David J. Engelsma

spectators ("fans"?). The attitude of the "cultured" elite toward these shows is almost shocking. People like Pliny and Cicero, we are told, considered them as "... affording splendid training for the eye, though perhaps not for the ear, in the endurance of pain and as inspiring disdain of death and love of honourable wounds." Even Marcus Aurelius was simply bored by them and complained that they were "always the same."s Symmachus complained bitterly when some of the Saxons committed suicide...