The martyrdom of polycarp: Death in the roman games

Journal of Religion

Volumn 82, Issue 1, 2002, Pages 27-51

  Thompson, Leonard L ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 62549126466     PISSN: 00224189     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/490993     Document Type: Article

References (159)

1. Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (New York: Modern Library, n.d.), 1:467
2. M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1981), p. 20. An irony here: literary terms remind us of the complexity of historical characters
3. Judith Perkins, The Suffering Self (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 7
4. Announcements of that sort were found in the ashes of Pompeii, see Thomas Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 56, 97
5. Apuleius, The Golden Ass 10.18. The account is, of course, fictional, but it reflects real-life practices
6. Compare Carlin Barton, "Savage Miracles: The Redemption of Lost Honor in Roman Society and the Sacrament of the Gladiator and the Martyr," Representations 45 (Winter 1994): 47
7. For examples of costs, see Richard Duncan-Jones, The Economy of the Roman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 153-54
8. and Keith Hopkins, Death and Renewal, Sociological Studies in Roman History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 7-8. The games became especially expensive when each sponsor sought to outdo his predecessors in, for example, the number or variety of animals in the venationes. Both Nero and Marcus Aurelius put controls on spending in order to avoid exploitation of wealthy provincials and to keep from overburdening magnates; cf. Wiedemann, pp. 134- 35. Those who sponsored the shows, like baseball owners today, periodically cried out, "Save us from ourselves."
9. Robert concludes from his analysis of inscriptions that the gladiator fights came directly from Rome along with the imperial cult (Louis Robert, Les Gladiateurs dans I'Orient Grec [1940; reprint, Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1971], p. 240, cf. p. 270)
10. For example, IGRom 1454 from Smyrna: a family of gladiators honors a sponsor of shows who is designated as Asiarch. The relation of the Asiarch to the imperial cult is a complex one; see Steven J. Friesen, Twice Neokoros (Leiden: Brill, 1993), pp. 92-113. Priests of local temples also sponsored games
11. see A. H. M. Jones, Greek City: From Alexander to Justinian (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940), p. 230
12. Paul Plass, The Game of Death in Ancient Rome (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), p. 52
13. Of Perpetua and Felicitas 17 in Herbert Musurillo, Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 125. According to the Martyrdom of Polycarp (Mart. Pol.), Poly-carp would not have been present at the banquet
14. for the authorities had not yet located him. Unless otherwise indicated, text and translation of Mart. Pol. are from Kirsopp Lake, The Apostolic Fathers (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970)
15. Although those three types of performances had different origins, they were linked together by the time of Augustus; see Wiedemann, pp. 55-57
16. See Dio 43.22.3: "called an amphitheatre from the fact that it had seats all around," Unless otherwise indicated, Greek and Latin texts and translations are from the Loeb Classical Library
17. Pierre Grimal, Roman Cities, ed. and trans. G. Michael Woloch (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), pp. 63-68
18. Alison Futrell, Blood in the Arena (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997), pp. 53-76
19. For the numbers, see Futrell, p. 230. For the distribution of gladiator fighting in the East, see Robert, pp. 241-48. Robert concludes, "Greek society was corrupted by this sickness from Rome. It was one of the achievements of the Romanization of the Greek world" (p. 263). On remodeled stadiums: IGRom 845 and 861, from Laodicea on Lycus: "a stadium with seats for spectators all around" On remodeled temples, see Robert, nos. 23-24 (the theater at Philippi)
20. Hazel Dodge, "Amusing the Masses: Buildings for Entertainment and Leisure in the Roman World," in Life, Death, and Entertainment in the Roman Empire, ed. D. S. Potter and D.J. Mattingly (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), pp. 233-35
21. Dodge, pp. 231, 233-35. There were several amphitheaters in Syria, Galilee, and Judea
22. Peter Garnsey and Richard Sailer, The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987), pp. 190-91
