Colosseum Lift That Carried Wild Animals Into Arena Rebuilt 176
An anonymous reader writes: Archaeologists have built a replica of the lift that was used to move lions and other wild animals into the Colosseum 1,500 years ago. It is estimated that a million animals may have been killed in the history of the arena. It took a year and a half for the archaeologists and engineers to build the 23ft-high timber lift, using only materials that would have been available to the ancient Romans. Gary Glassman, a director who made a documentary about the project said, "One of the reasons we are attracted to the Colosseum is because of the incredible violence that went on here. The question it poses is, how could such an advanced culture have staged such bloody spectacles? The Colosseum is a snapshot in stone, a physical embodiment of the culture of Rome."
Let me answer this question: (Score:5, Insightful)
"How could such an advanced culture have staged such bloody spectacles?"
Because however you doll up humanity..... people are very primal under the surface, and are capable of a great many violent things.
Re:Let me answer this question: (Score:5, Interesting)
All kinds of engineering talent, organizational expertise, a logistics and trade network that spanned the Mediterranean world; were necessary to run something like the Colosseum. Those loads of wild animals(some pretty exotic) and ample supplies of variously trained gladiators don't just deliver themselves, you know; nor is building that much stadium seating with rocks and manual labor exactly trivial.(Never mind the 'let's flood the place and have a lethal naval battle' days, those are a huge pain.)
Any mangy barbarian can enjoy drunken brawling, hunting, and the occasional duel or dog fight; but bloody spectacle is something best left to the experts.
Sounds like the Internet (Score:3)
All kinds of engineering talent, organizational expertise, a logistics and trade network that spanned the Mediterranean world; were necessary to run something like the Colosseum. Those loads of wild animals(some pretty exotic) and ample supplies of variously trained gladiators don't just deliver themselves, you know; nor is building that much stadium seating with rocks and manual labor exactly trivial.(Never mind the 'let's flood the place and have a lethal naval battle' days, those are a huge pain.)
Sounds kind of like the Internet - millions of advances in science, engineering, commerce and logistics across the entire planet so individuals can get cat videos and porn on demand.
Re:Let me answer this question: (Score:5, Insightful)
"How could such an advanced culture have staged such bloody spectacles?"
Because however you doll up humanity..... people are very primal under the surface, and are capable of a great many violent things.
And however you doll up humanity today, it is merely an illusion that anything has changed since then.
Re:Let me answer this question: (Score:5, Interesting)
And however you doll up humanity today, it is merely an illusion that anything has changed since then.
Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature makes a case that, however bad things look today, the past was much much more violent. Actually his book tries to ask why things have improved so much. Part of our modern feeling that today is terrible, is because we are more sensitive and more empathetic than we've ever been before, so we notice stuff more than we used to. Of course, caveats, not all the planet is living in the 21st Century today, but there is a trend. And we hope it continues. So yes, we are still pretty crappy as humans, but let's not start believing that we are irredeemable—we have made a lot of progress and that means we can make more progress in universal empathy and care and compassion.
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Probably has more to do with our 'new' system of instant communication that came with radio. Now that we all can see war, we are finding it a little less palatable.
I'm a businessman. Blood is a big expense.
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Thanks, I'll read that. Then I'll try to summarise both positions in my head, understand what they are each saying, and then try to figure out which one makes more sense to me. Taleb may be talking more about technicalities, and Pinker may have had to rely more on anecdotes about people's attitudes. It really might mean something that the laws in Britain chose to forbid "cruel and unusual punishments" — what was it that they were doing that was "cruel" and "unusual"? Why do we think that lashing peopl
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If Jesus was real and really did say stuff like, "turn the other cheek", then yes he was an individual who was teaching others to start to find their own personal freedom, literally a higher state of intelligence, a more humanistic and identity-less intelligence. Ie. more like what the Buddha is supposed to have been.
But later, with the various Christian sects, it became political, and the Roman Empire got involved, and basically it was turned into a political empire movement. And the kinds of people who wa
Re:Let me answer this question: (Score:5, Insightful)
"How could such an advanced culture have staged such bloody spectacles?"
Because however you doll up humanity..... people are very primal under the surface, and are capable of a great many violent things.
And however you doll up humanity today, it is merely an illusion that anything has changed since then.
