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Probably modern wrestlers but the gap is certainly less than it should be.
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Aug 22, 2023 18:27
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Professional gladiators could also be superstars the same way modern athletes are today. Literary sources mention people going wild over star gladiators, and graffiti from Pompeii includes some fawning messages from fans directed towards their favorite gladiators.
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Aug 22, 2023 18:46
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Imagining Agesilaus trying to terrorize some helot in CONUS now. I do imagine Romans might find modern roads interesting.
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Aug 22, 2023 18:58
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I think the Roman elites had a fairly low opinion of actors though, like they'd accuse some emperor of covorting with actors and prostitutes in the same breath. So a choreographed show fight where no-one ever dies for real would hardly impress them.
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Aug 22, 2023 19:00
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CrypticFox posted:Professional gladiators could also be superstars the same way modern athletes are today. Literary sources mention people going wild over star gladiators, and graffiti from Pompeii includes some fawning messages from fans directed towards their favorite gladiators. You could make insane bank racing chariots
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Aug 22, 2023 19:01
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CrypticFox posted:Professional gladiators could also be superstars the same way modern athletes are today. Literary sources mention people going wild over star gladiators, and graffiti from Pompeii includes some fawning messages from fans directed towards their favorite gladiators. True. This persisted for quite a while, even past the point where people were allowed to kill each other: Luxorius, a poet from 6th-century (Vandal-ruled) Africa wrote an ode to how black his favorite arena star was, and another one about how much he missed him when he died. (Also a lot about how much all his least favorite charioteers sucked)
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Aug 22, 2023 19:03
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We also have graffiti of people putting stats of their favorite gladiators on walls and people going to different tournaments to follow their favorites. Pro wrestling is a great comparison, though gladiator matches were more of a real sport. I'm sure there were plenty of fixed matches but there's no evidence it was just scripted theater like wrestling.
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Aug 22, 2023 19:19
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Pro Wrestling is probably the closest analogue we have today, but it really was very much its own weird thing. Gladiators were also around for a very, very long time, so the institution probably looked pretty different from one era to another. Actual gladiatorial matches were also a small part of the larger concept of "games," and get confused with a lot of different things in the modern popular imagination. Things that fell under "games" included beast hunts, chariot races, acrobatic shows, and the elaborate public executions that sometimes get conflated with gladiatorial matches. Actual gladiators were professionals, even if they were technically slaves, and were incredibly expensive to house and train. I would never call being a gladiator a "safe" profession, but it wasn't an instant death sentence. It's notable that they had access to some of the best medical care available in the ancient world, and that the famed surgeon/doctor Galen started his career working on gladiators. This isn't to say that it wasn't a horrifically exploitative system: I actually think the professional wrestling analogy here is pretty apt, where wrestlers/gladiators were incredibly valuable so long as they were popular and capable, but were still treated as pretty replaceable in the grand scheme of things.
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Aug 22, 2023 19:47
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I think the point still stands that the chamce of a gladiator's death was an ever present draw of the sport, plus the horrible slaughter of condemned criminals. There are no stakes to a fight between RC robots in a casino no matter how many flamethrowers they have I think ancient crowds would have loved auto racing back when everything was ludicrously unsafe and the drivers were insane daredevils Woolie Wool fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Aug 22, 2023 |
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Aug 22, 2023 20:42
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Woolie Wool posted:I think the point still stands that the chamce of a gladiator's death was an ever present draw of the sport, plus the horrible slaughter of condemned criminals. There are no stakes to a fight between RC robots in a casino no matter how many flamethrowers they have It was certainly an appeal, it was a dangerous sport. There's also a reason that when they occasionally do have death matches they advertise that fact, it was a draw. It's just that the popular conception of gladiators is all deathmatches which is completely wrong.
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Aug 22, 2023 20:48
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What would romans think of steroids or other enhancements? You can't really get Pro wrestler physique just by training and nutrition alone.
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Aug 22, 2023 20:50
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Fish of hemp posted:What would romans think of steroids or other enhancements? You can't really get Pro wrestler physique just by training and nutrition alone. That they were awesome
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Aug 22, 2023 20:52
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One of the ways Roman culture is objectively superior to our own.
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Aug 22, 2023 20:55
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How come nobody in the modern era does fake sea battles in coliseums?