23. According to Philostratus, Vit. soph. 541, Polemo commented: "You are in as great an agony as though you were going to declaim." In Les Gladiateurs, Robert establishes in detail that the "upper classes" supported gladiator fights (pp. 254-62)
24. Plato. Resp. 440A
25. Augustine, Conf. 6.8
26. Compare the exhibition at the New York Historical Society, "Lynching Photography in America" announced in the New York Times (April 9, 2000)
27. Quoted in Plass (n. 8 above), pp. 184-85
28. See also pp. 15-24 and Plass's long footnote 10 on pp. 184-86
29. Clifford Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic, 1973), pp. 420-21
30. See Wiedemann (n. 4 above), pp. 23-24 and 41
31. So Cassius Dio 66.25.1
32. Wiedemann, p. 61; Pliny, Nat. 8.20, 24, 28, 29
33. Wiedemann, pp. 62, 65, 90
34. Barton (n. 6 above), p. 52
35. Petronius, Satyricon 45. Hopkins (n. 6 above), pp. 24-25
36. Wiedemann, p. 28: "the contrast between the fame of individual gladiators and the infamia with which gladiators as a group were stigmatised is striking." For an inside view of the life of a gladiator, see Robert (n. 7 above), pp. 302-7. In the inscriptions there are references to gladiatorial troupes. They married. One epitaph is set up for the child of a gladiator. As outcasts, or at least as heavily marked "others," they shared characteristics with Christian martyrs. In contrast to gladiators, however, most of the (Christian) documents of martyrdom present an insider's view with few references to martyrs from the outside
37. Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 4.22
38. See Plass, p. 72
39. David S. Potter, "Entertainers in the Roman Empire," in Potter and Mattingly, eds. (n. 13 above), p. 306
40. Wiedemann, p. 39. Hopkins suggests that senators and knights performed as gladiators, for "it was their last chance to play soldiers in front of a large audience" (p. 21). Potter mentions that prizes of spears and torques were given to gladiators as they were to soldiers. Gladiator duels were popular with soldiers, for the gladiators displayed those virtues of the warrior (p. 316). (Recall that amphitheaters were often built close to military camps.)
41. Hopkins, p. 24, quoting Petronius, Satyricon 117. On the oath, see also Barton, p. 52, n. 68
42. Pliny, Pan. 33. Perhaps it was because of their manliness that some upperclass women were attracted to gladiators. Juvenal 6: "he was frightfully ugly, Scarred by his helmet, a wart on his nose, and his eyes always running. Gladiators, though, look better than any Adonis: This is what she preferred to children, country, and sister, This to her husband. The sword is what they dote on, these women" (The Satires of Juvenal, trans, by Rolfe Humphries [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1958])
43. The Digest of Justinian, ed. and trans. Alan Watson (hereafter cited as Digest) (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 47.9.9
44. Suetonius, Galba 9
45. Seneca, Letters 7.2., quoted in Hopkins, p. 3
46. Mart. Pol. 12.2-3. In what follows, I hold no particular brief for the Martyrdom of Poly-carp. Was a version of it written soon after the events-either Eusebius's or Pionius's? Fash-
47. ions on the date come and go, as Daniel Boyarin points out ("Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism,"Journal of Early Christian Studies 6, no. 4 [1998]: 588-89, including references). Is it written from a Christian perspective? No doubt. But ideological shaping of a document need not require a great length of time; it occurs with perception and memory. Would a non-Christian have written about Polycarp's martyrdom in the same way? Obviously not. But since this is the only account that we have, what else can we do but work with it? Where ideology enters, then that should be taken into account. For example, it seems obvious to me that the account has been influenced by the gospel tradition of Christ's crucifixion. But too hasty a rejection of what is stated can lead to mistakes
48. For example, Gary Bisbee comments that the stadium "is an improbable place for games (ludi) that involved death and/or animals; its structure would not have well accommodated such activities" (Pre-Decian Acts of Martyrs and Commentarii [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988], p. 122). But, as indicated above, in the eastern provinces, a stadium was regularly remodeled so as to be suitable for the games
49. Mart. Pol. 3. According to Marl. Pol. 19, Polycarp was, "together with those from Philadelphia, the twelfth martyr in Smyrna."