Almost half a *millenium* before the Romans built Colosseum (and had their bloody spectacles in it - including killing Christians!), (we) Greeks had fought the Persian invadors and won - one of those Greeks fighting against them, Aeschylus (who was so proud for this that asked to be the only thing mentioned in his grave), wrote a tragedy called "The Persians": instead of writing "Greece... fuck yeah... we fucked you barbarians!", he mostly wrote about the psychological drama experienced by the Persians back home, in a way that... well, i watched this tragedy performed in one of our ancient Greek theaters, and i felt pity for the Persians!
My point is that "Humanity" it too "big" of a word to make such statements about how it is an illusion that has changed - it is surely better today than what it was at the Colosseum times (but at that time it was worse than what it was when Greeks were "in charge" of humanity!). BUT today we have the "Muslim world" (doing what we all know) against the Western (Greek-Roman AND Christian) Civilization.
Humanity must choose its civilization.
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Except, interestingly, we seem to have 'evolved' past the idea that we are allowed to make any such judgements, as it inherently involves subjective value - a (secular) sin in the modern era of cultural relativism..
In the Roman era, I doubt that *anyone* would have argued if you stated "Rome is more advanced than the Gauls" - neither Roman, nor Gaul, nor an objective 3rd party.
Yet try to make a similar assertion today, and half of the listeners immediately object that any such value-judgement is impossible
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Unfortunately, we, "people of (some common) reason", are usually cowards... and our self-censorship leads to your very *wise* last
Re:Let me answer this question: (Score:5, Insightful)
* Let's not start a "relevitism" of the "what you mean civilized?" type.
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The Persians had a civilized culture long after "they were forced to become Muslims".
Compare the culture of 10th century Persia to 10th century France or England sometime. Or even the 15th century.
And do try to remember that "algebra" isn't an Anglo-Saxon acronym....
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Now that we no that Islam is not necessarily equal to ISIS then what? (if ISIS wins and converts all muslims to their viewpoint and / or kills the rest) then ISIS = Islam).
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they want us dead (Score:2)
well the problem is they want us dead.
fortunately, they want each other dead as well, but they are reproducing faster than they are killing each other, so it's still a problem for the west to deal with.
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well the problem is they want us dead.
There is *at least* one more problem: every Westerner that knows what "the problem" is being attacked as "racist" by other Westerners who don't understand "the problem"!
fortunately, they want each other dead as well, but they are reproducing faster than they are killing each other, so it's still a problem for the west to deal with.
Thank Allah, yes... they like to kill each other also - but we Westerners must protect ourselves (and this is the only way to give Muslims a chance to become civilized... imagine if we Westerners disappear... poor Muslims, poor Humans!)
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we invade their countries
I don't know any Muslim country invaded by Westerners, without local Muslims (and not just a minority - e.g., in Iraq it was the Shia and Kurdish *majority* suffering under Saddam, in Afghanistan was also the *majority* - even the "United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan"!- oppresed by the Talibans, in Libya the same...) asking us to invade. Don't make the common mistake to think that we go there uninvited, and don't become a victim of your own opinion (i.e., even if you disagree with going th
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I don't know any Muslim country invaded by Westerners, without local Muslims (and not just a minority - e.g., in Iraq it was the Shia and Kurdish *majority* suffering under Saddam, in Afghanistan was also the *majority* - even the "United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan"!- oppresed by the Talibans, in Libya the same...) asking us to invade.
You seem to argue that an oppressed majority calling for liberation is justification of an invasion. you did not show that just because it was a majority that was oppressed it was a majority that wished invasion. That implies that only some of the oppressed need to desire invasion to justify invasion.
If in the United States, the Christians, a majority, some of whom claim are oppressed by liberal-minded media, had a few members who called for Putin to liberate the United States, would that be more or less ju
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I don't know any Muslim country invaded by Westerners, without local Muslims (and not just a minority - e.g., in Iraq it was the Shia and Kurdish *majority* suffering under Saddam, in Afghanistan was also the *majority* - even the "United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan"!- oppresed by the Talibans, in Libya the same...) asking us to invade.
You seem to argue that an oppressed majority calling for liberation is justification of an invasion. you did not show that just because it was a majority that was oppressed it was a majority that wished invasion. That implies that only some of the oppressed need to desire invasion to justify invasion.
