Midterm Post

Part One:

I would first like to start by defining my issue in the ancient world. I have been looking at blood sport within the ancient world. The main subject of looking into blood sport is the gladiatorial games practiced by the Roman Empire. In looking at the games I have looked into the status and treatment of gladiators, as well as the lust or repulsiveness of the spectators in the crowd. These ideas shape the images of what gladiators were and what it was like to be consumed within the games, whether it is as a participant or a spectator. As I said I want to look at two parts of blood sports how the participant was treated and how spectators reacted to the violence of the games.

            One of the main reasons behind looking into this topic is the tendency of modern culture to romanticize thing from the past, especially the Roman Empire. Coming into researching gladiators I pictured them as the superstars of their day, kings of the arena, who were equals of those around them. Many of the websites that I first looked at portrayed this idea of the romanticized warrior. As I did further research I discovered that this was not entirely true. It was not as honorable and noble of a profession as I first thought though some of my preconceived notions had truth to them they were not as valid as first thought.

             In the book, “The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster,” by Carlin A. Barton, Professor Barton talks about the “The ‘Inverse Exaltation’ of the Roman Gladiator.” He talks of how the Romans had conflicting opinions about their opinions on gladiators. He uses a quote from Tertullian to discuss how the Romans could simultaneously exalt and degrade the gladiator.

Men give them their souls, women their bodies too…On one and the same account, they glorify them and degrade and diminish them—indeed, they openly condemn them to ignominy and the loss of civil rights, excluding them from the senate house and rostrum, the senatorial and equestrian orders, and all other honors or distinctions of any type. The perversity of it! Yet, they love whom they punish; they belittle whom they esteem, the art they glorify the artist they debase. What judgment is this: on account of that for which he is vilified, he is deem worthy of merit! (Tertullian, De spectaculis 22)

                This fact shows that my first idea of them being an idolized group of people has some truth to it. But Barton shows using Tertullian’s quote that despite this glorification they were still without civil liberties and were not citizens of the state of Rome. In this book Barton also talks about the sacramentum gladiatorium, the oath the gladiators took. The author comments how this truly was an awful oath, making the gladiator even less of an equal citizen then they already were. They swore to endure being burned, bound, beaten, and slain by the sword (“uni, vinciri, verberari, ferroque necari patior.”) In addition they forswore anything that would help their condition as well as life itself. This also helps to show how gladiator’s images were conflicting among citizens. The recited this awful oath to being killed but they gained respect from the Roman people for having reciting the oath and making themselves accepting of death. “The gladiator’s oath expresses the highest ideal and commitment of the virtuous man (the philosopher/soldier), a man sever and without hope or illusion; a man who escapes from the humiliations of being under compulsion through enthusiastic complicity.”

                I also used the book, “Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome,” as a great secondary source. In this book author Donald G. Kyle talks of how the games themselves were a spectacle. Where people would come to watch the games and have a love affair with the death of associated with the arena.

                My third secondary source that I have been reading has been “The Roman Games” by Alison Futruell. This book was mainly a compleation of many ancient sources. The author Alison Futruell uses these primary ancient sources to highlight the games themselves.

Part Two:

In addition to my secondary sources I have also looked into primary sources as well that help to showcase how gladiators were treated and how spectators viewed the games themselves. My first source comes from Seneca’s Epistles Volume I chapter VII, “On Crowds”

      I happened to go to one of these shows at the time of the lunch-hour interlude, expectiong there to be some light and wity entertainment then, some respite for the purpose of affording people’s eyes a rest from human blood. Far from it. All the earlier contests were charity in comparison. The nonsense is dispensed with now: what we have now is murder pure and simple. The combabtants have nothing to protect them; their whole bodies were exposed to the blows; every thrust they launch gets home…There are no helmets and no shields repelling the weapons. What is the point of armor? Or of skill? All that sort of thing just makes the death slower in coming…The spectators insist that each on killing his man shall be thrown against another to be killed in his turn; and the eventual victor is reserved by them from some other form of butchery; the only exit for the contestants is death. Fire and steel keep the slaughter going. And all this happens while the area is virtually empty.

