Introduction
In Search of Roman Spectators

Background

Since the publication in 1976 of P. Veyne’s work Le pain et le cirque,¹ academic research concerning public performances in the Roman world has experienced an “explosion of bibliography”, to borrow the expression of K. Coleman and J. Nelis-Clément.² This growth over several decades of research studying the ludi and the munera in the Roman world has made it possible to considerably advance our knowledge of the realia of shows and of the buildings that hosted them. Particular attention, again since P. Veyne’s book, has also been paid to the role played by those in power in the organization and content of these shows. In this work, as in many other studies after it³, the concept of the “audience” was mostly of concern in order to demonstrate how Republican and Imperial Roman political culture (including games and spectacles) functioned as a means to legitimate and reproduce the hegemonic power structure.⁴ Audiences, from this perspective, appeared more as props within a system than as persons with agency.

While these works formed a crucial foundation, they left the other side of the coin, so to speak, unexamined.⁵ Thus, it is only in a second phase, over the last approximately 30 years, that a certain number of scholars have attempted to explore not the realia of these shows or the intentions of their organizers, but also their reception by the public and their more general impact upon Roman society. As D. Kyle has written in his recent survey of Greek and Roman sport, “We now go beyond the performers to study the viewing audiences, to “spectacology” and the social psychology of mass spectatorship. Greek and Roman spectators were engaged, knowledgeable, and empowered “active” viewers who appreciated good performances, producers, and officials.”⁶ This is shown by the very titles of a number of monographs, such as The Roman Theater and Its Audience⁷ by R. Beacham (1991), Danser le mythe : la pantomime et sa réception dans la culture antique⁸ by M. -H Garelli (2007), and The Lure of the Arena: Social Psychology and the Crowd at the Roman Games (2011) by G. Fagan.⁹ This interest in viewership and spectacle is also evident in numerous articles which have appeared during this period as well, such as S. Goldhill’s “Viewing and the Viewer: Empire and the Culture of Spectacle”, among others.¹⁰

Generally speaking, most scholarship currently devoted to the study of Roman spectacles is concerned to some degree with the question of their audience. With regard to the circus, for example, we can recall that one of the three sections of the proceedings of the conference Le cirque romain et son image (2008) was already entitled «Les spectacles du cirque et leur réception» (p. 259–465). In his chapter on “Roman Chariot-Racing: Charioteers, Factions, Spectators” (2013),¹¹ S. Bell underlines the impact of circus performances on all strata of Roman society and notes a certain number of testimonies to this effect concerning the working classes, often under-represented in our documentation on the reception of performances. More recently, S. Forichon devoted a large part of his monograph Les spectateurs des jeux du cirque à Rome¹² to the perceptions and immediate reactions of the public in the stands.¹³ Similarly, concerning the amphitheater, Anne Berlan-Gallant has recently drawn attention, in a paper entitled “From public spectacles to private decoration: mythological themes in the ‘popular culture’ of the Roman world”,¹⁴ to the ways in which a small number of mythological themes that were staged in the arena (pyrrhichae) contributed to the spread of what could be described as the «lowest common denominator» of the mythological culture in all social strata and regions of the Roman world.

However, these studies most often focus on the reception of one of the main types of public performances in Rome: ludi circenses, ludi scaenici or munera. Studies encompassing the different types of shows around a common issue remain rarer. This is nevertheless the approach followed by some works devoted to the iconography of shows, such as The Art of Ancient Spectacle by B. Bergmann and C. Kondoleon (1999)¹⁵, or more recently Theater and Spectacle in the Art of the Roman Empire by K. Dunbabin (2016).¹⁶ Dunbabin, for instance, studies works of art and artefacts not to obtain information about the realia of the ludi and munera, but as testimonies to the considerable influence that the latter exerted on the collective imagination in the Roman world. This transversal approach was also adopted during an event organized by E. Valette and S. Wyler in 2016 and entitled Spectateurs grecs et romains: corps, modalités de présence, régimes d’attention,¹⁷ which brought together papers looking at the reception conditions of the various public performances and spectacles and the reactions of their Greek and Roman public.