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Aug 22, 2023 21:10
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its really cool that the modern theatrical fighting exhibition is a much better analogue to ancient bloodsport in terms of body count than the actual modern bloodsports are. like as much as MMA fighters and boxers destroy their bodies, pro wrestlers do the same or worse and get far less care or support and die a whole lot more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_premature_professional_wrestling_deaths
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Aug 22, 2023 21:11
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Woolie Wool posted:I think ancient crowds would have loved auto racing back when everything was ludicrously unsafe and the drivers were insane daredevils considering they went fuckin nuts for chariot races, yeah probably
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Aug 22, 2023 21:16
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Nessus posted:I do imagine Romans might find modern roads interesting. depending on where they look, they might also find modern roads really funny, especially the ones where people just put a bit of tar on top of their old roads and called it a day 
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Aug 22, 2023 21:17
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Libluini posted:depending on where they look, they might also find modern roads really funny, especially the ones where people just put a bit of tar on top of their old roads and called it a day
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Aug 22, 2023 21:37
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If Mike Duncan is to be believed, Romans would probably enjoy our incredibly tedious legal system that just favours the guy with the most money anyway. The single weirdest thing to me about Agesilaus was that he fantasized about how he "would have been" an aristocrat who owned a plantation, as if being born into a rich family in the modern day would somehow translate to another era.
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Aug 22, 2023 21:48
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A shocking degree of imaginative poverty, whether intrinsic or status protecting. As if one could ever gain status from the populus goonus.
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Aug 22, 2023 22:22
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Jazerus posted:considering they went fuckin nuts for chariot races, yeah probably Just sayin, ain’t nobody in the trailer park ever overthrown the President because their fave lost
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Aug 22, 2023 22:23
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Halloween Jack posted:If Mike Duncan is to be believed, Romans would probably enjoy our incredibly tedious legal system that just favours the guy with the most money anyway. To be fair, that's a common psychological phenomenon. The lottery system only works because of it. No-one would every buy lottery tickets otherwise. See also all the people who believe in reincarnations and coincidentally, any time they "connect to their ancient past" it turns out they were all kings, queens and pharaohs in their former lives, never peasants. Hope springs eternal.
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Aug 22, 2023 23:01
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Whatever you say about them,  ’s image is now enshrined forever in a giant building of marble columns, just like the Caesars of oldE: also we lucked into some money and might go to Italy after visiting my family in France next year. Are there any must-see roman sites or museums besides Rome itself which we’ve already done? Definitely putting Pompeii on the short list, and I hear Herculaneum is just as great but way less crowded? Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Aug 23, 2023 |
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Aug 23, 2023 00:26
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Ostia is another great one
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Aug 23, 2023 01:39
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Yeah do all three. Pompeii is the most crowded but for good reason. Only real nerds go to Ostia, I saw like two other people there the whole time. The archaeological museum in Naples is one of the best. Paestum is neat while you're in the area, Cumae too.
Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Aug 23, 2023 |
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Aug 23, 2023 01:44
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:
Herculaneum is really great, in many ways better preserved than Pompeii, but ideally you should really see both if you have the time (and you should make the time to see both if at all possible).
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Aug 23, 2023 02:54
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Libluini posted:See also all the people who believe in reincarnations and coincidentally, any time they "connect to their ancient past" it turns out they were all kings, queens and pharaohs in their former lives, never peasants.  The Pkunk posted:Ah, Captain human! I was hoping you would return. I have great news!
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Aug 23, 2023 06:03
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Star Control 2 really was a great work of literature.
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Aug 23, 2023 06:08
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Grand Fromage posted:It was certainly an appeal, it was a dangerous sport. There's also a reason that when they occasionally do have death matches they advertise that fact, it was a draw. It's just that the popular conception of gladiators is all deathmatches which is completely wrong. In general there's a real problem with people, including historians, assuming any kind of entertainment or ritual had to involve gruesome sacrifices and/or fights to the death. It's like that guy in Fallout 4 who assumes that baseball was a bloodsport where gladiators used the bats to beat each other to death and is quite pissed off when the protagonist corrects him. Having that kind of bloodsport on a regular basis is just wildly impractical with a moment's thought. Tunicate posted:They were all about cool weapons, spectacle, and putting on a show, the stereotypical trident+net gladiator equipment is because a gimmick Fish Vs Fishermen match ended up becoming ridiculously popular to watch and kept coming back. IIRC the trident and net guys seemed to be basically heels, since they were frustrating to fight against with their keep-away fighting style. But in any case the weapons and outfits absolutely were meant to be iconic, they even made action figures of specific gladiators with their signature weapons. It seems hard to say whether it was choreographed and staged like pro wrestling, or more of a sport with presumably rules and points like boxing or MMA. It might well have been either or both at different points and places, and it's hard to say where they might have considered the line to be. And I think there is a lot of confusion with how, as said, live animal hunts, executions and deathmatches were also on the itinerary. It was popular entertainment and civic occasions, and also apparently where bread rations were distributed, they probably had a lot of variety in shows to have something for everyone.