If in the United States, the Christians, a majority, some of whom claim are oppressed by liberal-minded media, had a few members who called for Putin to liberate the United States, would that be more or less just an invasion in your world view?
I thought it was easy to understand that the vast majority of the oppresed majority wanted the West's intervention:
* Kuwait - it (and the rest of Arab states) asked the West to liberate it from Iraq.
* Iraq - the vast majority of the oppresed majority (i.e., Shia [youtube.com] and Kurds [youtube.com]) asked and received! Hint: check the first election in Iraq after the fall of Saddam.
* Afghanistan - even the "United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan" (a.k.a. "North Alliance" - old friends of Soviets!) asked the West fo
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In 600 AD the entire Mediterranean was Christian. By 700 North Africa, the Mideast and even parts of Europe were Muslim. All of these areas were converted by the sword, not through proselytizing. Mainly by invasion. From the early medieval period until the 16th century Islam continued to encroach on European lands. It attacked the Byzantine empire, which resulted in them asking Rome for help. That was the Crusades, an effort at self defense for Byzantium and an attempt to ensure pilgrims could continue to visit sites in Christian Holy Lands in the Mideast.
I am Greek... when i hear/read those Westerners who, instead of recognizing the historic truth, insist on blaming the Western/Christian worlds for defending itself from the Muslim hordes... you understand! No need for them to accept some superiority of the Western (Greek-Roman AND Christian) Civilization, they just need to stop distorting historic facts AND read the Islamic history (writen by Muslims: oh... they are so proud for their mass conversion by the sword that they don't hide it!).
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"How could such an advanced culture have staged such bloody spectacles?"
Nowadays we do it with drones and remote cameras.
Re:Let me answer this question: (Score:5, Interesting)
While advanced culture, there is the human worry that they are not tough enough to handle the world. Watching gladiators kill lions and elephants is the same as use watching Zombie movies. Half of the interest is what is going on in your head, you try to figure out what you would do in their place.
Then the outcome will normally please you.
The gladiator dies, validating that your different approach is better
The animal dies when the gladiator does what you would do, validating your idea.
The animal died with a different method, then you learned a new survival idea.
The moral issue of human and animal life, can so easily be shoved away with propaganda (still today) that for most of the population it doesn't even occur to them.
Re:Let me answer this question: (Score:5, Insightful)
It's more fundamental than that. In those days a lot of people died from things that are unimaginable in modern developed nations. Starvation, lack of clean water, lack of basic medicines, war and lawlessness. Most people didn't live much beyond 30 anyway, and by that age tended to have severe "disabilities", for want of a better word (even poor eyesight was uncorrectable and could prevent someone working effectively).
So life was cheap. Rome needed big armies and needed a system that would integrate the less civilized people it subjugated into its society. Thus the Roman system, where anyone could become a citizen by serving the empire, was created. Equally those who were not citizens didn't have rights or legal protections (a bit like how the US treats non-US citizens today), and really were seen as property and somewhat sub-human, or at least sub-citizen, in the same way that for example black people were at times in the last few hundred years. So lacking any useful entertainment skills and otherwise being of little use, literally throwing them to the lions made a kind of sense.
There was also the punishment aspect. Some parts of the world still kill people convicted of crimes, and allow others to watch (although they would say it isn't for entertainment). Fear helped keep people in line, much like how these days fear of terrorism is used for the same purpose. Do as we say, or die (in the arena / in a terrorist attack).
Re:Let me answer this question: (Score:5, Interesting)
Umm, no. Rome had a miniscule army for most of its history, when compared to its population. That's the advantage of an Empire as opposed to a city-state or similar flyspeck "nation".
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You realize that the "didn't live long past 30" thing is a bit of a myth right? Basically if someone survived childhood, or in the case of women, giving borth -- They'd likely live to their 60's and beyond.
It was childhood disease, and childbirth that skewed the average.
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Just not true. People died at accelerated rates though out their lives.
Women in particular were fucked by multiple births and poor nutrition.
Re:Let me answer this question: (Score:4, Insightful)
"How could such an advanced culture have staged such bloody spectacles?"
Easily. Because being "advanced" do not in any way imply that a culture abstain from killing and violence. A culture may excel in various technologies, military power, and arts. It may or may not value nice behaviour - that is orthogonal!
