ANTH 3030 Study Guide - Final Guide: Fasces, Ludi, Imperium
Document Summary
The character and role of public entertainment at rome. The people which once bestowed imperium, fasces, legions, everything, now foregoes such activities and has but two passionate desires: bread and circus games . (juvenal satires x: 78: early 2nd c. a. d. ) The shows keep the whole population happy. (m. cornelius fronto, elements of history, 17. Politics was a subject of absorbing interest, at one particular social level. But it was not the only one, and for most of the population of rome probably not the most interesting. What mainly obsessed the populace at large was ludi, entertainments plays and shows in the theatre, chariot-racing and wild-beast hunts in the circus, gladiators in the forum. (t. p. The people of ancient rome can seem deceptively familiar to us their fashions, architecture, literature and even parts of their language or at least vocabulary. The brutality and brutalising effects of the games brings us up abruptly.