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Aug 23, 2023 08:41
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Definitely putting Pompeii on the short list, and I hear Herculaneum is just as great but way less crowded? In terms of time you'll need an entire day for Pompeii if you want to walk down every single street. There are a couple of cafeterias but they may or may not be open, so snacks are a good idea. Famous houses (like the one where the Alexander mosaic was) might be closed to the public when you visit, it's not easy to find out before you arrive. Famous houses with naughty pictures might be extremely crowded. Beard's Pompeii is an ok companion book for the visit. Herculaneum has a much smaller excavated area so you can go through it in an afternoon, but there won't be anything to eat until you climb back out. It also has a separate virtual reality exhibit nearby which is a neat idea but poorly regarded in practice. Both sites are amazing.
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Aug 23, 2023 09:04
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Close as hell to Naples as well, and there's tons to do there as well. Pompeii is great, and it is an enormous site with tons to see, but it's also going to be crowded. Italy was one of the places that really lived up to the hype as far as historical tourism goes. We went on a med cruise a few years ago that started in Rome, went to Naples, several of the Cyclades, Ephesus, Istanbul, and Athens and it was really cool visiting the three most famous cities in the history of western civilization. We flew in early to Rome and booked a private tour for two days, and we got two days in Istanbul as well. We booked full days too, saw everything we could, wasn't terribly relaxing but it was definitely the most interesting, and my favorite, vacation I've ever taken. Relatively affordable for what you get too. Also the acropolis is fake they rebuilt it in the 70s!
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Aug 23, 2023 15:01
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SlothfulCobra posted:How come nobody in the modern era does fake sea battles in coliseums? It really seems like it'd be easier than ever. You could have a flooded arena with a churning wave machine, simulate driving rain, have drone battleships with real weaponry just blasting the poo poo out of each other... You could even have carriers launching fighters and poo poo, it would be hella sweet to be up in a box seat for that nonsense.
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Aug 23, 2023 15:11
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Is there any place in Pompeii or Herculaneum where they've set up a working replica of one of those street food vendors, with the counter with the built-in heating and everything? Because if not someone should do that. They could serve pizza and start arguments about it.
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Aug 23, 2023 15:55
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I was on orders in Gaeta during 2020 and my visits to all the big sites was magically empty like some plague had wiped out all the tourists.
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Aug 23, 2023 16:38
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If you're looking for a similar experience to Pompeii but much smaller crowds, check out Ostia Antica in Rome. It's very well preserved and has a ton of buildings to walk through. Not as well preserved as Pompeii but still extremely impressive, quite a few mosaics but not as much preserved paint in the buildings. When I went there was barely anyone else there, it was a really unique experience being able to wander around the ruins of an ancient city mostly by yourself.
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Aug 23, 2023 19:06
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Ostia is the one recommended to me by professors who've done a lot of field work in Italy. I don't know if I'll get to go, but that's the place I'm aiming for.
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Aug 23, 2023 19:13
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Crab Dad posted:I was on orders in Gaeta during 2020 and my visits to all the big sites was magically empty like some plague had wiped out all the tourists. Yeah i havent been since the 2000s but pompeii being hyper crowded wasn’t my experience at all. We stayed until sundown and my strongest memories are of it being nearly deserted late in the day. Shame if it changed this much.
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Aug 24, 2023 00:11
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Ghost Leviathan posted:It seems hard to say whether it was choreographed and staged like pro wrestling, or more of a sport with presumably rules and points like boxing or MMA. It might well have been either or both at different points and places, and it's hard to say where they might have considered the line to be. Yeah, depending on the circumstances someone might be sentenced to be slaughtered helplessly in the arena, they might be sentenced to fight to the death no matter what, they might be sentenced to be a gladiator and get some kind of fighting chance, they might willingly have entered gladiator school for money, etc. And generally these categories would have been involved in separate events, but occasionally a professional gladiator would get sent into a lopsided match against a convict. So to that extent there were absolutely "fixed" matches, but it was probably generally understood that it was intended as an execution and not a real fight.
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Aug 24, 2023 01:21
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zoux posted:
well now they're never gonna get the marbles back
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Aug 24, 2023 07:21
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the holy poopacy posted:Yeah, depending on the circumstances someone might be sentenced to be slaughtered helplessly in the arena, they might be sentenced to fight to the death no matter what, they might be sentenced to be a gladiator and get some kind of fighting chance, they might willingly have entered gladiator school for money, etc. And generally these categories would have been involved in separate events, but occasionally a professional gladiator would get sent into a lopsided match against a convict. So to that extent there were absolutely "fixed" matches, but it was probably generally understood that it was intended as an execution and not a real fight.
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Aug 24, 2023 14:04
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