               As Seneca states the thirst for blood of the Roman spectators was unmatched. He went to view the show at lunch time in order to see as less violent show as he figured people need a break from seeing their fellow human beings slain. But what he goes and finds is and even more graphic show, one with no shields or helmets. The fans make sure that everyone dies, making the winner of the one fight get right back up and continue to fight another opponent, their thirst for blood never quenched. 

               Another primary source I have been using to discover the ideas of the ancient gladiator was from Seneca’s essay, De Providentia (On Providence). I took a section of the essay that relates to the gladiators search for glory within death. 

Valor is avid for danger…since even what it must suffer is a part of glory. Warriors glory in their wounds and jubilantly display their flowing blood…The raw recruit turns pale at the thought of a wound, but the veteran looks undaunted upon his own gore

               The gladiators were men who showed no pain even when inflicted with wounds. Seneca tells of how the gladiator takes pride in their wounds, and “jubilantly” displays them to the crowd. The man who is new to being a gladiator shows his fear and becomes sick when even thinking about a wound but the veteran is not fazed.  This section of the essay also connects back to, “The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans,” Barton talks of, “how the gladiators love of death and enthusiastic cooperation in his own death,” redeems his honor with the crowd (Sorrows of the Ancient Romans, 24). By being unfazed by the sight of his own blood and wounds he again raises himself up to be idolized by the Roman citizens despite the fact that he is not even their equal.

This image is of a bronze candlestick with the image of a gladiator as its base. The artifact shows how despite not being citizens the gladiator still was a part of Roman society and even depicted in its art work.



These Roman Greaves, are ornatly decorated with images of a warrior. A gladiator would wear these into their fights in the arena.

This video just gives a brief overview of what it would be like inside the arena. The beginning of the video even quotes the oath the gladiators take when first entering the profession of gladiators. to endure being burned, bound, beaten, and slain by the sword (“uni, vinciri, verberari, ferroque necari patior.”)

Past and Present

Blood sport has a connection to modern day as well. The modern day example varies slightly from the ancients. The main difference is that today blood sport mainly deals with animals not humans. The best example I could use to protray gladiators in modern society is the sport of cock fighting. Cock fighting is the fighting between two male roosters, the fight is till one of the roosters gives up or one of the roosters is killed. The sport is outlawed in the United States but it is extremely popular in many Central and South American countries as well as the Carribiean.

The roosters have the same level of dignity as the gladiators of the ancient world. They are slaves of their masters, made to fight to the death for the ammusement of others and the monatary gain of their owners. They are seens as lowly animals, but just like the gladiators they have a degree of respect for the fact the fight with no regard for themselves accept for the pleasure of pleasing their owners.

Another key point about cock fighting that is similar to the ancient gladiatorial fights is the spectators that watch the games. In the ancient their were people who loved the games and people who thought the games were terrible. Many pagan Roman citizens loved the games, seeing them as a reflection of Romans physical and military power. They had a blood lust for the sport but also saw a little of the violence within them in the gladiators. The games were also a part of a culture that they loved. The opposing group were Christians in ancient Rome who saw the games as a terrible thing. Men killing men and animals just for the sake of killing was wasting life and going against the 10 comandments.

Present day has this very similar devide between groups of people. In Latin American countires like Mexico and the Dominican Republic, cock fighting is a huge event. Roosters are breed strictly for fighting. Large festivals include cock fights for the masses to see, with families attending the events. It is something that is apart of their culture and is very important to the people of this country. Many people in the United States see cock fighting as a terrible event. Innocent animals being slaughtered for the amusement of others, who have no say in how they are treated. This is very similar to the Pagans and Christians of ancient Rome.

