Spectacles of Death: Gladiatorial Combats and Naval Battles in the Roman Arena
Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago
Tuesday, January 8, 2019 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
This series of lectures, “Sport, Spectacle, and Games under the Roman Empire”, by Professor Sinclair Bell will look at the different ways in which sport and spectacle permeated the society and culture of the ancient Roman Empire (ca. 1-200 CE). The lectures investigate several different forms of public entertainment and leisure – gladiatorial combats and naval battles, athletics and bathing, and chariot-racing – and the respective monumental spaces in which they took place. Drawing on artistic, architectural, and archaeological evidence as well as contemporary literary sources, these lectures will wrestle with the problematic nature of their classification as sport vs. spectacle.