Religion and Roman Spectacle

Abstract

That the earliest games celebrated military victory suggests their connection with one of the most public of Roman spectacles: the triumphal march of the victorious general upon his return to Rome. Categories such as “sacrifice,” “resurrection,” or “secularization” provide helpful interpretive classifications, especially for comparative studies. On the other hand, any interpretive category of this type runs the risk of distracting us from the day-to-day religious world of the Roman games. This chapter provides the reader with an introduction to the world of statues, votive altars, and curse tablets that surrounded and pervaded Roman spectacles. In the circus and arena, all the worlds of Rome – visible and invisible, celestial and chthonic – came together. It is above all in the meeting of these worlds, manifest in such quotidian things as vows, processions, and curses, that one can seek the religious meaning of Roman spectacle.

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