Abortion throughout History

                Abortion has been one of the most controversial topics not only in the modern era, but can be traced back to fifth century B.C. While the philosophers and conveyors of ancient medicine had limited anatomical and medical knowledge, the concept of life and when it originates can still be found in these ancient texts. To truly study the issue of abortion, one must first study what human life is and how it begins according to the ancients (Hippocrates, Galen, Aristotelian doctors and various unnamed authors). There were three diverse schools of thought that really dominated the ancient period and truly showed that abortion was as contested a idea then as it is now. The first school of thought that I researched was the notion that human life beings at conception and while this idea is certainly popular today among specific religious circles, its origins can actually be traced back to the Pythagoreans (495 BC). According to Kapparis a reference is made in To Gauros, on how embroys are animated:

                      Living beings are born from each other from seed, and birth from earth is impossible. The seed  is a drop of brain containing hot steam inside. When it is deposited in the uterus, ichor and nerves and bones and hair and the entire body is composed. Soul and sense and produced from steam.

                This notion of forty days is important because followers of this thought believed that abortion was fine in the sense that if the fetus was aborted before 40 days then a human life wasn’t being aborted, but after 40 days, it was considered to be a human being and shared all the rights that are associated with living, breathing human beings. However, those who believed that a human was formed at the moment of conception obviously abhor the idea of abortion because no matter the time period of gestation, a human being is formed when the paternal sperm and maternal egg unite.  It was also interesting to see that this idea was attributed to Plato and his school by Galen and the unknown author of Whether what is carried in the womb is a living being.
             The second school of thought believed that human life beings at birth and while it was a visible minority, it really took off during the period of Hellenistic medicine and was promoted by the stoics (Kapparis p.42). It was attributed to Empedocles (490 BC) who denied the notion that an embryo was a living being. “Empedocles (said) that the embryo is not a living being, but (accepted) that it breathes in the womb, however, it breathes like a living being only after birth” (Kapparis p.41) This idea is interesting because in order to believe that life occurs at birth, then the air has to physically infuse the body with a soul in order to make it alive. Kapparis also notes that while these philosophers believed that the embryo wasn’t a human being, the issue of abortion was still not completely black and white. While they did not believe it was homicide, it wasn’t a justifiable practice either.
             The last school of thought believed that the human life begins while the fetus is growing (gradualist view) and was mostly championed by Galen and Hippocratic writers. The analogy most used in the texts and articles that I read compared the growing fetus to a seed. These ancients believed that as time passed, the womb would expand due to the growth of the fetus. As Hanson describes in “The Gradualist View of Fetal Development”, “Hippocratic doctors described the physical development of the fetus as happening gradually over the months of pregnancy, culminating in the vigorous animal-like creature who punched its way out from an inert womb at birth.” While these great philosophers were debating the issue of life, their writings had great impact on religious practices for centuries and continue to do so as I observed from reading the writings of Hippocrates. In volume 9, Hippocrates says “Fourty-day periods decide in fetuses first that any one which survives beyond the first fourty days will escape the miscarriages which occur all that time...when this term has passed, fetuses have become stronger and the body is differentiated” (Hippocrates p.91). St. Augustine picked up on this in (354-430 AD) when he claimed in Enchiridion that early abortion is not homicide. “But who is not rather disposed to think that unformed fetuses perish like seeds which have not fructified" (Pennington Law).
             As noted above, I kept returning to this notion of 40 days and even Aristotle believed that abortion before a certain point was considered to be just a method of population control. “people have a child as a result of intercourse in contravention of these regulations, abortion must be practised on it before it has developed sensation and life; for the line between lawful and unlawful abortion will be marked by the fact of having sensation and being alive” (Politics book 7, section 1335b). The reason that I focused so much on the gradualist theory in regards to human life is because it is so pertinent today. Many of the laws that deal with abortion in America and other countries come strictly from the notion that the fetus becomes alive sometime during gestation. In the landmark case, Roe v. Wade, “the court ruled that states may not prevent women from having an abortion during the first six months of pregnancy. It did permit a state to forbid abortions during the last 10 weeks of pregnancy, but it added the proviso "except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother." While the ancients were quick to forgo all ethical and moral dilemmas, regarding abortion when the mother’s life was at stake, some states today do not. Currently in Oklahoma, the state is deciding on a bill which would force women who are considering abortion to view and listen to the fetus through ultrasound technology which has become quite advanced in the last ten years as seen by the picture below.

