The Emperor and the Ecumenical Synods of Competitors (original) (raw)
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AbstrAct There can be no single explanation for the violence connected with the circus factions of the fifth-seventh centuries AD. Some demonstrations were event related, being sparked by the immediate results of the competition while others stemmed from the perception, evidently common amongst faction members that their views aligned the moral compass of the average person (such riots often had a religious dimension and could be connected with anti-Jewish pogroms). The most serious violence, resulting in actions that threatened the authority of the emperor stemmed from overly close associations between emperors and specific factions. Such association encouraged factions, whose members included officials of the government, to view themselves as having a role in determining the direction of the state. Emperors who were uncertain of their position were more likely to form such associations than others. It is significant that Justin II, the successor of Justinian, a noted partisan of the Blues, eschewed association with the factions and that Anastasius renounced his partisanship of the Blues after a particularly violent event with the result that there seems to have been a decline in faction violence. Extreme factional violence reappears in the reign of Phocas, with a new religious dimension linked with post-Chalcedonian religious disputes. The movement of Roman government to the East occasioned and was accompanied by major changes in the public spectacle and entertainment. In so far as civic entertainments had reflected the relationship between the imperial government and cities since the late Republic the proposition of the previous sentence is unremarkable. What is remarkable is the level of change. The later third through fourth centuries AD witnessed the most complete transformation of the venues, structures and forms of entertainment since the archaic age of Greece. A new, more limited, system of entertainment based on theatrical events and, in major cities, circus chariot racing replaced the widespread network of civic festivals largely funded on the local level and managed through the collaboration of civic aristocrats with professional associations of athletes and actors from 'traditional' Greek style events and lanistae, who organized events derived from the Roman amphitheater. Studia Patristica LIV, 1-00.
The genesis of the present collection of articles dates back to 2000, when a conference on the theme of "Olympia and the Olympics: Festival and Identity in the Ancient World" formed a part of the "cultural lead-up to the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games" (x). As the editors note (xxv n. 59), the modern Olympics traditionally generate books etc. on the ancient Olympics and so, if nothing else, at least ensure some regularity of public attention to matters ancient. Not all the contributions, however, originate from the symposium; those of e.g. Miller and Crowther were commissioned after the event "to fill out the book's treatment of key topics and themes" (xv). As published, the volume's stated aim is to explore in detail the cultural, religious, political and social significance in the archaic and classical Greek world of athletics and festivals as well as how sporting and musical competitions "led the way, throughout the archaic period, in the crystallization and development of the polis and in the creation of its juridical and political practices" (xv). That, indeed, is a very ambitious undertaking but in fact some of the contributions, such as e.g. those of Ben Brown and Peter Wilson, tackle these issues directly.