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Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged As Mythological Enactments*

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Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged As Mythological Enactments* FATAL CHARADES: ROMAN EXECUTIONS STAGED AS MYTHOLOGICAL ENACTMENTS* By K. M. COLEMAN (Plates I-II) Tertullian,illustrating the sacrilegiousnature of pagan religion,records that in an auditoriumhe saw a person being burned to death in the role of Hercules and anotherbeing castrated as Attis;both of theseexamples he adduces to substantiatehis assertionto his pagan audience that 'criminalsoften adopt the roles of your deities' ('et ipsos deos vestros saepe noxii induunt').1 The practice that Tertullian here deplores is the subject of this paper: the punishmentof criminalsin a formalpublic display involvingrole-play set in a dramatic context; the punishmentis usually capital. This practice,which I term 'fatalcharades', has provokedoccasional comment fromscholars: some have been horrifiedand repelledby the gruesomeincongruity2 of the elementof make-believe,others have stressedthe theatricalityat the expense of the realism;3a few have recognized these displays for what they were;4 but no comprehensivesurvey of the evidence exists.5I shall begin by reviewingthe aims of the Roman penal system,and demonstratehow public displaysprovided an oppor- tunityto exact punishment.Against this backgroundI shall examine evidence for thesecharades, and in conclusiontry to offersome explanationsfor their emergence in the earlyEmpire. I. PENAL AIMS The paragraphsthat follow sketch the most importantassumptions that underlie Roman modes of punishment;the distinctionsdrawn here betweenvarious aims are frequentlyartificial, since an individual penalty and the legislation governingit usuallyserve a complexof purposes ratherthan a discreteaim. Discussion of Roman * Versions of this paper were delivered in I988 at total institutions:a critiqueof recentsocial histo- the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae and the Institutfiir ries of punishment',in M. Tonry and N. Morris Klassische Archaologie of the Ludwig-Maximilians- (Eds), Crime and Justice.An Annual Review of Universitatin Munich, and in I989 at the Universityof Research3 (I98I), 153-92 Cape Town and at the forty-thirdconference of the MacMullen: R. MacMullen, 'Judicial savageryin Societe pour l'Histoire des Droits de l'Antiquite in the Roman empire', Chironi6 (I986), 147-66 Ferrara. The audiences on each of these occasions Millar (I984): F. Millar, 'Condemnation to hard provided many stimulatingideas, and I have further labour in the Roman empire, from the Julio- benefitedconsiderably from the criticismand advice of Claudians to Constantine', PBSR 52 (I984), T. W. Bennett,N. M. Horsfall,R. G. M. Nisbet, the 124-47 late E. D. Rawson, and the Editorial Committee. I Musurillo: H. Musurillo (Ed.), The Acts of the acknowledge also with much appreciation funding ChristianMartyrs (1972) fromthe Alexandervon Humboldt-Stiftung,the Uni- Ville, GO: La Gladiatureen Occidentdes originesa versityof Cape Town, and the South AfricanInstitute la mortde Domitien(I98I) for Research Development; and the assistance of the Weinreich: 0. Weinreich, Studien zu Martial Deutsches ArchaologischesInstitut at Rome in obtain- (1928) ing the plates. 1 Tert.,Apol. I5. 4 (quotedin fullin Partiii below); In additionto the usual abbreviations,the follow- a doubletof this passage occurs at Nat. I. 10. 47. ing will be used: 2 'Welch perversesSpiel mit der Wurde des Todes Dunbabin: K. M. D. Dunbabin, The Mosaics of und mit dem Sinn der Todesstrafe!'(Th. Birt,cit. 0. RomanNorth Africa (1978) Kiefer,Kulturgeschichte Roms (1933), 98). Garnsey (I968a): P. Garnsey, 'Legal privilege in 3 'Eigentlichtheatralische, besonders pantomimische the Roman empire', Past & Present41 (I968), Vorstellungen'(L. Friedlander,Darstellungen aus der 3-24 SittengeschichteRoms (1920), 9'); 'skits [staging] Garnsey (i968b): P. Garnsey, 'Why penalties be- famous scenes from mythology'(S. Newmyer, 'The come harsher:the Roman case, late Republic to triumph of art over nature: Martial and Statius on fourthcentury Empire', Natural Law Forum I3 Flavian aesthetics',Helios ii (I984), 1-7, at 4). 4 ( T 968), I 4 -62 'Sometimes,as a variation,elaborate sets and quasi- Garnsey, SSLP: P. Garnsey, Social Status and theatricalperformances were prepared,in which as a LegalPrivilege in theRoman Empire (1970) climax a criminalwas devoured limb by limb' (Hop- Harding-Ireland: C. Harding and R. W. Ireland, kins, i i); 'dressing-up of criminals who were to be Punishment:Rhetoric, Rule, and Practice(I989) executed,and the settingof theminto some dramaso as Hopkins: K. Hopkins, 'Murderous games', in to present their death as part of an entertainment' Death and Renewal. SociologicalStudies in Roman (MacMullen,150). HistoryVol. 