مجلة عصور الجديدة
Volume 12, Numéro 2, Pages 111-138
2022-07-18

. Ad Bestias.ad Gladium المدرج الروماني حلبة للألعاب أم مكان للتعذيب

الكاتب : فاضل لخضر .

الملخص

The amphitheater has always been considered as a symbol of excellence and a mark / an indicator of the life of leisure and entertainment in which the Roman people lived. Thus, organizing horse races, gladiatorial matches, as well as fighting fierce animals on the track were the most important games that took place in the arena. The promoters / organizers of these recreational games, in the capital in the capital (Rome) or in the provincial cities, were receiving facilitation and support from the Roman authorities, considering that these entertainments are a manifestation of the Roman civilization and one of the means of the civilizational Romanization of the peoples subject to the Roman occupation. On the other hand, one must not deny that the amphitheater in the Roman city was not an entertainment facility that accommodates a large number of fans from inside and outside the city who came to recreate bywatching those bloody scenes that were taking place in its arena. Rather, it was an extension of the Roman coliseum in the provinces and a copy of it that was used by the Roman authorities to lure and attract the populations all over the empire to like and adopt this model of life. Hence, we may understand the secret lying behind the rush and the competition of all the Roman cities, whatever their legal rank was, in building the largest and most luxurious amphitheaters within their cities, as if it were a direct evidence of the strength of the Roman civilizational influence on them and a proof of its total domination and adherence to the Roman model. The traditional image of the amphitheater as a space for amusement, fun, spending of time, and public diversion from political crises and distracting them from the problems of daily life collides with other facts reveal by literary sources and archaeological findings. The archaeological data such as tombstones, mosaic panels, oil lamps, coins, seals and pottery of all kinds as well as the texts of the writers, the historians, the thinkers, the philosophers, the orators, the poets and even some legislative documents present us an ugly and inhumane/ image of the Roman amphitheater because of was going on in it during The Roman era, whether in Italy or in the provinces of the Roman Empire

الكلمات المفتاحية

amphitheater ; gladiators; ; Tertullian; ; Nero; ; Christians; ; torture ; Adrianus ; the Arena ; venation ; damnation ; bestial ; supplicia.