World expert and film consultant debunks 3 gladiator myths

Big Think ^ | NOVEMBER 14, 2023 | Jonny Thomson

[Red Badger]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpastum

[ClearCase_guy]

I enjoyed reading this. I was entertained.

[Rennes Templar]

“I’m not surprised that MMA is the fastest growing sport.”

I am an athlete, love sports and great athletes including boxing, and I always will. But I have no interest in MMA.

[Red Badger]

You like articles about gladiators?................

[SkyDancer]

I like the movie “Leather Heads” Football at its finest. Same team plays both offense and defense and hardly any rules.

[Tell It Right]

Yes, American football was derived from Rugby...which was derived from Medieval Ball.

[brent13a]

Now, about those Christians and lions....

Unbiased historical records show that some christians were executed by large wild beasts, including lions…… probably. More were executed by fire and crucifixion than anything else though. It is also historical record that the christians of the time that were executed went out of their way to welcome such deaths as martyrs, so the practice of targeting christians in that way was stopped. Also, when christianity became the main religion of the empire, the executions of criminals by lions and other beasts wasn't stopped, and in fact continued.

[dljordan]

Good one!

[Noumenon]

I’ll bet Joey has been in a Turkish prison, though.

[higgmeister]

Of course I knew where he got his handle and he even says at the end of his videos, "The Metatron has spread his wings."

I feel sure that the Metatron, Raffaello Urbani, would totally agree with everything in this article.

[reed13k]

‘For Mariotti, the reason why it is important to challenge myths is to recognize that the Roman people were not alien, brutal, bloodthirsty monsters. They did not gather in tens of thousands to watch torture and death. They gathered to watch a sport. ‘

Welllll....except for that whole christians and lions thing...that was kinda bloodthirsty....

[HartleyMBaldwin]

They had to close the Colosseum in Rome because the lions ate up all the prophets.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks, will ping a little later.

The arenas in HBO’s Rome were authentic to that time period (mid-1st c bc), btw.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Commodus

[snip] Meanwhile, Commodus was lapsing into insanity. He gave Rome a new name, Colonia Commodiana (Colony of Commodus), and imagined that he was the god Hercules, entering the arena to fight as a gladiator or to kill lions with bow and arrow. On December 31, 192, his advisers had him strangled by a champion wrestler, following his announcement the day before that he would assume the consulship, dressed as a gladiator. A grateful Senate proclaimed a new emperor—the city prefect, Publius Helvius Pertinax—but the empire quickly slipped into civil war. [/snip]

https://www.history.com/news/commodus-worst-roman-emperor-gladiator

[snip] In one instance he assembled a large number of men who had lost their feet, dressed them up as serpents, gave them sponges to throw at him in lieu of rocks and clubbed them to death, pretending they were giants. He seems to have been more careful with actual gladiators, never killing any but slicing off the occasional ear or nose. Of course, they had the good sense to let him win their matches.

In all, Commodus reportedly claimed to have won some 12,000 contests in the arena, while also bragging that he had done it left-handed. [/snip]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodus#Commodus_the_gladiator

[snip] Commodus also had a passion for gladiatorial combat, which he took so far as to take to the arena himself, dressed as a secutor. The Romans found Commodus’ gladiatorial combat to be scandalous and disgraceful. According to Herodian, spectators of Commodus thought it unbecoming of an emperor to take up arms in the amphitheater for sport when he could be campaigning against barbarians among other opponents of Rome. The consensus was that it was below his office to participate as a gladiator. Popular rumors spread alleging he was not actually the son of Marcus Aurelius, but of a gladiator his mother Faustina had taken as a lover at the coastal resort of Caieta. [/snip]

[SunkenCiv]

[SunkenCiv]

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[Red Badger]

Commodus was flushed.....................

[Verginius Rufus]

Constantine ended crucifixion.

Tertullian refers to the popular demand, "The Christians to the lion." This may have contributed to the idea that most of the martyrs were killed by lions.