Letter 5042: VARIAE, BOOK 5, LETTER 42

VARIAE, BOOK 5, LETTER 42 From: King Theoderic, writing through Cassiodorus To: Maximus, Consul, a Distinguished Man Date: ~522 AD Context: A remarkable meditation on the Roman amphitheater and beast hunts (venationes), tracing their origins from the worship of Scythian Diana through Athens to Rome, with a detailed description of the Colosseum -- mixing horror at the bloodsport with fascinated admiration for the spectacle. [1] If the consular largesse is owed to wrestlers who compete with oiled and supple bodies, if prizes are given to those who play the organ, if a delightful song commands its price -- what reward must be given to the hunter, who risks his own death to please the crowd? He offers entertainment at the cost of his own blood, and bound by his wretched fate, he hurries to please a crowd that does not wish him to escape. A detestable profession, a wretched contest -- to willingly fight beasts he knows are stronger than himself. His only hope lies in deception, his only comfort in trickery. [2] If the hunter cannot escape the beast, he sometimes cannot even find a burial: while the man still lives, his body perishes, consumed savagely before it even becomes a corpse. The captive becomes food for his own enemy, and -- what grief! -- he satiates the very creature he dreamed of killing. A spectacle glorious in its architecture but abominable in its purpose, invented in honor of Scythian Diana [an ancient goddess of the hunt worshiped with blood sacrifice], who delighted in the spilling of blood. [3] What a wretched delusion, to have wished to worship a deity appeased by human death! First, the rustic peoples of the forests and groves, devoted to the hunt, fashioned this triple goddess through false imagination, declaring her to be Luna in the sky, Mistress in the woods, and Proserpina in the underworld. But in calling her a power of Erebus [the underworld], they were perhaps not entirely wrong, since men deceived by such falsehoods entered the deep darkness alive, together with their errors. [4] This cruel sport, this bloody entertainment, this impious religion, this -- if I may say so -- human savagery, the Athenians first brought into the culture of their city, by divine justice permitting what false religion had devised to become an object of public spectacle. [5] The mighty power of Titus conceived the idea of building a structure worthy of the capital of the world, pouring forth rivers of wealth. And since a theater, which is a hemisphere, is called theatrum in Greek, the amphitheater is rightly named as if two viewing spaces were joined together: its arena enclosed in an oval shape, giving runners ample room and allowing spectators to see everything easily, since the elongated roundness gathered all things together. [6] And so people go to such spectacles -- spectacles that humanity should flee. The first man, trusting in fragile wood, runs toward the jaws of beasts and seems to rush eagerly toward the very thing he hopes to escape. Both predator and prey race toward each other, and the man can only survive by running toward the creature he wishes to avoid.

XLII. MAXIMO V. I. CONSULI THEODERICUS REX. [1] Si consularem munificentiam provocant, qui peruncta corporum flexibilitate luctantur: si organo canentibus redditur vicissitudo praemiorum: si venit ad pretium delectabilis cantilena: quo munere venator explendus est, qui ut spectantibus placeat, suis mortibus elaborat? voluptatem praestat sanguine suo et infelici sorte constrictus festinat populo placere, qui eum non optat evadere. actus detestabilis, certamen infelix cum feris velle contendere, quas fortiores se non dubitat invenire. sola est ergo in fallendo praesumptio, unicum in deceptione solacium. [2] Qui si feram non mereatur effugere, interdum nec sepulturam poterit invenire: adhuc superstite homine perit corpus et antequam cadaver efficiatur, truculenter absumitur. captus esca fit hosti suo, et illum, pro dolor! satiat quem se perimere posse suspirat. spectaculum tantum fabricis clarum, sed actione deterrimum, in honore Scythicae Dianae repertum, quae sanguinis effusione gaudebat. [3] O miserae deceptionis errorem illam desiderasse colere, quae hominum morte placabatur! primum sibi per lucos et silvas agrestium populorum vota et venationibus dedita hanc triplicem deam falsa imaginatione finxerunt, ipsam in caelo Lunam, ipsam in silvis dominam, ipsam apud inferos Proserpinam esse firmantes. sed solum Erebi potentem non improbe forsitan aestimarunt, quando tali falsitate decepti in profundas vivi tenebras cum suis erroribus intraverunt. [4] Hunc ludum crudelem, sanguinariam voluptatem, impiam religionem, humanam, ut ita dixerim, feritatem Athenienses primum ad civitatis suae perduxere culturam, iustitia permittente divina, ut ad irrisionem spectaculi perveniret, quod falsae religionis ambitus invenisset. [5] Hoc Titi potentia principalis, divitiarum profuso flumine, cogitavit aedificium fieri, unde caput urbium potuisset. et cum theatrum, quod est hemisphaerium, Graece dicatur, amphitheatrum quasi in unum iuncta duo visoria recte constat esse nominatum: ovi specie eius harenam concludens, ut et currentibus aptum daretur spatium et spectantes omnia facilius viderent, dum quaedam prolixa rotunditas universa collegerat. [6] Itur ergo ad talia, quae refugere deberet humanitas. primus fragili ligno confisus currit ad ora beluarum et illud, quod cupit evadere, magno inpetu videtur appetere. pari in se cursu festinant et praedator et praeda nec aliter tutus esse potest, nisi huic, quem vitare cupit, occurrerit. tunc in aere saltu corporis elevato quasi vestes levissimae supinata membra iaciuntur et quidam arcus corporeus supra beluam libratus, dum moras discedendi facit, sub ipso velocitas ferina discedit. [7] Sic accidit, ut ille magis possit mitior videri, qui probatur illudi: alter angulis in quadrifaria mundi distributione conpositis rotabili facilitate praesumens non discedendo fugit, non se longius faciendo discedit, sequitur insequentem, poplitibus se reddens proximum, ut ora vitet ursorum: ille in tenuen regulam ventre suspensus invitat exitiabilem feram et nisi periclitatus fuerit, nil unde vivere possit adquirit: [8] alter se gestabili muro cannarum contra saevissimum animal, ericii exemplo, receptatus includit, qui subito in tergus suum refugiens intra se collectus absconditur et cum nusquam discesserit, eius corpusculum non videtur. nam sicut ille veniente contrario revolutus in sphaeram naturalibus defensatur aculeis, sic iste consutili crate praecinctus munitior redditur fragilitate cannarum. [9] Alii tribus ut ita dixerim dispositis ostiolis paratam in se rabiem provocare praesumunt, in patenti area cancellosis se postibus occulentes, modo facies, modo terga monstrantes, ut mirum sit evadere quos ita respicis per leonum ungues dentesque volitare. [10] Alter labenti rota feris offertur: eadem alter erigitur, ut periculis auferatur. sic haec machina ad infidi mundi formata qualitatem istos spe refovet, illos timore discruciat: omnibus tamen vicissim, ut decipere possit, arridet. [11] Longum est per tot periculorum casus sermonibus evagari. sed apte iungendum est, quod sit de inferis Mantuanus: quis scelerum comprehendere formas, quis omnia poenarum percurrere nomina possit? sed vobis, quibus necesse est talia populis exhibere, largitate manus fundite praemia, ut haec miseris faciatis esse votiva. alioquin violenta conpulsio est sollemnia dona subtrahere et mortes detestabiles imperare. [12] Et ideo quicquid in longam consuetudinem antiqua liberalitate pervenit, sine aliqua dilatione concedite supplicanti, quia homicidii reatus est ills esse tenacem, quos editio vestra invitavit ad mortem. heu mundi error dolendus! si esset ullus aequitatis intuitus, tantae divitiae pro vita mortalium deberent dari, quantae in mortes hominum videntur effundi.