Why did the Byzantines fucking love chariot racing instead of the Roman tradition of gladiators?

>Even by the 2nd century, Gladiator games were more game than blood. If there was any killing, it was mostly animals.
That varied wildly, in a ruthlessly hierarchical fashion. Well known gladiator types like Murmillos and Retiarius would have been the rock-stars of the gladiator world, and their financiers would have been loath to part with such a prize investment.

But lower ranking gladiators like Bestiarii would have lived truly wretched lives and have been considered disposable assets, while the Romans never ceased coming up with fantastically cruel, depraved, and creative ways to kill criminals or prisoners of war. Pompey Magnus once notoriously pit an army of "criminals" (most likely men who had been rounded up without a trial or prisoners of war) and forced them to fight an army of elephants. Beast-men who could figure out how to train an animal to rape a woman were held in infamous regard. The height of Roman blood-sport depravity took place under the reign of Commodus, who himself participated in the games, fighting rigged matches against secretly wounded gladiators or gladiators armed with dull weapons for him to slaughter for his own amusement.

>Beast-men who could figure out how to train an animal to rape a woman were held in infamous regard.

I've kind of thought of it as being a sort of mob mentality or something to belong to. Kind of like why people identify with a hockey or football team more than with boxers.

You kind of feel an instant bond with other fans of the same team because of a shared connection ie the greens and blues being the teams with enormous fan bases in the byz empire. I feel like it would be harder to pull that same sort of feeling around gladiators cause people are dying/getting wounded constantly.

>He's a Blue

It's actually difficult to imagine the depravity of a people whose entertainment was watching a woman get raped to death by a donkey, or do things like make a few female gladiators fight a bunch of dwarves dressed as gladiators, or watch two "criminals" on a seesaw trying to jump away from starving lions but sending the other plunging into their claws, or a "criminal" being made to wear stilts in an effort to draw out the killing in an entertaining fashion. Even for the popular high ranking gladiator types like murmillo, promoters who didn't allow enough gladiators to die were seen as stingy.

The whole "Greeks are effeminate" meme comes from Romans mocking visiting Greeks who would become physically ill at the sight of so much death and cruelty

NIKA

NIKA

Jeeeeesus titty-fucking Christ

NIKA

I thought restraint with regard to killing your gladiators was normal (because lolmoney) and most fights were flesh wound bout type deals or battle scenes. Not that they didn't get up to crazy shenanigans like you said.

Can anyone corroborate this? Shit's insane.

It would have been a delicate balancing act between not being wasteful with your expensive, well trained gladiators, verses giving the people what they want.

Wounded gladiators were often euthanized with a giant mallet to squish their head in a blow delivered by a guy dressed like the god of the underworld.

i really, really hope this is true
where are you getting this

>Christianity
>playing a big role in the 3rd century

Mostly from books. I'll see what I can dig up as far as online sources

Ah yes, the little known Romanized version of Hades, the God of death Gallagher.

Nice Christian propaganda you got there

Normally Gladiator fights were glorified wrestling matches and the average Gladiator fought around 6 to 8 times a year

chariot racing was always more popular than gladiatorial games, even during the pax romana

Thanks but if you know any good books about the games specifically or in depth about it I would wanna be directed to that instead.

t. LARPing neo-pagan apologist

>Claudius was constantly giving gladiatorial munera, for he took great pleasure in them, and he even aroused criticism because of this. Very few wild beasts perished, but a great many human beings did, some of them fighting with each other and others being devoured by the animals

Cassius Dio, Roman History

>The Romans staged spectacles of fighting gladiators not merely at their festivals and in their theatres, borrowing the custom from the Etruscans, but also at their banquets...some would invite their friends to dinner...that they might witness two or three pairs of contestants in gladiatorial combat...when sated with dining and drink, they called in the gladiators. No sooner did one have his throat cut than the masters applauded with delight at this fight

Ausonius, Athenaeus

>Caesar, upon his return to Rome, did not omit to pronounce before the people a magnificent account of his victory,... After the triumphs, he distributed rewards to his soldiers, and treated the people with feasting and shows. He entertained the whole people together at one feast, where twenty-two thousand dining couches were laid out; and he made a display of gladiators, and of battles by sea, in honour, as he said, of his daughter Julia, though she had been long since dead. When these shows were over, an account was taken of the people who, from three hundred and twenty thousand, were now reduced to one hundred and fifty thousand