Romans had their period of glory - and violent entertainment. Later governments organized witch hunts & public burnings. Then a colonial era with lots of unnecessary violence, done by 'advanced cultures of the time.' Then a certain advanced culture arranged the holocaust.
I am not even counting the various wars - wars are necessarily bloody and violent. We are lucky to live in times where the leading cultures value life for its own sake - to some extent.
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Or instead of descending to outright misanthropy we could look at the political climate and situation in Rome at the time, where lots of citizens lived largely on state handouts and whose main entertainment was the Colosseum, bread and circuses. Bored and indolent, they needed continually escalating spectacles - they actually flooded the Colosseum and lifted ships in to do battle, naumachiae - so is this period in Roman history a warning about meaningless lives lived without industry, Roman culture, or huma
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I'll add my own answer: the Colosseum was so popular, because swordfight training videos in roman times were sorely lacking. Wouldn't you be much more interested in watching some real medieval violence if your life depended on properly handling your weapon later on the front line?
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The problem is that those guys could only afford the nosebleed seats, only the rich could afford to really be down where they could get a good look at the action.
The colosseum was so popular because the Romans were bloodthirsty fucks, just like most people are now, which is why so many nations still have a death penalty.
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So what would you call weapons similar to medieval weaponry except from Roman times?
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Bronze age? Ancient? Roman era?
Pretty much anything except "medieval" which, kind of by definition, came after the Roman empire collapsed.
And then pretty much everything which came after that is the world "discovering" things which had been known before "medieval" times and acting like it was new.
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This. We do similar things today but without the death part. Go watch MMA, boxing, or American football.
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"How could such an advanced culture have staged such bloody spectacles?"
Because however you doll up humanity..... people are very primal under the surface, and are capable of a great many violent things.
The Romans didn't have Call of Duty.
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because they had soldiers coming home from war that needed an outlet for killing, and because you had slaves that could be force to fight.
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I think you mean "In American society, violent murder is more socially acceptable for public consumption than nudity."
There's a lot of countries where nudity isn't such a big deal but violence is. Same thing with guns.
How is it (Score:5, Insightful)
The question it poses is, how could such an advanced culture have staged such bloody spectacles?
So I take it you've not seen a movie made in the last 20 years?
Re: How is it (Score:4, Insightful)
No, but we like to watch people get killed in movies.
The Romans didn't have the technology to fake it like we do.
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No we don't, we know full well it's a fiction. At the distances they watched the fights, the Romans could have easily faked it. They chose not to fake it, we chose to fake it.
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and they couldn't just rewind and replay it. so they had to kill someone anew at every showing!
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But only because using actual people is no longer cost effective.
Re: How is it (Score:4, Insightful)
We can't assume that human life will always be valued in the future like it is now.
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The difference being that we don't kill people (intentionally, anyway) to make movies.
True - but we still cater to blood lust with executions. The English (and others) always drew a crowd for public executions and torture until relatively recently, and the USA had their "witch trials". It's not hard to conclude the demand for blood-lust even under the thinnest of moral justifications still exist - you don't have to go to youtube [youtube.com], the football, or a boxing match, to see that as you'll find plenty that wish graphic violence visited on others right here on this site.
How many best seller fiction
think of advanced civilisations in fiction (Score:5, Interesting)
the Triskelions in Star Trek - got off on blood sports.
The Running Man - Bread and Circuses for a collapsed US economy.
Rollerball - street hockey and motorcycles.
Death Race 2000 - Cannonball Run with real cannonballs.
Death Race - like the preceding, but laps around a prison island and the entire country's putting bets on. Kinda like The Running Man but with miniguns. And Tombstones. Gotta love those Tombstones.
The first King novel I ever read was his masterpiece "The Long Walk". Death Race 2000 but without the cars. Published as part of the Bachman anthology in 1985.
More recently, we have Battle Royale and its Hollywood ripoff, The Hunger Games.
See, the Romans had it right. Give the plebs just enough food to survive and keep them entertained, they stay compliant and content. Hence, "Bread and Circuses".
Re:think of advanced civilisations in fiction (Score:4, Insightful)
Think of advance civilizations in fiction... See, the Romans had it right. Give the plebs just enough food to survive and keep them entertained, they stay compliant and content. Hence, "Bread and Circuses".
