About this episode
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the significance and implications of the Roman arena as a venue for public entertainment.
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the countless venues across the Roman Empire which for over five hundred years drew the biggest crowds both in the Republic and under the Emperors. The shows there delighted the masses who knew, no matter how low their place in society, they were much better off than the gladiators about to fight or the beasts to be slaughtered. Some of the Roman elites were disgusted, seeing this popular entertainment as morally corrupting and un-Roman. Moral degradation was a less immediate concern though than the overspill of violence. There was a constant threat of gladiators being used as a private army and while those of the elite wealthy enough to stage the shows hoped to win great prestige, they risked disappointing a crowd which could quickly become a mob and turn on them. With Kathleen Coleman James Loeb Professor of the Classics at Harvard University John Pearce Reader in Archaeology at King’s College London And Matthew Nicholls Fellow and Senior Tutor at St John’s College, Oxford Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: C. A. Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster (Princeton University Press, 1993) Roger Dunkle…
People in this episode
Host: Melvyn Bragg
Guests: Misha Glenny, Kathleen Coleman, John Pearce, Matthew Nicholls
Topics covered
- Roman Empire
- gladiators
- entertainment
- violence
- moral corruption
- crowd psychology
Keywords
- Roman arena
- gladiators
- public entertainment
- crowd dynamics
- moral degradation
- violence in Rome
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Harvard University, King’s College London, St John’s College, Oxford
Books & works: The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster, Gladiators: Violence and Spectacle in Ancient Rome, The Lure of the Arena: Social Psychology and the Crowd at the Roman Games, Blood in the Arena: The Spectacle of Roman Power
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