The Comic History of Rome

by Gilbert Abbott À Beckett

Rome had at this time her hands tolerably full, and found employment for her arms in all directions; when, to add to her embarrassment, the Cisalpine Gauls were set in a flame by one of the many irons that she had in the fire. An Agrarian law, proposed by the tribune, C. Flaminius—whose name savours of the firebrand—was the cause of the outbreak. The measure enacted, that the land taken from the Gauls should be distributed among the Romans; and accordingly some settlers were sent out, who unsettled everything. The Cisalpines commenced negotiations with their Transalpine allies; but though the negotiations were carried a very long way, they eventually came to nothing.

Rome was so occupied with foes, that she had scarcely time to turn round; but when she did turn round, she discovered that some very objectionable proceedings were being carried on behind her back by a set of people called the Illyrians. These persons picked up a dishonest living as pirates, and had plundered, among others, some Italian merchants who supplied the Italian warehouses of Rome and its neighbourhood. The Illyrians were ruled over by a woman, named Teuta, who, when applied to for reparation, observed that she was sorry for what had occurred, but that piracy was what her subjects got their living by, and she did not see how she could interfere with the manners and customs of her people. The Roman ambassadors answered, that the custom of their country was to protect the injured; but on this occasion, at least, the country failed in its Protectionist principles, for the ambassadors were slain before they could get home again. When their death was known at Rome, every exertion was made to afford them that protection which came too late to be of any use, and a large army was sent into the country of the Illyrians. The Roman arms were perfectly successful, and Teuta was glad to obtain peace by promising to put down piracy, and by actually putting down a very large sum of money by way of tribute. Rome had done considerable service to the Isles of Greece by checking the disreputable trade of piracy; and as the Romans took evident pride in being noticed by the Greeks, the latter paid the former for their military aid, by some of those civil attentions which cost nothing. At Athens, as well as at Corinth, Roman embassies were received; and though the ambassadors might be considered rather too venerable for sport, they were allowed to take part in the Isthmian Games, as well as in the Eleusinian Mysteries.

The Isthmian Games were the same as those at Olympia, of which we furnish a brief outline for the information of those who feel an interest in the sporting annals of antiquity.

During the first thirteen Olympiads, the only game was the foot-race, of which the spectators and the competitors, but especially the latter, if they selected it as their walk of life, must have been at last thoroughly tired. Wrestling was next introduced under the name of πάλη, or Lucta; and though wrestlers have for centuries been endeavouring to throw each other, they have not yet fallen to the ground, for they still maintain a footing in the sports and pastimes of our own people. Next came the Pentathlon, a sort of five-in-one, which comprised, in addition to the foot-race and wrestling, the practice of leaping, in which much vaulting ambition was displayed; and throwing of the discus, as well as of the spear—an exercise that required the utmost pitch of strength and dexterity. Subsequently boxing was introduced, under the name of Pugilatus, and it seems to have resembled pretty closely our own pugilistic encounters; for in ancient works of art we find the boxers represented with faces whose indentures witness their apprenticeship to the degrading trade they followed. The physicians of the period are said to have recommended boxing as a remedy for headache;[46] but this application of the theory of counter irritation is not adopted in modern practice. Another feature of the Olympian and Isthmian Games was the Pancratium, a contest calling for all the powers of the combatant. In this exercise biting and scratching were allowed—a disgraceful license which leaves us in no doubt as to the classical source whence the vulgar phrase of "going at it tooth and nail" is derivable. Horse and chariot races were also introduced, as well as contests of trumpeters, who dealt out blows of the most harmless description against each other.

Early Roman Gladiator and his Patron.

Such were the games in which the Roman visitors to Corinth were allowed to take part; and we will now proceed to confer on the reader the privilege once peculiar to the inhabitants of Athens, by initiating him into the Eleusinian Mysteries. Their celebration lasted several days, the first of which was occupied in getting together the mystæ, or initiated, whose qualification consisted in their having sacrificed a sow—an act less worthy of a priest than of a pork-butcher. On the second day the mystæ went in solemn procession to the sea-coast, where they took a bath, by way of wetting the public curiosity. On the third day they went through the interesting ceremony of a fast, which, to the looker-on, must have been a somewhat slow process. The fourth day was devoted to the carrying about of a basket containing poppy seeds; and this literally seedy procession was closed by a number of women, each holding in her hand a mystic case, the contents of which were in no case allowed to be visible. On the fifth day the mystæ went, with lighted torches, to the temple of Demeter, at Eleusis, where they spent the night; but the torches throw no light upon what they were looking for. The sixth was the grandest day of all, and was employed in carrying about a statue of the son of Demeter; in whose honour the mysteries were held; because, when wandering about in search of her daughter, she had supplied corn—though nobody can say how she carried it about with her—to the inhabitants of Athens. During the night of this important day the mystæ were taken, in the dark, to see what nobody appears to have seen at all; and we are therefore spared the trouble of describing it. On the seventh day the initiated returned to Athens, and stopped on their way at a bridge over the Cephisus, from which they indulged in jests at the passers-by; and the obscurity of the jokes would, no doubt, if they had come down to us, have been thoroughly in keeping with the mysteries they were intended to celebrate.

Such were the games and mysteries to which the Romans were admitted in Athens and Corinth, though they had, at about this time, established among themselves a sport exceeding in ferocity the scratchings and bitings of the Greek Pancratiastæ, or the ear-flattening and nose breaking efforts of the Corinthian pugilists.

Until the Punic War commenced, the state had found money for the public games at Rome; but war having exhausted the treasury, the expense of amusing the people was thrown upon the Ædiles, who made the matter a medium of corruption, for they vied with each other in their outlays, in order to catch the votes of the people. The Ædile who had carried on the most extravagant games was the most likely to get elected to higher dignities; for popularity has ever been, and it is to be feared ever will be, the prize of those who possess the art of dazzling, rather than permanently enlightening the people. That their taste was degraded by those who sought their suffrages, we learn from the fact, that at about this time the sanguinary conflicts of the gladiators[47] were first added to the amusements of the populace.

There seems to have existed in almost all ages and countries a morbid appetite, similar to that which formerly gorged itself on the spectacle of human beings "butchered to make a Roman holiday." When the brute-tamer promises to thrust his head into the mouth of the lion, or the "intrepid aëronaut" is about to risk the dashing to pieces which some previous aëronauts have experienced, and from which others have narrowly escaped, the crowds who flock to be present are actuated by the same sanguinary thirst for brutal excitement which filled the Roman amphitheatre when an encounter of gladiators was advertised. The attraction was great enough on ordinary occasions, but an overflow could always be secured by announcing an entertainment sine missione, which implied that the lives of the conquered were not to be spared. It is to be feared that many of those who have never been at Rome are nevertheless prepared to do as Rome did on the occasions alluded to; and if the certainty, instead of the mere chance, of a sacrifice of human life were to be announced as an entertainment, the largest place of amusement in the metropolis would, in all probability, be thronged, though the ordinary charge for admission should be doubled.