combat, a sport that many greeks really hated.

For greeks some of the sports were violent while most were not. For romans sport was a violent entrateinment.

The romans were seriously more brutal then the greeks.

I really don't think that in an theatrical competition in Athens you would see a man burned at a stake on the stage like we know it happened during a show in imperial Rome.

Romans had a different view of human life and this is visible in their ferocious sports, in cruel public executions turned in entrateinment, in their dull but violent plays etc.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Romans had a different view of human life and this is visible in their ferocious sports, in cruel public executions turned in entrateinment, in their dull but violent plays etc.

Salve, K!

 

Nowadays, "Happy Tree Friends" is a very successful children's TV cartoon.

THIS IS A TYPICAL PIC.

 

I'm sorry, but I wasn't able to post the pic because my image sharing service simply did not acceot it.

 

Anyway, you should see this cartoon on TV or the Web. There is nothing like real-life action.

Edited July 27, 2007 by ASCLEPIADES

[ASCLEPIADES]

Salve, K!

What do you think? I was finally able.

 

Edited July 27, 2007 by ASCLEPIADES

[Kosmo]

Salve A.

Your links don't work, but I'm familiar with this cartoon. Despite the violence in it I think it's irelevant to what romans did. There is a huge difference between imaginary violence and the real thing and even more between something that you watch on a screen and what happens before your eyes.

Sadly, I believe that cruelty it's a common human trait and by that I want to say that many people in all civilisations enjoyed to see other humans suffer. I still feel sick when I remeber reading about a XIV C French small city that payed another city for a criminal so they can brutally execute him.

Still, the way in which diferent civilisations reacted to this desire it's very important. Maybe, real gladiatorial shows will have some succes today but the morality of our civilisation would not let that happen no matter how much imaginary violence and documentaries get us used with the image of violence. And some of the greek subjects of the Empire despised the gladiatorial games where death was always present because they had a different mind set.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Salve, K!

 

Sorry about the pics and links, hope they are right now.

 

I consider that there is a basic sadistic pleasure of variable degree in a sizable proportion of subjects (males specially) in most (if not all) societies, susceptible of huge potentiation in massive groups.

 

Up to there, I think both of us basically agree.

 

The disagreement would come when we try to compare modern societies with the Roman people. As any comparison with historical groups is always largely subjective, and as I don't like this topic enough to get us to the Arena, I would prefer to wait for a more palatable topic, if you don't mind.

 

Cheers and good luck!