Don't you think the fiction *copied* from past human cultures, particularly the Romans?
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I believe the GP is implying that modern fiction often copies real life events from historical cultures, not that it rips off their fiction directly (which some works do, but that's tangential to the actual point).
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Hollywood absolutely does publish books and prop up manufactured "young adult" titles and authors as floaters.
It's much cheaper to secure the teens and tweens BEFORE you greenlight the film.
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better tell Viacom that they don't own Simon & Schuster or Paramount Pictures, then, that'll edgumicate 'em!
Hollywood has absolutely depended on books since its inception. Major publishing houses, especially those not wholly owned or subsidiaries of Hollywood companies, depend on Hollywood cash pre-injections (and big-name spamming, hello King, Clancy and Rowling) to turn a profit. A quick example: OJ Simpson's lawyer wrote a book called Journey To Justice. It got optioned by the publisher, but because
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does "Ow! My Balls!" count as bloodsport?? o.0
Still in sad condition (Score:3, Interesting)
I clicked on the link and saw all the pictures. Sadly the Colosseum still looks like a ruin, and the government of Italy has no money to halt the decay let alone a restoration to former glory.
As a Rome Total War player and an aficionado of all things Roman, I would love to see the Colosseum as it was originally. Yes I realize a restoration would cost billions and modern Italy as a PIIG nation cannot afford it. It really speaks to the immense power, wealth and engineering skill of the ancients that they BUILT this thing so long ago.
I still keep hoping that some internet billionaire will take it upon himself as his life achievement to do a full restoration and that I will get to see it before I die. Barring that, I hope someone will do a very high quality rendering of every inch of the original Colosseum that we can navigate freely in Oculus VR. Maybe even host virtual games with thousands of online participants and spectators.
Re:Still in sad condition (Score:5, Informative)
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Playing the Devil's Advocate (Score:2)
Since we're talking restoring monuments to violence, why not rebuild the Berlin Wall in the spirit of cultural preservation?
/ducks
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It wasn't original then either. The Coliseum was in service for a LONG time and various changes and repairs of greater and lesser degree were done to it for its entire career as a combat venue, to say nothing of the things that people did with it afterwards. The idea that you'd build something and leave it fundamentally unchanged until the day you knocked it down again isn't something that really had that much going for it until recently when the expected lifespans of structures grew less and the engineered
Re:Still in sad condition (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Still in sad condition (Score:4, Interesting)
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But it's the wimpy French form of bullfighting, in which you just annoy the bull.
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Before surrendering to it?
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It really speaks to the immense power, wealth and engineering skill of the ancients that they BUILT this thing so long ago.
You're forgetting the key ingredient: SLAVES.
They used lots and lots of slaves to build it. And they didn't give them workers comp or health benefits. Their retirement was probably a shallow grave.
It's in disrepair and so expensive to fix today because you can't abuse people like that anymore, although with all the retirement benefit cuts and debt restructuring, governments are doing their best to get back to that point!
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Oh fucking horse shit. Equating a job at Costco with slavery is just retarded. You can always walk off and get another job.
Slaves got fed. Costco workers don't - instead they get a wage you could not live on. Sure they can get another job - at the fucking Waffle House, just like slaves could get another job - at the Colleseum. No need to guess your nationality - or your politics when you push the "poverty is a choice" bullshit. Semantic pedantics aside the reality is people live in their cars and work at Costco because they don't have a choice.
Roman slaves had a choice too. Just the same as those chopping cotton and digging dit
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Funny anecdote (Score:2)
Re:Still in sad condition (Score:4, Interesting)
You're completely uninformed. Firstly, Italy IS restoring the Colosseum, the arena in particular, recently they polished the external walls too, and I'm quite astonished that the /. article doesn't mention it:
http://roma.repubblica.it/cron... [repubblica.it]
Obviously you cannot rebuild it exactly as it was, not because of lack of money, which is not a problem for the Italians (see next paragraph), but because they should use the very same marble which was used by their Ancestors, and get it from the same mountains. It would cause an environmental disaster.
Secondly, Italy hasn't received any money from the EU or the IMF, actually its 10-year sovereign bonds yield LESS than the US treasuries with the same maturity, which means that markets technically consider the Italian debt less risky than the american, for how unbelievable it might seem to you:
http://www.marketwatch.com/ [marketwatch.com]
(click on "rates").