Plutarch, Julius Caesar

> For example, there was lately in a training-school for wild-beast gladiators a German, who was making ready for the morning exhibition; he withdrew in order to relieve himself, – the only thing which he was allowed to do in secret... While so engaged, he seized the stick of wood, tipped with a sponge, which was devoted to the vilest uses, and stuffed it, just as it was, down his throat; thus he blocked up his windpipe, and choked the breath from his body

Seneca, Moral letters

you got it

"The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster" by Carlin A. Barton. (She is a personal favorite of mine, a Roman scholar who specializes in the infantilization of Roman society which occurs during the transition from Republic to Empire. Reading her books totally changed the way that I look at Romans)

"Cruelty and Civilization: The Roman Games" by Auguet Roland

"Blood in the Arena: The Spectacle of Roman Power" by Alison Futrell

"Gladiators" by Michael Grant

"Entertainment and Violence in Ancient Rome: The Attitudes of Roman Writers of the First Century A. D" By Magnus Wistrand

"Sport in Greece and Rome." By H. A. Harris

Oh shit that's juicy, thanks a lot bud

cheers

Fuckin saved

RACE WAR NOW

I kekked.

Noble sport like chariot racing >>> mongrels fighting in the dirt

Gladiator fights were a Roman thing, so the Byzantines didn't do it on account of them not being Roman

>Was fighting to the death considered un-Christian or some shit?
Yes.
Chariots were a big deal in Roman and Greek times, though.

It was still small but not irrelevant by 250, that's when Decius started his persecution. You don't implement an Empire wide persecution on something you don't consider a threat

freaking kek

What are the Latin/Greek words for bait?

Baitus/ Baiton, respectively

You cant possibly take these numbers at face value.

Perhaps, (though even in his time Julius Caesar was a legendary maestro of the games who truly outdid everyone who came before in terms of grandeur and spectacle) but even if they are exaggerated they do show the appalling disregard for life that the Romans exhibited when it came to the games, and that death was an expected and regular component of bloodsport, not the harmless "glorified wrestling" that pagan LARPers try to claim that it was

Yes it was. The church has put a super no-no on killing people for fun so they turned to the next best thing: chariot races.

The fact that you're reading this from the words of wealthy, educated Romans tells you that different straits of Roman society felt differently about the games, they were highly divisive and that affected the way they were conducted throughout the years. Big festivals with a lot of death were noteworthy precisely because they were exceptions, due to costs and whether someone with the money actually wanted to be liked by the lowlife plebs. It worked for Caesar, but when Crassus had slaves fight Elephants, the public saw the animals suffering as excessive and turned against him.

When there wasnt big money involved, gladiatorial combat was limited to non lethal matches between amateurs, some glorified executions and a lot of juggling, comedy acts and other circus shows in the mean time.

Only 17% of gladiators died, if i remember where the statistic is from i'll bring it.

>fighting to the death
>gladiators
are you drunk or retarded ?

they probably still did funny execution in the hippo

Esca is the Latin term

>Why did the Byzantines fucking love chariot racing instead of the Roman tradition of gladiators?
Same reason why we watch Horce racing today... nobody dies. It became immoral and unthinkable. Life became more precious.

>nobody dies
Chariot racers were the lowest of the low, usually criminals and such exactly because it was so dangerous

imagine watching wrestling but all they do is beat eachother with sticks and the best view you have is a story up and 50 ft away, nobody wanted to watch them its boring.

>So it's like normalfag running across a field sport (NFL/football)
Its more like ancient nascar, including the part where people only watch it for the crashes.

>Gladiators were WWE, chariots were NASCAR

America really is modern Rome in the worst ways

I went to the primary sources to scratch the surface. There was no clear consensus among the educated elite about the games, some thought it was strengthening the martial spirit of the country, others thought of it as tawdry circus. But make no mistake: every decently sized Roman town had its own amphitheater. It was a ubiquitous aspect of Roman culture.

>Crassus
You’re thinking of Pompey Magnus

>"...does it serve any useful purpose to know that Pompey was the first to exhibit the slaughter of eighteen elephants in the Circus, pitting criminals against them in a mimic battle? He, a leader of the state and one who, according to report, was conspicuous among the leaders of old for the kindness of his heart, thought it a notable kind of spectacle to kill human beings after a new fashion. Do they fight to the death? That is not enough! Are they torn to pieces? That is not enough! Let them be crushed by animals of monstrous bulk! Better would it be that these things pass into oblivion lest hereafter some all-powerful man should learn them and be jealous of an act that was nowise human. O, what blindness does great prosperity cast upon our minds! When he was casting so many troops of wretched human beings to wild beasts born under a different sky, when he was proclaiming war between creatures so ill matched, when he was shedding so much blood before the eyes of the Roman people, who itself was soon to be forced to shed more. He then believed that he was beyond the power of Nature. But later this same man, betrayed by Alexandrine treachery, offered himself to the dagger of the vilest slave, and then at last discovered what an empty boast his surname was."
~Seneca

The Romans were horrified because the remaining few elephants stopped fighting and began running around the arena balling their eyes out, and they thought of it as poetic justice that Pompey was murdered almost as soon as he set foot on the African continent and the homeland of the elephants.

