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Log In
Led by Flavius Scorpus Simulacrum, with Gaius Appuleius Diocles Simulacrum, the Charioteer Archetype Simulacrum, Porphyrius Calliopas Simulacrum, and Marcus Valerius Martialis Simulacrum
Led by Flavius Scorpus Simulacrum, with Gaius Appuleius Diocles Simulacrum, the Charioteer Archetype Simulacrum, Porphyrius Calliopas Simulacrum, and Marcus Valerius Martialis Simulacrum
The question
Imperial Rome was a city of one million people, the largest urban concentration anywhere in the pre-industrial world before the nineteenth century. Mass entertainment — the chariot races at the Circus Maximus (which seated 150,000-250,000), the gladiatorial combats at the amphitheatres (the Colosseum, opened in 80 CE, seated 50,000-65,000), the public spectacles at the great festivals — was the central social-political institution that bound the population to the imperial regime. Of all Roman mass entertainment, chariot racing was the most popular: more frequent than gladiatorial games, vastly more lucrative for the successful charioteer, the source of factional loyalties (the Blue and Green factions especially) that survived from the early Empire into the Byzantine period. The Universitas faculty includes four charioteer simulacra — Flavius Scorpus Simulacrum, Gaius Appuleius Diocles Simulacrum, the Charioteer Archetype, and Porphyrius Calliopas — between them spanning the first to the sixth centuries CE. Together with Martial Simulacrum, the great epigrammatist of urban Roman daily life, they let us see Imperial mass entertainment from inside.
Outcome
The student has read at least the Diocles Simulacrum career inscription (*ILS* 5287, in any modern translation; Beard, North & Price's source-collection, or Bell's anthology); the Martial Simulacrum epigrams on Scorpus Simulacrum (10.50, 10.53) and the Circus (5.25); a modern overview of the chariot factions and the Imperial games (Cameron or Bell).
Practice scenarios
Gaius Appuleius Diocles Simulacrum walks you through his career inscription (*ILS* 5287), the most extraordinary piece of Roman sport-historical evidence to survive. Read the inscription in full (Bell's anthology *Spectacle in the Roman World* or Beard/North/Price's *Religions of Rome* vol. 2 both contain it; the Latin original is in CIL VI 10048). The inscription catalogues, with extreme statistical precision, the career of a charioteer over twenty-four years: races run, wins, second places, third places, prize categories (the "single-horse" races, the "two-horse" races, etc.), specific prize-money totals, particular notable wins. Read also Martial Simulacrum's *Epigrams* 10.50 and 10.53 (the Scorpus Simulacrum death poems). Then write a 700-word analytical essay: what does the Diocles Simulacrum inscription tell us about the social position of the successful charioteer; what does the level of statistical detail tell us about Roman attitudes to professional sport (the obsessive record-keeping is itself a social fact); how does the inscription compare to the literary representation of charioteers in Martial Simulacrum (where Scorpus Simulacrum dies young as celebrity); and what do the two together tell us about Imperial mass entertainment?
Your goals