On the Shows 12
Summary: Gladiatorial shows began as human sacrifices to the dead, and so remain idolatry, even when given in honor of magistrates; the amphitheatre is a temple of demons.
Latin text · CSEL 20:14–15
Superest illius insignissimi spectaculi ac receptissimi recognitio. munus dictum est ab officio, quoniam officium etiam muneris nomen est. officium autem mortuis hoc spectaculo facere se, ueteres arbitrabantur, posteaquam illud humaniore atrocitate temperauerunt. nam olim, quoniam animas defunctorum humano sanguine propitiari creditum erat, captiuos uel mali status seruos mercati in exequiis immolabant. postea placuit impietatem uoluptate adumbrare. itaque quos parauerant, armis quibus tunc et qualiter poterant eruditos, tantum ut occidi discerent, mox edicto die inferiarum apud tumulos erogabant. ita mortem homicidiis consolabantur. haec muneris origo. sed paulatim prouecti ad tantam gratiam, ad quantam et crudelitatem, quia feriarum uoluptati satis non fiebat nisi et feris humana corpora dissiparentur. quod ergo mortuis litabatur, utique parentationi deputabatur; quae species, proinde idololatria est, quoniam et idololatria parentationis est species: tam haec quam illa mortuis ministrat. in mortuorum autem idolis daemonia consistunt. ut et titulos considerem, licet transierit hoc genus editionis ab honoribus mortuorum ad honores uiuentium, quaesturas dico et magistratus et flaminia et sacerdotia, cum tamen nominis dignitas idololatriae crimine teneatur, necesse est quicquid dignitatis nomine administratur communicet etiam maculas eius, a qua habet causas. idem de apparatibus interpretabimur in ipsorum honorum suggestu deputandis, quod purpurae, quod fasces, quod uittae, quod coronae, quod denique contiones et edicta et pultes pridianae sine pompa diaboli, sine inuitatione daemonum non sunt. quid ego de horrendo loco perorem, quem nec periuria sustinent? pluribus enim et asperioribus nominibus amphitheatrum consecratur quam Capitolium: omnium daemonum templum est. tot illic immundi spiritus considunt, quot homines capit. ut et de artibus concludam, Martem et Dianam utriusque ludi praesides nouimus.
English · Claude translation
There remains the review of that most notable and most popular show. It is called munus from “duty” (officium), since officium is also one of the meanings of munus. The ancients thought that by this show they were performing a duty to the dead, after they had tempered it with a more humane cruelty. For formerly, since it was believed that the souls of the departed were propitiated by human blood, they used to buy captives or slaves of poor quality and sacrifice them at funerals. Afterwards it pleased them to cloak the impiety with pleasure. So those whom they had procured, trained in such arms and as well as they then could, only so that they might learn to be killed, they soon spent at the tombs on the day appointed for the funeral offerings. So they consoled death with murders. This is the origin of the munus. But gradually they advanced to as great refinement as they did to cruelty, because the pleasure of the holiday was not satisfied unless human bodies were also torn apart by wild beasts. What was offered to the dead, then, was surely counted as a funeral rite; and that kind is idolatry, since idolatry too is a kind of funeral rite: the one as much as the other serves the dead. And in the idols of the dead demons dwell. To consider the titles too: although this kind of exhibition has passed from honors paid to the dead to the honors of the living, I mean quaestorships and magistracies and flaminates and priesthoods, yet since the dignity of the name is bound by the crime of idolatry, whatever is administered in the name of that dignity must also share the stains of the source from which it has its occasions. We shall interpret the equipment in the same way, counted among the trappings of those very honors: the purple, the fasces, the fillets, the crowns, and finally the proclamations, the edicts, and the banquets of the day before are not without the pomp of the devil, not without the invitation of demons. What should I say of that dreadful place, which not even perjuries can bear? For the amphitheatre is consecrated with more names, and harsher ones, than the Capitol: it is the temple of all the demons. As many unclean spirits sit there as it holds men. To conclude with the arts too: we know that Mars and Diana are the patrons of both kinds of games.
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Notes
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (garbled word in the digital text; stray letter in the digital text): humaniorno sanguine → humano sanguine; tmunep:i origo → muneris origo; tquae species → quae species.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Spect. 12 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-spectaculis/12/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Spect. 12 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-spectaculis/12/).
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