>You’re thinking of Pompey
Ah, that's why I was confused.

>17%
That’s almost 1 in 5 odds, that’s still pretty fucking high for a highly trained professional, and that statistic almost certainly doesn’t reflect things like the number of people dying from damnatio ad bestiad or prisoners of war being made to fight to the death.

There’s a reason why gladiators who earned the Rudis were considered so exceptional.

>That’s almost 1 in 5 odds, that’s still pretty fucking high for a highly trained professional, and that statistic almost certainly doesn’t reflect things like the number of people dying from damnatio ad bestiad or prisoners of war being made to fight to the death.

Most gladiators were not top tier, highly trained professionals from big name schools(which took care of their pupils), but random schmucks. People becoming one voluntarily was an often mentioned thing, so we know plenty were just weekend warriors gambling or trying to pay debts. Not all fought in big Arenas either, small towns that likely had a reduced supply of prisoners or spare slaves still had an Arena, couldnt have been too lethal if you could expect to seea fight in Britain for example.

Besides, Gladiators werent actually trained to be efficient killers, they often put on a show, followed scripts, did fancy moves and displays of skill and 'honor' to entertain the public, and we have the image of the emperor or people deciding to spare or kill a wounded fighter when that would rarely happen.

*Also, that number would correspond to their entire careers.

There are numerous accounts of gladiators being used to train legionaries, that simply wouldn’t have happened if they were more show than substance.

The reason they left their torsos exposed but covered their limbs and head was because if they took a wound in the arm it would be career ending humiliation, but if they were going to take in the chest they’d rather it be a clean wound that kills them quickly.

They also had specific gladiators who were specifically show fighters, fighting with wooden swords and wrapped in bandages slapping each other on the keisters to the sound of whimsical music. Showmanship has its place but the prime time fighters that people betted on would have been the real deal: a murmillo knew that a retiarius would have beaten him in a contest of endurance and would have sought to end the fight as quickly as possible.

They were less like professional wrestlers and more like professional boxers.

But still only reflects one specific aspect of the games and ignores just how bloody it would get when they started butchering “criminals”

>The reason they left their torsos exposed but covered their limbs and head was because if they took a wound in the arm it would be career ending humiliation, but if they were going to take in the chest they’d rather it be a clean wound that kills them quickly.

Wasnt it to allow them to sustain big, gaping wounds that would shock the audience? I recall reading that gladiators were overfed just so they had more flesh and could lose "meat" without dying.

>and then at last discovered what an empty boast his surname was.
Seems people disliked his tendency to steal glory of others.

Which source do you have about this ?

Chariots were always more popular than gladiator fights.

>He entertained the whole people together at one feast, where twenty-two thousand dining couches were laid out; and he made a display of gladiators, and of battles by sea, in honour, as he said, of his daughter Julia, though she had been long since dead. When these shows were over, an account was taken of the people who, from three hundred and twenty thousanHe entertained the whole people together at one feast, where twenty-two thousand dining couches were laid out; and he made a display of gladiators, and of battles by sea, in honour, as he said, of his daughter Julia, though she had been long since dead. When these shows were over, an account was taken of the people who, from three hundred and twenty thousand, were now reduced to one hundred and fifty thousand
d, were now reduced to one hundred and fifty thousand

What? Is this just gladiator deaths? How do you just lose 170k people? How would this boost your popularity in any way? Unless there were 320k people living it up and 170k went home before the party was over.

>Same reason why we watch racing today... nobody dies.

Are you guys retarded or what, the only reason people watch racing is to see them crash and burn. Chariot races were worse than pod races, everyone trying everything to gain an edge, taking bribes, generally fucking the rules, you can even see people die in OP's pic for shitsake.

>Can anyone corroborate this?
>Which source do you have about this ?

we dont have a lot for the more outrageous claims.Its likely it was christian Romans shit talking the earlier pagan ones.