So they really don't need any "help", let alone from some random american internet billionaires whose main concern would be the wifi coverage rather than rebuilding the Colosseum as it was.
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Ha!
You might argue that their *Italianess* is what led to their downfall. The corruption, the killings for political advantage, the decadent wealth, there are times where I get the distinct impression that Rome was more or less the management style of the Sopranos done in togas and sandels.
While I find myself fascinated with the scale and sophistication of the Roman civilization and the reach of its empire, it often strikes me that it never quite stabilized. Maybe there was a period of stability in the Re
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You have to live longer. Because you live with your mothers until you are 40+.
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I would rather eat well and live four years less than starve myself to live an extra four years.
Live life to the fullest.
Been living under a rock? (Score:5, Informative)
Stupid question (Score:5, Interesting)
how could such an advanced culture have staged such bloody spectacles?
We're the dominant predator on the planet. We didn't get here by being friendly.
We don't have large teeth.
We don't have claws.
We're not overly big or strong.
We use our brains to figure out how to hunt and kill prey.
Pretty much all reasonably intelligent animal kill for entertainment.
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how could such an advanced culture have staged such bloody spectacles?
We're the dominant predator on the planet. We didn't get here by being friendly. We don't have large teeth. We don't have claws. We're not overly big or strong. We use our brains to figure out how to hunt and kill prey.
Pretty much all reasonably intelligent animal kill for entertainment.
While you make a strong point as to where we truly stand in the evolutionary chain, Native American Indians and Eskimos would tend to disagree with that last part. I'm certain they're not the only ones who did not kill merely for entertainment.
As for the rest of us, watch a documentary. Visit a slaughterhouse. There is nothing entertaining about the mindless way we kill chickens and cattle for food.
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I don't know about the eskimos but if you think native american indians didn't kill for entertainment you are sadly mistaken.
Native americans tortured captives for sport long before europeans landed in the americas.
Native americans practiced human sacrifice, infanticide, rape, as well as leisurely and creative torture such as roasting people alive and stopping to wait for victims to recover consciousness before continuing. They didn't do it because they were angry or evil (in their context)-- they did it b
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I don't know about the eskimos but if you think native american indians didn't kill for entertainment you are sadly mistaken.
Native americans tortured captives for sport long before europeans landed in the americas.
Native americans practiced human sacrifice, infanticide, rape, as well as leisurely and creative torture such as roasting people alive and stopping to wait for victims to recover consciousness before continuing. They didn't do it because they were angry or evil (in their context)-- they did it because they enjoyed doing it. It was entertaining. It was fun.
They were no better- nor any worse- than the Europeans. Europeans also had a long history of enjoying torture- watching bears being torn apart by dogs- watching humans being "drawn and quartered" or burned alive. The religious ones were especially creative towards heretics and homosexuals.
Some particular tribes were friendlier than other tribes and didn't practice torture or practiced it less. Here I venture into speculation and speculate that they were less common. There's ample evidence that most native american tribes were constantly at war with other native american tribes.
I'm not dissing them- I have choctaw and cherokee blood. I'm just relating reality.
And you bring all valid points here, when discussing how man treats fellow man under the illusion of beliefs or entertainment.
That said, when speaking of predator and prey, I was more referring to the recycling abilities and respect that these tribes had for their food source, as there is also sufficient evidence to prove they used the meat, bones, and skin for various needs instead of merely killing the animal for sport every time.
What can I say, I don't disagree with your former points. We are a violent
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Their level of technology required that as did European stone age technology. You might also look up Alfred Jacob Miller's "Driving Herds of Buffalo over a Precipice", 1867. Don't overly romanticize things.
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Makes you wonder why we call our society "advanced" these days. We've just gotten more efficient at killing each other while the reasons remain the same.
The body counts don't remain the same. There's all this efficiency, but there isn't the higher body count (per capita of course) to go with that efficiency.
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While you make a strong point as to where we truly stand in the evolutionary chain, Native American Indians and Eskimos would tend to disagree with that last part. I'm certain they're not the only ones who did not kill merely for entertainment.
