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August 02, 2005
Those Who Are About To Die
I am about finished reading Steven Saylor's A Gladiator Dies Only Once, a collection of short mysteries that revolve around the Roman Citizen Gordianus the Finder. The setting is very well done with a good mix of different roman activities and places like arenas, villas, and forums and most of the mysteries are believable. Saylor uses historical figures in interesting ways, with Cicero being a regular source of clients in several stories. The only major flaw in the book was how easily I figured out the mysteries. I solved almost each one halfway through its telling. There have been several other Gordianus the Finder books, but I am not sure if I will read them.
I am also halfway through Gladiator: The Secret History of Rome's Warrior Slaves by Alan Baker, which has good details, but is fairly repetitive and tried to compensate for its brevity with lots of filler pages. One of the main focuses of this book (and to a lesser extent the Saylor book) was the religious nature of the games. Many were put on after the death of an important person and served as a public display of death. Baker wonders if the violence of the games substituted for the desire for violence that is part of the human condition and that Roman society often lacked for the average person.
As much as we might not like to admit it, if given the chance many of us would go to modern gladiatorial games. Some early Christians would even go to the games straight after church. I know I would be tempted to go, though much like Cicero in A Gladiator Dies Only Once, I might claim I was only there out of obligation or as a dispassionate observer. That is until the first gladiator took a trident to his abdomen and then all bets are off.
Posted by Pete at August 2, 2005 05:34 PM
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