Another law which is being considered in South Dakota would allow the killing of the physicians who abort fetuses (New York Times). This is quite disturbing because while the issue of abortion has remained constant throughout history, it seems that the modern society is more savage than the ancients.







    

Gladiatorial Images

    

Peleas de Gallos

I recently came across two articles looking at cock fighting. Each article had a different take on the idea. The one article came from the Humane Society, this article had a very anti-cock fighting spin. They claimed that, "cockfighting often goes hand in hand with gambling, drug dealing, illegal gun sales, and murder." Now why I feel that cock fighting is not that humane, I feel that the stretch to say that murder derived from cock fighting is a very far-fetched idea. The other article came from a Mexican online newpaper, called Mexconnect. This article was very pro-cock fighting as it is a intregal part of Mexican society. They birds according to this article were extremely taken care of by their masters. The article talks about their appearance and how they were taken care of, "Proud iridescent blue-black tail feathers glowing, bright and sleek copper-bodied, wattles and combs trimmed." They had very human like qualities when fighting as they jockeyed for position like boxers in a ring. The birds also look out for themselves as when they both don't feel like fighting they will hang back and wait for the bell to sound.

These birds were much like the gladiators of ancient times. They were forced into competition that fought to the death. These birds are very large physical specimens, just as the gladiator were. In the article from Mexconnect, the author talks about how the roosters are breed from a variety of birds to produce the strongest, fastest birds.

"Not every rooster has the right stuff to become a fighting cock. Bred from strains of Hatch, Claret, Black, Round Head and White Hackel for height, strength, speed and "gameness," or the ability to stay and fight instead of surrendering, a prize fighting cock may sell for as much as five thousand dollars."

  

Spectacle of Death

The Roman games truly were a specticle for the beholder. The spectator would have witness some of the most gruesome and gory violence possible. The violence was at the maximum replusiveness as phyiscally possible. With sharpened steel objects being thrust into the victim, slicing and dicing them to pieces. Swords and spears would tear open a man leaving his insides visable to the outside world. If a man was not cut to pieces by steel, he could be trampled by the horses and chariots that sometimes roamed the arena. This would crush the victim leaving them broken and battered, many would not even resemble humans after having their face crushed by the hoof of a stallion or the wheel of a chariot. If this didn't kill them the wild animals sent to fight the Gladiators very well could. They would tear their victim limb from limb, shreading them with their razor like teeth and claws. This truly was a specticle as only graphic human physical distruction could be.

I am currently reading the book, "Spectacles of Death In Ancient Rome," by Donald G. Kyle. Professor Kyle is the Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Arlington. He specializes in sports of the ancient world particularly Ancient Greece. This book truly is a facinating one, though I have just started to read the book. In the "Interpretations of Roman violence and spectacles" section, Kyle talks of how violence and blood sport continue through society from humans origins as a hunter/killer for survival.

Ancient Greek Medicine

Since the majority of well known physicians in the ancient era were Greek (Galen and Hippocrates to name two), I wanted to learn more about the origins and culture of medicine in ancient Greece. One of the more enlightening books on the subject happens to be Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine by Sir James Elliott. He describes how in early Greek medicine, "the ancients were well informed in attributing destruction of the infection to the sun's rays". This was of course based on the belief that Apollo, the god of the sun, was instructing ancient physicians how to harness the sun's rays to fight common ailments. Another figure that I found fascinating was Apollo's son, Asclepius who was believed to be the god of medicine. The actual symbol of medicine that is used now is based on the Rod of Asclepius shown below compared to the actual symbol on the right.