Uh, what? The Iroquois Indians (and many other Native American tribes) would stage multi-day mock battles involving hundred of participants on each side. You essentially had mobs of people rushing each other with sticks and you couldn't try to avoid blows. Severe injuries or deaths could easily be expected in those conditions. Mandatory wagers by participants included everything form small possesions such as knives all the way up to family members such as wives or children. This sport is of course stil
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Human intelligent? Not sure.
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Some of our closest relatives spend all their time fucking instead of killing and are quite peaceful after all the fucking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... [wikipedia.org]
Confused documentary maker. (Score:2, Insightful)
how could such an advanced culture (as Rome) have staged such bloody spectacles?
How could such an advanced culture (as ours) have prominent media people who confuse "advanced" with "non-bloody" (or "squeamish")?
Answer: Freedom of speech and of the press. Even the clueless can be read and heard by millions.
Meanwhile, our culture seems to be decaying in much the pattern of Rome's. Let's hope that, if we can't fix it, it takes as many centuries to fall, rather than going down "in internet time" or "as we ap
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Meanwhile, our culture seems to be decaying in much the pattern of Rome's.
What pattern is that?
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The one where an expansionist empire stopped growing and began stagnating until it stopped being an empire?
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Anti-science is one similarity. The enlightenment was as much a scientific revolution and now science is under attack and distrusted, especially by governments as science is at heart anti-authoritarianism. Examples include the climate change deniers and the anti-vaccinationers.
Ask the Spanish (Score:2)
Bloodsport continues to this day in the form of bullfighting.
Dragons (Score:2)
But did it carry dragons?
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No, dragons bring fiery death from above.
Maybe cause and effect are reversed? (Score:3, Interesting)
Has anyone given a thought to the possibility that the Roman civilisation could get "so advanced" BECAUSE they had such violent entertainment, providing both an 'escape valve' / release mechanism for violent tendencies, as well as a demonstration of how bad things can get when violence is let loose rampant in society in general? ... then extrapolate. ...
Think of American Football in comparison - fake / controlled violence of two teams head-butting a ball across a field for the sake of sport
(And if you hold the position that American Football isn't violent, then why do players need more body armour than any in other team sport in existence?)
The abhorrence for violence is a rather newly developed cultural trait in western 'civilised' society and the way that question is being framed is a judgemental way of projecting that cultural value onto the ancient Romans:
"how could such an advanced culture have staged such bloody spectacles?"
It's a rather emotional way of asking, unless taken literally, when the answer is "by using slaves and wild animals and staging violent scenes in a controlled environment such as a theatre" - duh
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Has anyone given a thought to the possibility that the Roman civilisation could get "so advanced" BECAUSE they had such violent entertainment, providing both an 'escape valve' / release mechanism for violent tendencies, as well as a demonstration of how bad things can get when violence is let loose rampant in society in general? Think of American Football in comparison - fake / controlled violence of two teams head-butting a ball across a field for the sake of sport ... then extrapolate.
Um, so dicks in padding running at each other made the USA great? Nah - if they'd had the Colleseum instead of playing pat-arse we'd all have flying cars by now. In fact if it wasn't for water-boarding we wouldn't have the internets.
Oh wait - you mean entertainment relieved stress and exposure to violence brought peace. That'll be why we are all so laid back and peaceful. 24/7 entertainment and graphic violence - the basis of any advanced civilisation(?).
Of course it's possible that the average Roman could
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Current times are far below previous history in terms of violence. If you believe otherwise, you're making the mistake of raw numbers as opposed to percentages.
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Current times are far below previous history in terms of violence.
I suspect you are correct - but I'd like to see some facts to support it. e.g. it seems that world wide there are now more people fleeing their countries than ever before. Then you have the number of people incarcerated... add in all those being killed in war. Or are you suggesting that the Romans killed more people in their conquest of Britain than have died in Iraq?
I look forward to seeing relevant figures. Hint: police statistics from the USA aren't particularly relevant.
If you believe otherwise, you're making the mistake of raw numbers as opposed to percentages.
Was that meant to be gibberish -
Hmmmm .... (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure I watched this on TV several months ago,
So I'm kind of surprised to see it being presented as fresh news now.
It's cool and all, but from what I can tell it was aired in February [pbs.org] on PBS and they'll even sell you the DVD.
"bloody spectacles" (Score:2)
> The question it poses is, how could such an advanced culture have staged such bloody spectacles?
Obviously the author has never been to a Liam Neeson flick.