Aims and Methodology

This volume adopts a similar approach, limiting itself to spectacles from the Roman world and focusing on the impact that a specific phenomenon could have on their reception: the organization and hierarchy of the public into different categories, gradually distinguished and separated from each other during the Republican era. This phenomenon reached its culmination with the strict organization of the cauea of ​​theaters and amphitheaters carried out by Augustus, as evidenced by the well-known text by Suetonius (Augustus, 44, 1-4):

He put a stop by special regulations to the disorderly and indiscriminate fashion of viewing the games, through exasperation at the insult to a senator, to whom no one offered a seat in a crowded house at some largely attended games in Puteoli. In consequence of this the senate decreed that, whenever any public show was given anywhere, the first row of seats should be reserved for senators; and at Rome he would not allow the envoys of the free and allied nations to sit in the orchestra, since he was informed that even freedmen were sometimes appointed. He separated the soldiery from the people. He assigned special seats to the married men of the commons, to boys underage their own section and the adjoining one to their preceptors; and he decreed that no one wearing a dark cloak should sit in the media cavea. He would not allow women to view even the gladiators except from the upper seats, though it had been the custom for men and women to sit together at such shows¹⁸.

A few studies have already been devoted to this reproduction of social, gender and age hierarchies within the stands of spectacle buildings. We can cite the pioneering study of A. Chastagnol¹⁹, the article by S. Lilja²⁰, or those by J. Kolendo, “La répartition des places aux spectacles et la stratification sociale dans l’EmpireRomain” (1981)²¹, which is particularly interested in the epigraphic sources on this subject. The very thorough reflection of E. Rawson on the text of Suetonius in her article “Discrimina ordinum: The Lex Julia Theatralis” (1987)²² helped to better define the contours of the categories distinguished by the reforms of Augustus while also emphasizing the many questions that the testimony of the historian still leaves open. The question of the seats reserved for senators in the circus was also studied by M. Trannoy-Coltelloni, “La place des sénateurs au cirque : une réforme de l’empereur Claude” (1999)²³. We must also cite the study by J. Edmondson, “Public Spectacles and Roman Social Relations” (2002)²⁴ which proposes, with supporting diagrams, some hypotheses concerning the precise location within the stands of the different categories cited by Suetonius. More recently, the thesis of T. Jones on “Seating and Spectacle in the Graeco-Roman World”²⁵ brought together important literary and epigraphic documentation on this same question, not only for Rome but also for the provinces. Jones’ work thus highlights the way in which the model at Rome influenced the organization of spectacle buildings in the rest of the empire without erasing local inflections and particularities. There are also several studies on this topic that are focused on one building²⁶ or on one type of spectacle building²⁷ in particular. However, archaeological and epigraphic research can still provide much further insight into these questions.

In addition, this hierarchy of viewers raises the question of the identity of this plural audience, which is often referred to in the literary sources with a single term in the singular (populus, turba, plebs, vulgus, multitudo, frequentia, celebritas, πλῆθος, δῆμος…)²⁸, referring either to the audience as a whole, or, excluding the elites, to the popular audience, as if the latter represented a homogeneous whole. Obviously, not all categories of the population had the same ease of access to shows, and thus did not view and experience them under the same conditions, especially in the theater and in the amphitheater.²⁹ To these material disparities were also added differences in education and lifestyle³⁰ according to social categories, age, sex, or even religion.³¹

Following the method adopted by P. Zanker in his article “In Search of the Roman Viewer” (1997) to locate the point of view of the receiving public in official state art, this volume embarks “in search of the Roman spectator.”³² The contributors to this volume attempt to interrogate all of the vast documentation available on Roman spectacles from the point of view of their reception, and here from a very precise angle: the research and analysis of the specificities presented in relation to the performances of each of the groups distinguished in the public by the reform of Augustus. For instance, one could investigate the range of differentiated reactions within the stands. Or one could focus on the way in which the members of each social or professional category, genre, age or religious group, might evoke among themselves this universe of shows, or experience it again through remembrance in their private activities or the everyday décor of their homes. Our volume focuses on the audience of different spectacle buildings, especially those of amphitheaters and theaters, as well as that of circuses, where the relative freedom of placement that was maintained there could not fail to have had a specific and distinct impact on the public’s reception of the spectacles.

Sources of Evidence

 All of the disciplinary branches of the study of Classical Antiquity have a role to play in this study:

Archaeology

The progress made thanks to archaeology concerning the structure and organization of the tiers of certain performance venues have already provided answers regarding the seating capacity (holistically or by section), the location of certain reserved areas in these monuments, and the facilities ensuring the comfort of spectators. However, new excavations are constantly adding to our knowledge on these questions as well as raising new ones.