Asclepius and his Rod

The modern symbol of medicine

According to Elliott, "when Asclepius was in the house of his patient, Glaucus, and deep in thought, a serpent coiled itself around his staff. Asclepius killed it, and then another serpent appeared with a herb leaf in its mouth, and restored the dead reptile to life." Apparently, it was believed that poison was the cause of disease and if a snake was capable of causing disease then it might be capable of curing it as well. I also found interesting that while doctors were held in high esteem, two divisions were recognized: physicians and surgeons. It was also interesting and humorous to see that physicians were held in less honor than surgeons, much like it is today. "Then Asclepius bestowed the power of healing upon his two sons; nevertheless, he made one of the two more celebrated than the other; on one did he bestow the lighter hand that he might draw missiles from the flesh, and sew up and heal all wounds, but the other he endowed with great precision of mind, so as to understand what cannot be seen, and to heal seemingly incurable diseases."

The Joy of Anesthesia

Opium occupies a special role in the history of Anesthetics. Homer's epics contain the first references to opium as a drug "which quiets all pains and quarrels." The Greek medical Philosopher Galen (130-200AD) later commented on opium; (It) resists poison and venomous bites, cures chronic headache, vertigo, deafness, epilepsy, apoplexy, dimness of sight, loss of voice, asthma, coughs of all kinds, spitting of blood, tightness of breath, colic, the iliac poison, jaundice, hardness of the spleen, stone, urinary complaints, fevers, dropsies, leprosies, and the troubles to which women are subject, melancholy and all pestilences (Republished: Scott, Scott, J.M. The White Poppy. New York: Funk & Wagnells, 1969; 5, 46-82, 109-125). The clinical usage of opium was not widely implemented, however, due to a keen general awareness of the dangers associated with over use.

 

 Ether was one of the first "modern" anesthetics discovered, synthesized in 1275 by the Spanish chemist Raymundus Lullius. Its medical potential wasn't realized until much later when anesthesia broke onto the medical scene in the late 1700s with the help of chemists such as Joseph Priestly, who first synthesized nitrous oxide in 1772, and sir Humphrey Davy who recognized the potential of "laughing gas" in 1799. He first experimented with animals then himself, above Priestly is depicted administering NO to Davy in a sort of exhibition party. Not all forays into anesthetic research, however, ended so enthusiastically. Depicted below is the purported result of accidentally spilling a bottle of chloroform. Supposedly the Edinburgh professor James Simpson's wife walked in on him and colleagues all passed out as such.

The use of anesthetics has been present throughout the current era, its widespread acceptance and even daily use, however, has only skyrocketed in the last couple hundred years. Addiction to drugs has always been around, but the daily consumption of weak pain killers has become exceedingly common only recently. Though championing heart health, the effects of 2 Advil, Aleve, or Tylenol a day have no long standing history. Relatively few drugs were known and discovered up until the 18th century, they were all largely well characterized and generally wariness was associated with their use. Now, people are so often looking for a magic bullet as a cure that they overlook an ignorance of long-term effects and try anything. Perhaps some wisdom in the caution of the ancients may prove essential in humanities ever accelerating push into medical science.

The Discovery and Invention of Anesthesia by Adam Blatner M.D.

http://www.blatner.com/adam/consctransf/historyofmedicine/4-anesthesia/hxanesthes.html
                                 Drugs and Narcotics in History by Roy Porter
http://books.google.com/books?id=I1YxRwBn5poC&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=ancient+greek+roman+opium&source=bl&ots=kFr64bhnwL&sig=a6NCL66f7xVeHSwFNxbZpKxOiZc&hl=en&ei=08RZTZjvNYOB8ga6odWqBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEUQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=ancient%20greek%20roman%20opium&f=false

Gladiators

Hail, Caesar,
Those about to die
Salute thee

This ancient quote was coined by Suetonius, a historian of Rome. This quote points to the fact that those who fought in the arena were doomed to die.

I wanted to start my look on the ancient games by first looking at the gladiators themselves. Gladiators were condemned criminals, prisoners of war, or slaves, who faced the death penalty. Criminals who committed a capital crime were sent into the arena weaponless, ensuring death. Those who did not commit capital crimes along prisoners of war and slaves were trained in gladiator schools. There learned how to fight in the arena. Gladiators could sometimes win their freedom if they survived three to five years of combat. Most though did not make it to freedom as the arena is a very violent place.