Its hard to tell what it was really like. For every story of the murderous games we are contrasted by sources such as the Hoplomachus being forbidden from using his spear after throwing it.They seem obsessed with fairness only certain classes were allowed to face of for that fact.

Ive tried tracking down the more outrageous sexual ones that are routinely posted on this site and beyond but i can never find any physical evidence they actually happened.
When Arsinoe IV (14 at the time)was dragged through Rome naked and chained for ceasar's victory parade the Romans were outraged and demanded she be released.Since she was greek the upper class Romans in the front rows could hear and understand her sobs and cries.

Found this in one of my books,

Marcus Aurelius specifically made it a point to try and promote bloodless show-fights but it got him nowhere, while Claudius had more typical Roman sensibilities and loved blood-sport, having a particular hatred for retiarius and always ordering the wounded ones to be killed

>Wasnt it to allow them to sustain big, gaping wounds that would shock the audience? I recall reading that gladiators were overfed just so they had more flesh and could lose "meat" without dying.
You would have wanted to avoid laceration wounds at all costs, owing to the was a high probability of infection.

The reason gladiators went full bear-mode was for the same reason why boxers try to be at the maximum weight that their class allows: because weight pushes weight.

It was probably a head count of slaves, criminals/convicts, and prisoners of war, perhaps exaggerated, but keep in mind that Julius Caesar fucking FLOODED the area and staged mock naval battles, employing hundreds of men at a single time.

Caesar was famous for going way above and beyond what anyone else had ever conceived the games as being, and the plebs would have loved the non-stop barrage of spectacle

Chariot racing was just as roman as gladiatorial fights
Gladiators also did not fight to the death

>we dont have a lot for the more outrageous claims.Its likely it was christian Romans shit talking the earlier pagan ones.
Pagan Roman elites wrote plenty down lamenting the decline of moral fiber in their society, nor were they above horribly smearing their political enemies.

> hey seem obsessed with fairness only certain classes were allowed to face of for that fact
Modern sports fans don't really consider it a thrilling game when one team is clearly dominating the other, even if it's the team they want. The most memorable games are considered the ones where there is uncertainty in the outcome and has you on your toes until the very last moment. Blood-sport would have been no different. It was "fairness" only inasmuch as it promoted a thrilling fight worth betting on. And occasionally they'd mix things up and make mismatched gladiators fight each other, but these tended to be lopsided affairs which favored the more heavily armored gladiator and was probably only done when a light gladiator was particularly skillful.

There's always a context. The tamest of the Christian persecutions was the Neronic persecutions which horrified the Romans not because of the violence but because they thought that Nero had started the fire and was trying to deflect criticism.

>outrageous sexual ones ... physical evidence they actually happened.
evidence of Roman lasciviousness is fucking everywhere, both in the historiographic and in the archaeological record. In the ruins of Pompeii there are literally dicks all over the place. Roman grafitti is raunchy as hell. Roman elites were massive hypocrites despondent at the decline of moral values in their society but nevertheless indulging themselves: hell even Julius Caesar was called the Queen of Bithynia owing to his fondness for cross-dressing. A bestiarii named Carpophorus was so skilled that he could train giraffes to rape women

>evidence of Roman lasciviousness
you misunderstand im not talking about the phallocentric Roman culture or their personal sexual habits of the citizens (but if you asked a Roman woman for a blowjob she'd give you a slap since they found the act repugnant).Im talking about the infamous "100 blonde girls raped by baboons" story or paintings such as these

>giraffes to rape women
i had done some digging on that tale years ago and found it was largely made up with no source.A quick google search i got this statement.

"I wrote to Newton to inquire about this statement, and he only vaguely recalls that his source might have been the notoriously fanciful quasi-fictional book about gladiator games, Those About to Die by Daniel P. Mannix. Indeed, in chapter 5 of that book, Mannix spins a wholly fictional and very lurid tale about a beast trainer whose work includes inducing various animal, including giraffes, to have sex with women prisoners"

fuckin furries man

this, has no one seen ben hur or what

>hell even Julius Caesar was called the Queen of Bithynia owing to his fondness for cross-dressing.

That was a rumor made by his enemies after he befriended and spent time with the king of Bythinia to cement good relationships between countries, it refered to him bottoming for the king in a gay affair. Romans loved making up insane bullshit that only plebs would believe, gossiping was their favorite past time.

Most emperors were smeared the fuck out of.

>the only reason people watch racing is to see them crash and burn

fucking burgers

But the killing is just a means to an end. It's not the goal.

It's true.

It's basically going from Rugby to Football, the plebs are pleased more and you make more off gambling