THE HISTORY OF OLD ROME

III. From the Union of Italy to the Subjugation of Carthage and the Greek States

From: The History of Rome, by Theodor Mommsen
Translated with the sanction of the author by William Purdie Dickson

Chapter XIII - Faith and Manners

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Page 37

Whatever elements of culture were contained in the scenic and artistic entertainments were from the first thrown aside; it was by no means the object of the givers of the Roman festivals to elevate--though it should be but temporarily--the whole body of spectators through the power of poetry to the level of feeling of the best, as the Greek stage did in the period of its prime, or to prepare an artistic pleasure for a select circle, as our theatres endeavour to do. The character of the managers and spectators in Rome is illustrated by a scene at the triumphal games in 587, where the first Greek flute-players, on their melodies failing to please, were instructed by the director to box with one another instead of playing, upon which the delight would know no bounds.

Nor was the evil confined to the corruption of Roman manners by Greek contagion; conversely the scholars began to demoralize their instructors. Gladiatorial games, which were unknown in Greece, were first introduced by king Antiochus Epiphanes (579-590), a professed imitator of the Romans, at the Syrian court, and, although they excited at first greater horror than pleasure in the Greek public, which was more humane and had more sense of art than the Romans, yet they held their ground likewise there, and gradually came more and more into vogue.

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