2 (I983), 1-30 5 The most detailedaccount is givenby Friedlander, Ignatieff: M. Ignatieff,'State, civil society, and op. cit. (n. 3), 91-2. This content downloaded from 199.19.144.37 on Tue, 05 Jan 2016 22:57:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions FATAL CHARADES 45 penal aims is sadly lacking in contemporaryjuristic sources,6nor has any modern sociological study been devoted to systemsof punishmentin the ancient world; sociologistshave concentratedon the emergenceof imprisonmentand otherso-called 'humanitarianreforms' dating from the latterhalf of the eighteenthcentury. While no single sociological model seems to fitancient society,a briefoutline of the leading schools of thoughtwill neverthelessshow thateach can illuminatesome aspect of the Roman penal system. The traditionalreformist view7 saw the eighteenth-centurydevelopments as an enlightenedstep away fromthe primitiveretributive practices of previouseras: as we shall see, a retributivebasis is veryprominent in Roman penal practice.In the I930S the perspectivebegan widening,and stresson economicfactors set punishmentin the broader contextof societyas a whole:8the demand for brutal public entertainment will be seen to act as a 'marketforce' in the selectionof punishmentat Rome. The revisionists9have questioned the eighteenthcentury's avowed aims of combining deterrencewith reform;they have insisted upon the necessity of studying the institutionof punishmentalong withother social institutionsdesigned to modifythe behaviourof 'aberrant'elements in society(asylums etc.), and have produceda model of oppressiveand exploitativeauthoritarianism to replace the 'reformist'humanitar- ian view: the increase in cognitionesas a mode of trial under the empire, and the increasingidentification of the emperor'sperson with the sanctityof the state,clearly point in this direction.Most recently,counter-revisionist voices have warned that a model mustbe developedthat can accountfor the co-operative function of all levelsin societyin informallyregulating dispute and outlawingdeviance in the community:10 here the participationof the audience in the amphitheatredemands a modificationof the authoritarianmodel. Hardingand Ireland have respondedto the counter-revisionistcall by expanding the studyof punishmentto includetechniques of social controlthat lie outsideformal legal processes,thereby interpreting punishment as the manifestationof disapproval by membersof a society(or its rule-enforcingauthorities) when thatsociety's norms are violated; adducing examples froma broad historicaland geographicalspectrum, theystress the importanceof culturalcontext in determiningpenal aims and methods, so that the historyof punishmentis not seen as a chronologicaldevelopment from 'primitive'to 'civilized' but ratheras a constantlyadjusting balance of techniquesof social controldetermined by the physicalresources, moral basis, and beliefsystem of any given society.Shifting the spotlightoff state-enforced punishment, Harding and Ireland highlightother areas in society capable of imposing sanctions,and stress especially that penalties of degradation,sometimes entailing a public spectacle of punishment,are a 'pervasivepenal practice':11this view of punishmentas a productof culturalautonomy has obvious advantagesin the studyof a societylike Rome which differedradically in its economy,value system,and social hierarchyfrom those post- Enlightenmentwestern societies on whose penal practicesmodern sociologistshave based theirmodels of punishment. (a) Retribution Withthese preliminaries, we may now look at some of theseaims in theirRoman context. In the absence of a state machineryto set penalties and see to their implementation,the privateredressing of a wrongsustained is chieflylimited to acts of vengeance and the exacting of retribution.12In its most primitiveform this 6 Contrastedby Millar(I984), 145, withthe intense dan), Disciplineand Punish(Ig77) = Surveilleret Punir debate about penal reform in eighteenth-century ('975). France. 10Ignatieff, i66-8, 173-4. 7Summarized by Ignatieff,154. 11Harding-Ireland, I98. 8 See G. Rusche and 0. Kirchheimer,Punishment 12 The alternativeapproach to settlingdispute is that andSocial Structure (I939); D. Melossiand M. Pavar- of awarding compensation,which may co-exist with ini, The Prisonand theFactory: Originsof thePeniten- afflictivepunishment: see Harding-Ireland, 128-34. tiarySystem (I98I). For traces of this combinationin the Roman poena 8 Most influentiallyM. Foucault (trans. A. Sheri- dupli see J.M. Kelly, RomanLitigation (I966), 154-5. This content downloaded from 199.19.144.37 on Tue, 05 Jan 2016 22:57:49 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 46 K. M. COLEMAN demands 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth'. This retributiveaim is taken over by the state as it evolves the machinery for exacting punishment; Seneca admits that retributionand revenge are the chief factors motivating emperors
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