Epigraphy

Inscriptions which mention the places reserved for a particular group of individuals have been found in a number of buildings. Their comparison with the archaeological documentation is particularly essential to complete the lacunose testimony of the literary sources. In addition, other epigraphic texts (e.g., programs, honorary inscriptions, graffiti) can provide us with information on the reception of a show or a type of show by a very specific category of the population.

Philology

The rare texts in Latin or Greek literature which mention the placement of spectators have already been widely collected and studied. However, apart from Suetonius’s text, their often very allusive character has given rise to a number of sometimes very different hypotheses. The testimony of some of them could therefore benefit from being more systematically compared to the archaeological and epigraphic studies already mentioned. Above all, the texts still need to be interrogated regarding the question of the specific reception of the spectacles by such or such category of the population. Although the authors are almost exclusively elite males and thus always express their particular point of view, we can try to “question the silence” of their works on the reception of performances by some of the other categories of the population.

Iconography

To carry out this research on the reception of shows by all categories of the Roman population, and in particular the most “silent” in the texts, the study of the rare representations of this public, or the images generated by their interest in these shows (figurative graffiti, “popular painting”) is likely to bring new pieces of information.

Conclusion The aim of this volume is not to achieve exhaustiveness on questions as vast and complex as those raised by the confrontation between the question of the placement of Roman spectators and that of their reception of the shows. Rather, each contributor has chosen to focus on a very specific type of document or to adopt a multidisciplinary approach. Some of them are specifically interested in a distinct category in the public, in a particular type of show, or prefer a comparative approach. Taken together, the contributions allow us to enrich our knowledge of this Roman “audience” that is so often presented in the ancient texts (and even some scholarship) as singular and uniform, but which in reality was “plural” and complex.

Works cited

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Notes

1. Veyne 1976.
2. Coleman & Nelis-Clément 2012.
3. E.g. Clavel-Lévêque 1984; Plass 1995; Beacham 2005; Benoist 2005; Ng 2015.
4. E.g., Tatum 1990; André 1990, esp. 165: “Le système des spectacles du Haut-Empire ne saurait être dissocié du système des loisirs de Rome. La structure du principat implique, dans le cadre de l’évergétisme, un système des spectacles qui substitue ses fonctions aux fonctions politiques. Le public, avec ses préséances, symbolisme les hiérarchies du corps social : les lois municipales comme la poésie … le prouvent.”
5. With one important exception, by a non-Classicist: Guttmann 1981, 1986, with review by Kyle 1987. However, Guttmann’s work had almost no influence outside of the North American sports history community.
6. Kyle 2017, 82, our emphasis.
7. Beacham 1991. See also for instance Söring et al. 1994.
8. Garelli 2007.
9. Fagan 2011.
10. Walters 1998; Goldhill 2000; and Barchiesi 2009 (with its focus on the gods as viewers).
11. Bell 2013.
12. Forichon 2020; see also now Sumi 2021.
13. This work has been extended into Late Antiquity. See Puk 2014 and more broadly Magalhães de Oliveira 2020.
14. Berlan-Gallant (forthcoming). See also Berlan-Bajard 2019.
15. Bergmann & Kondoleon 1999, with the important review by Potter 2001.
16. Dunbabin 2016.
17. These study days took place on November 4 and 5, 2016 at the University of Paris 7 and at the INHA in Paris. See now Valette and Wyler 2023.
18. Translation (with a modification) by J. C. Rolfe, Loeb Classical Library, 1913.
19. Chastagnol 1966.
20. Lilja 1985.
21. Kolendo 1981.
22. Rawson 1987.
23. Trannoy-Coltelloni 1999; see also Gilula 1996.
24. Edmondson 2002.
25. Jones 2011.
26. On the Circus Maximus: Arena 2007b. On the Flavian amphitheater: Orlandi 1999. On the amphitheater of Carthage: Hugoniot 2004/2005. On the theater of Aquileia: Buonopane & Braito 2016.
27. Sear 2019; Heath 2023.
28. For example, on the different uses of the word turba by Latin authors to designate spectators, or a crowd or an audience, see Arena 2007a. For a study of the different terms used in ancient literature to designate spectators of the chariot races: Forichon 2020, 59; Sumi 2021.
29. E.g., see Rose 2005.
30. E.g., Ng 2019.
31. One example is the recent publication of a study on the reactions of Jewish spectators to games and munera (Spielman 2020 ; on the subject, see also Weiss 2014; see also Forichon & Vespa in this volume, p. 287).
32. Zanker 1997, cf. also Zanker 1994.