Freed man also joined the ranks of the gladiators, they were know as auctorati. Many times these men sold themselves in to gladiator schools as they were in debt and this was a sure way to get out of it. These men became professional gladiators, training and working to kill in the arena. This gained popularity for them throughout the masses.

Gladiators had very low social status, barely better than that of a slave. But they still were idolized, some even recieved hero status. They can be compared to modern day athletes in the sense that they were seen as heros. The competed in the arena much like an athlete does today, through success their popularity would rise.

Abortion throughout History

Abortion has been one of the most controversial topics not only in the modern era, but can be traced back to fifth century B.C. While the philosophers and conveyors of medicine did not know much about the human body back then, the concept of life and when it originates can still be found in these ancient texts. It was interesting and surprising to see the medication that these ancient doctors prescribed to induce abortion.  One such classical physician was Galen who is considered to be the foremost physician in classical antiquity and some of his prescriptions included "lupine, death carrot, two juniper species, wallflower or stock, squirting cucumber, woundwort, pepper, and the fern known as pteris" (Riddle). Riddle goes on to describe animal studies which have found squirting cucumbers to be quite effective as abortifacients. This parallel between ancient and modern medicine is important, because while these physicians of antiquity did not have the medical knowledge, they were still able to provide their patients with solutions to modern problems. Also, it is also important to note that while abortion was practiced sometimes heavily, the ethics and morality of abortion were just as convoluted as they are today. The poem written below illustrates how one Roman poet (Ovid)  felt about using dangerous agents such as the herbs described above, in order to terminate pregnancy. It also  shows that abortion was not only a contested idea between philosophers and politicians, but also was a concern among ordinary people (Kapparis).

Aiming to end her pregnancy - so rashly -
Corrina lies exhausted, life in doubt.
To run such fearful risks without my knowledge
Should make me rage, but fear's put rage to rout ...
O Isis ...
Turn your eyes here; on her - and me - have mercy;
You will give life to her and she to me ...
You too, kind Ilithyia, who take pity,
When girls are locked in labour, and relieve
Their hidden load, be present, hear my prayer

Champions of the Dogmatist Ethic

In the wake of Alexander the Great’s crumbling empire, new ideas distinct from the ancient Greek practices were gaining acceptance. Herophilus and Erasistratus championed the “Dogmatist” medical ethic in 280 BCE Alexandria, and for the first time were granted permission by the king to perform a vivisection on a condemned criminal for purely scientific reasons. The Empirics, however, opposed dissection and vivisection saying they aren’t necessarily representative of dealing with an actual patient, and that instead of spending time theorizing, doctor’s should be focused on the needs of actual patients. In the 1^st CE the roman historian Cornelius Celsus portrays the debate in his medical encyclopedia De Medicina. Celsus portrays the criminal's

vivisection as a means for the surgeon the familiarize himself with common wounds in battle. The "wound-man" portrayed on the right is from De Medicini and portrays common injuries obtained in battle and was used as a reference for implementing wounds and practicing surgery. Celsus apparently approves of the act saying "nor is it, as most people say, cruel that in the execution of criminals, and but a few of them, we should seek remedies for innocent people of future ages." Though debatably brutish, the practice of human vivisection apparently played important roles in the evolution of human medical understanding. In Herophilus's treatise On Anatomy he was the first to distinguish nerves and further the difference between sensory and motor nerves, that the brain rather than the heart was the center of the nervous system, that perceiving pain depended on both brain and nerves, and revealed the presence of optical nerves and retina.  

Welcome to Bioethics

In this blog, we want to study the relationship between ancient and modern bioethics in different contexts. The topics will range from medicine and science to entertainment and animal rights. We will discuss the evolution of this issue through the ages based on historical circumstance and future directions.

Dog Vivesection

Roman Games - Animals in the Arena

I found a great video on animals in the arena, I tried to upload it to this blog but it wasn't allowing me. The video comes from a BBC documentary on animals and their place in the arena. It also proposes how animals and the games were used to boast peoples political power. Here is the link to check it out.

http://www.awesomestories.com/assets/roman-games-animals-in-the-arena-1