50. So, according to Lactantius, Ulpian had "collected the disgraceful rescripla of the emperors, in order to make clear what penalties should be applied to those who confessed themselves worshippers of God." (Dm Inst. 5.11.19, quoted in Fergus Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World [London: Duckworth, 1977], p. 556)
51. Digest 1.4.1
52. Barry Nicholas, An Introduction to Roman Law (Oxford: Clarendon, 1962), pp. 17-18
53. John A. Crook, Law and Life of Rome (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1967), pp. 20-22
54. Pliny, Ep. 10.96-97. See also A. N. Sherwin-White, Fifty Letters of Pliny (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 178. Note that Trajan's rescript makes no mention of offering wine and incense to his statue, which Pliny had required (Pliny, Ep. 96.5)
55. R. M.Grant suggests that Pliny's use of the emperor's statue may have been Pliny's own "ad hoc procedure" (Greek Apologists of the Second Century [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1988], p. 30). Grant also notes parallels between Pliny's procedures and treatment of Bacchanalia (pp. 29, 203-5)
56. For Hadrian's rescript: Justin, 1 Apol. 68.5-10 and Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4. 9. I assume that Hadrian wrote a rescript, even though Christians may have later modified it. For Antoninus Pius: Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.26.10. Around 175, Melito appeals to Marcus Aurelius to stop the pillaging of Christians-an economic issue is present-in the province of Asia
57. he seems to be suggesting to the emperor that this activity is new and inappropriate (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.26.5). T. D. Barnes suggests that the pillaging occurred when a new proconsul of Asia issued edicts ("Legislation against the Christians," Journal of Roman Studies 58 [1968]: 39)
58. Mart. Pol. 12.2; cf. 9.2
59. So, at least, in several of the other martyrologies (in Musurillo [n. 9 above]): (1) Carpus, Papylus, and Agathonice: the proconsul was in residence at Pergamum (p. 22, line 1); a
60. crowd was present (p. 26, lines 3-4); the martyrs were hurried to the amphitheater to be executed (p. 26, line 16). (2) Martyrs of Lyons: they were dragged into the forum (agorari) and interrogated by both a military tribune (chiliarchou) and city authorities in the presence of all the people; when they confessed to being Christian, they were locked up until the governor came (p. 5, lines 27-28)
61. they were brought before the prefect (hlēemona) (p. 62, line 38)
62. crowd around the tribunal (bēma) shouted ⋯ Martyrs were beaten there (p. 64, line 11); they were brought to the bēma by soldiers, accompanied by civil magistrates and a mob (p. 70, lines 25, 28-29). (3) Scillitan Martyrs at Carthage: they were in the governor's chambers (in secretario) (p. 86, line 2)
63. they were led forth to execution (p. 88, lines 27-30). (4) Apollon- ius: he was ordered to come back in three days (p. 92, line 23); also present were a crowd of senators, councillors, and prominent philosophers (p. 92, lines 25-26). (5) Perpetua: Per-petua was taken to the forum; a huge crowd gathered (p. 112, line 23). Even when holding court formally, the governor could not always keep the proceedings in an orderly manner, see, e.g., Dio Chrysostom, Discourse 35.15, and Apuleius, The Golden Ass 10.28
64. Bisbee (n. 36 above), p. 122
65. Adapted from Crook, p. 85
66. See Digest 48.19.13 (Ulpian): "Nowadays [a judge] who is hearing a criminal case extra ordinem may lawfully pass what sentence he wishes, whether heavier or lighter, provided only that he does not exceed what is reasonable in either direction."
67. Hopkins (n. 6 above), p. 16
68. G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, "Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted?" Past and Present 26 [1963]: 15
69. See also (n. 38 above), pp. 365-66, 373-74. Attalus was sent to the beasts "to please the crowd" (Eus., Hist. eccl. 5.1)
70. Digest 1.18.13
71. Mart. Pol. 6. 2. On the imperial use oflocal police, see Theodor Mommsen, The Provinces of the Roman Empire, ed. William P. Dickson, 2 vols. (1909; reprint, Chicago: Ares, 1974), 1:350-51
72. Jones (n. 7 above), p. 349. It is also possible that the local police chief (eirēnarchos) arrested the suspect, made a preliminary interrogation (Mart. Pol. 8.2)
73. and then sent the suspect on to the governor, who would hear the case from the beginning (Digest 48.3.6: Marcian, referring to instructions given by both Hadrian and Antoninus Pius). Criminals still had to be given a hearing, because not all eirenarchs "drafted their reports in good faith."
