Timeline for Is there any reason why gladiatorial arenas couldn’t have survived into the modern era?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 12, 2021 at 14:58 | comment | added | PcMan | Bullfighting, UFC, IceHockey!!, Cagefighting, even American Football. Who says gladiatorial games are a thing of the past? | |
| Oct 26, 2021 at 23:48 | comment | added | David R | Given what is happening in some corners of this country, I think that fights to the death could get an audience. Today, we have live streaming of suicide getting viewers. In some corners, there are the "snuff films" which are marketed as seeing someone die. It wasn't that long ago that a public lynching would bring a large crowd and people would sell postcards of the event. | |
| Oct 26, 2021 at 22:35 | answer | added | FluidCode | timeline score: 2 | |
| Oct 26, 2021 at 20:33 | vote | accept | Z. Schroeder | ||
| Oct 26, 2021 at 19:00 | answer | added | Priska | timeline score: 2 | |
| Oct 26, 2021 at 16:52 | comment | added | Faito Dayo | Does the bloodletting really need to be real? Or it could be a simulation? We do have Street Figher and Mortal Kombat tornaments though. | |
| Oct 26, 2021 at 16:10 | comment | added | Goodies | Nowadays there is cage fighting.. and there is dogs, cocks, bulls etc, involving animals getting ceremonially slaughtered in public.. the Roman gladiators ceased to exist officially in early Christian times, 325AD, but it took another 200 years before the tradition was really abolished. Gladiators were no convicted criminals, most of them were slaves, until they gained name and prestige. About the Roman tradition, there's a good source, penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/gladiators/… | |
| Oct 26, 2021 at 16:04 | answer | added | common_goldfish | timeline score: 0 | |
| Oct 26, 2021 at 15:17 | comment | added | KeizerHarm | @AlexP "if the author wants it" is by far the least useful set of five words on this site. I think you can assume that someone who is asking on this network is trying to find a justification for a phenomenon beyond that they felt like writing it. | |
| Oct 26, 2021 at 15:16 | comment | added | AlexP | @KeizerHarm: Of course it is compatible with the information age if the author wants it to be compatible with the information age. (After all, we do allow and appreciate violent sports such as American football or ice hockey, not to mention MMA.) | |
| Oct 26, 2021 at 15:11 | answer | added | Nepene Nep | timeline score: 4 | |
| Oct 26, 2021 at 15:06 | comment | added | KeizerHarm | @AlexP I think we can forget about Roman culture and see whether gladiatoral combat is in any way compatible with society in the information age. | |
| Oct 26, 2021 at 15:05 | comment | added | AlexP | "Let’s presume the rise of Christianity never happened and that the Roman Empire either survived in some form up until the 19th century": You are introducing a massive change in history 2000 years ago. Whatever happens afterwards will be completely different from our history. Anything can happen. (One thing is for sure: there will be no western European Middle Ages as we know them, no Renaissance as we know it, no Industrial Revolution as we know it. The history of Europe will be unrecognizable.) | |
| Oct 26, 2021 at 15:00 | comment | added | sphennings | Most gladiatorial fights weren't to the death. Gladiators were expensive to train and keep. | |
| Oct 26, 2021 at 14:59 | comment | added | Maddock Emerson | This is literally the plot to a Star Trek episode. And not a very good one either. I don't think it would work, but not sure of any concrete reason why. Just keep in mind that while human death was a common and somewhat expected outcome to gladiatorial games, they were still games and not every fight was to the death. I think I heard that the ratio of lethal:nonlethal games was something like 1:10, not as absurdly bloody as the Russel Crowe movie, but more than modern combat sports. | |
| Oct 26, 2021 at 14:51 | comment | added | bukwyrm | I mean, you explicitly denounce football and boxing (what's your thought on MMA and bullfighting?) as non-gladiatorial, so i guess to be gladiatorial there needs to be loss of life as a common and accepted outcome? I guess somewhere around there lies the answer... --- I am also not so sure what the rise of Christianity has to do with that - there is plenty countries that have no gladiator sports and never had Christianity as a majority belief/church - Spain was ultra catholic and had quite bloody bullfights, on the other hand | |
| Oct 26, 2021 at 14:51 | comment | added | Zeiss Ikon | You mean like bullfighting? | |
| Oct 26, 2021 at 14:46 | history | asked | Z. Schroeder | CC BY-SA 4.0 |