74. See also Barbara Levick, The Government of the Roman Empire: A Sourcebook (Totowa, N.J.: Barnes & Noble, 1985), pp. 44-45
75. The phrase is Hopkins's (p. 14)
76. According to an inscription from Pergamum, the priest of Asclepius "shall be entitled to a front seat at all the games" (Inscr. Perg. 2:251
77. quoted in Emma J. and Ludwig Edelstein, Asclepius: Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998], p. 281)
78. Suetonius, Aug. 44; Livy 34.44; Hopkins, p. 17, especially his note that "seating was generally but not uniformally by rank ⋯ habits changed."
79. Garnsey and Sailer (n. 15 above), p. 117
80. Compare Watson, ed. and trans., Digest, 48.19.29: "those condemned to the extreme penalty immediately lose their citizenship and their freedom. This fate therefore anticipates their death, sometimes by a long period, as happens in the persons of those who are condemned to the beasts."
81. David Potter, "Martyrdom as Spectacle," in Theater and Society in the Classical World, ed. Ruth Scodel (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), p. 65
82. Compare Ulpian: "Enemies [of the state] and also deserters to the enemy are punished by being burned alive" (Digest 48.19.7.2)
83. Ste. Croix (n. 49 above), p. 20
84. Compare Potter, "Martyrdom," p. 53
85. Brent D. Shaw, "Body/Power/Identity: The Passion of the Martyrs," Journal of Early Christian Studies 4, no. 3 (1996): 302
86. Tertullian, Scap. 4
87. William Outhwaite and Tom Bottomore, Blackwell Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Social Thought (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1993), p. 85
88. See Hopkins (n. 6 above), p. 11; and Potter, "Martyrdom," p. 53. Also suggestive comments in Paul Rabinow, ed., Foucault Reader (New York: Pantheon, 1984), p. 173
89. Musurillo (n. 9 above), p. 65
90. Compare Perkins (n. 3 above), p. 33
91. For a complete discussion of how the church managed social control, see Donald W. Riddle, The Martyrs: A Study in Social Control (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931)
92. Translation in Ante Nicene Fathers, vol. 3, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (1885; reprint, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), p. 637
93. Tertullian, Scorp. 4.5
94. Barton (n. 6 above), p. 56
95. Tertullian then shifts to athletic language. For the use of athletic language by gladiators, see Robert, pp. 16-23
96. For "glory" in epitaphs concerning gladiators, see Robert (n. 7 above), p. 113: "I was not ignoble in life"; "You see Decoratos, not without fame"; "one who pleased in the stadium."
97. Barton, p. 47
98. cf. Mart. Pol. 12.1
99. Musurillo, p. 127
100. Pliny, Nat. 11.54.144
101. Tertullian, Apol. 49.5
102. Potter, "Entertainers" (n. 30 above), p. 315: "The average fight ended either with a wound to one of the contestants or when one fighter's endurance gave out."
103. Compare Barton, p. 56
104. Epistle 17 (spurious)
105. Molo, in Josephus, C. Ap. 2.148; Dio 67.14.2, in reference to Flavius Clemens
106. Rom. 1:18-23
107. Eph. 2:12
108. Sib. Or. 8.395
109. Ignatius, Trail. 3.2
110. Musurillo (n. 9 above), p. 90 (Apollonius 15.4)
111. Acts of John 39.10. Christians who viewed other Christians as heterodox also call them atheos, e.g., Ignatius, Trail. 10.1
112. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Physicists 1.51
113. see also Athenaeus, Deipn. 13.610b
114. and Aelian, Historical Miscellany 2.31
115. The two meanings can, of course, be related
116. That is, "to make political innovations"; Cassius Dio 52.36.3
117. Millar (n. 38 above), p. 454
118. Principal goddess and central temple in Ephesus. "The temples and their lands and incomes, their priesthoods, cults, ceremonials and festivals had an integral place, both at city and at provincial level. It was thus inevitable both that they would afford an important area for imperial munificence, and that a wide range of questions relating to these matters would come to the emperors for decision" (Millar, p. 447)
119. Naphtali Lewis, ed. and trans., Greek Historical Documents: The Roman Principate: 27 B.C.-285 A.D. (Toronto: Hakkert, 1974), p. 17; cf. Millar, pp. 447-48
120. dogma synklētou = senatus consultum; see e.g., Polybius 6.13.2
121. In 123 Smyrna received its second temple in which the province celebrated imperial festivals
122. Probably the games called Hadrianea Olympia, held also at the huge temple at Cyzicus
123. IGRom 4.1431. Millar, p. 421
124. Simon R. F. Price, Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 67
125. Zeus Olympus became a central god for Hadrian; cf. Grant (n. 41 above), p. 41: "the religious and cultural unity of the Greco-Roman world, with its center in the Olympian Zeus and his earthly representative the emperor." An analogy was often drawn between divine and imperial pronouncements, see Millar, pp. 468, 98, 100
126. Tertullian, Apol. 40: "they take the Christians to be the cause of every disaster to the State, of every misfortune of the people. If the Tiber reaches the walls, if the Nile does not rise to the fields, if the sky doesn't move or the earth does, if there is famine, if there is plague, the cry is at once: "The Christians to the lions!"
127. Compare Tertullian, Apol. 42
128. Kathleen M. Coleman, "Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological En-actments," Journal of Roman Studies 80 (1990): 67: "Mythology was the cultural currency, the ritual events of ordinary life might naturally be set in a mythological context."
129. Tertullian, Apol. 15.4-5, quoted in Coleman, p. 60
130. cf. Tertullian Ad Nationes 1.10
131. Martial, Lib. Sped. 9(7)
132. I Clem. 6. 2. The authorities tried to dress Perpetua and her cohorts as priestesses of Ceres and priests of Saturn, but she refused, saying, "We agreed to pledge our lives, provided that we would do no such thing. You agreed with us to do this" (Musurillo [n. 9 above], p. 127). For other examples of mythic reenactment, see Barton (n. 6 above), p. 41
133. Wiedemann (n. 4 above), p. 85
134. Compare Tertullian, Ad Nationes 1.10: "We have laughed at the sport of your mid-day game of the gods, when Father Pluto, Jove's own brother, drags away, hammer in hand, the remains of the gladiators; when Mercury, with his winged cap and heated wand, tests with his cautery whether the bodies were really lifeless, or only feigning death" (translation in Ante-Nicene Fathers [n. 68 above]). For the Larvae, see Coleman, p. 67
135. Coleman, p. 67
136. '104 Musurillo, p. 119
137. For the following, see also Riddle (n. 67 above), p. 117
138. It is difficult to see how Jews in Smyrna could speak of Polycarp as "the destroyer of our Gods, who teaches many neither to offer sacrifice nor to worship" (Mart. Pol. 12.2). On this passage and others referring to Jews
139. see Judith M. Lieu, Image and Reality: The Jews in the World of the Christians in the Second Century (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), pp. 57-102
140. Compare Flavian's death (the Christian, not the emperor) in Musurillo, p. 237: "and, as Flavian himself remarked, it was raining that water might mix with blood in imitation of the Lord's passion." For blood and water from Christ's side, see John 19:34
141. Musurillo, p. 69
142. Cyprian, In Praise of Martyrdom 29, quoted in Riddle, p. 37
143. Mart. Pol. 15.2
144. cf. Ignatius, Rom. 4.1, "Allow me to be eaten by the beasts, through whom I can attain to God ⋯ that I may be found pure bread of Christ."
145. Musurillo (n. 9 above), p. 129
146. For the greeting at the baths, see Dessau 5725
147. and Musurillo, p. 131. The Latin text is "illi secundi baptismatis testimonium."
148. What do most people in the States know about the Unification Church ("Moonies")? Yet most people assume that they are somehow anti-American
149. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.3
150. Martial, Sped. 5. For intercourse between a woman and an animal
151. see Apuleius, The Golden Ass 10.29
152. See Coleman (n. 97 above), p. 73
153. Hermas, Sim. 9.28.3
154. Riddle (n. 67 above), p. 33
155. How early did this highlighting take place? If Mark was written at Rome around 70, could the Neronic killings have helped shape it?
156. Ignatius, Trail. 10.1
157. cf. Ignatius, Smryn. 4.2
158. Perkins (n. 3 above), p. 7. "In cultural terms, those belonging to the category of sufferers, the sick, the deformed, the poor, had little existence in cultural representation ⋯ before the early empire" (ibid.). On the shift of focus, see also Mary Beard et al., Religions of Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 289-90
159. Perkins, p. 12