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Three Non-Roman Blood Sports

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

M. Gwyn Morgan
M. Gwyn Morgan
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin
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Extract

There is more than enough evidence to show that cock-fighting, quail-fighting, and even partridge-fighting were favourite sports among the Greeks (young and old alike), no matter what part of the mediterranean world they inhabited. Whether Romans ever shared these passions is another question altogether. When Saglio contributed his article on cock-fighting to the Dictionnaire des antiquitis grecques et romaines, he limited himself to the transports it caused the Greeks. For this he was reprimanded, obliquely, by Schneider, asserting—but neglecting to support the assertion in detail—that Romans also took a keen interest in Hahnenkämpfe. Subsequently, Magaldi set out to prove the existence of formal ludi gallinarii at Pompeii, while Jennison mustered such evidence as could be found for all three forms of avian combat in Rome. Hence, apparently, it has become the communis opinio that Romans shared the Greeks' taste for these ‘raffish’ amusements.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , May 1975 , pp. 117 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1975

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References

page 117 note 1 Witte, J. de, ‘Le genie des combats de cogs’, Rev. Arch. xvii (1868), 372–81;Google Scholar Daremberg, and Saglio, , Dictionnaire des antiquitis grecques et romaines, i. 1 (1877), 180–1;Google Scholar Schneider, K., R.E. vii (1912), 2210–15;Google Scholar Keller, O., Die antike Tierwelt, ii (1913), 136Google Scholar f., 156 f., 163 f.; Magaldi, E., ‘I “Iudi gallinarii” a Pompei’, Historia iii (1929), 471–85; G. Jennison, Animals for Show and Pleasure in Ancient Rome (1937), 14 and 18. To simplify references, each of these works will be cited hereafter by author's name and page number only.Google Scholar

page 117 note 2 Daremberg and Saglio, loc. cit. It is also worth noting that Friedländer, L., Roman Life and Manners, iv (1913), 183 and 189 f., is silent on the subject; few scholars have known more than he about Roman social history.Google Scholar

page 117 note 3 Schneider, 2215, following the lead of de Witte, 377 ff.

page 117 note 4 Magaldi, loc. cit.; Jennison, 101, 105 f., 115.

page 117 note 5 Toynbee, J. M. C., Animals in Roman Art and Life (1973), 255–7;Google Scholar cf. Baladon, J. P. V. D., Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome (1969), 152,Google Scholar styling them ‘amusements of the raffish, as once … in English society’—which in any case misrepresents the English attitude (R. W. Malcolmson, Popular Recreations in English Society 1700–1850 [1973], 49; cf. Boulton, W. B., The Amusements of Old London, i [1901], 171–206).Google Scholar

page 117 note 6 Lucilius 300–1 Marx = 300–1 Krenkel; the text is Krenkel's, following an emendation proposed by Housman (C.Q. i [1907], 151). The passage is adduced by Jennison, lot and Toynbee, op. cit., 257; there is a certain ambiguity in the comments of Keller, 133 and Magaldi, 477 n. 21.

page 118 note 1 See, e.g., Seneca, apoc. 7. 3: ‘gallum in suo sterquilino plurimum posse’.

page 118 note 2 Pliny, N.H. to. 47; cf. 11. 268 (discussed below), and Aelian, Hist. anim. 5. 5.

page 118 note 3 Varro, R.R. 3. 9. 4–5 (whence the quotation); Columella, R.R. 8. 2. 9–11.

page 118 note 4 Jennison, 115. For quail-fighting in Italy Keller, 163 referred to Petronius, Sat. 53. 12, following an unreliable text.

page 118 note 5 Ovid, Amore 2. 6. 33–40. On the structure of the lament see Elizabeth Thomas, ‘A comparative analysis of Ovid, Amores, II, 6 and III, 92, Latomus xxiv (1965), 599–609, especially 605 f.

page 118 note 6 The custom of keeping quails as pets is attested, e.g., by Plautus, Capt. 1002–4. It may also explain why Pliny, N.H. 10. 197 terms them placidissima animalia (though he notes elsewhere that they can and do fight: 10. 100–1 and 11. 268). As for their being bracketed with parrots, it is noteworthy that Martial does exactly the same in his only reference to quails (10. 3. 7).

page 118 note 7 Schneider, 2212 f.; Magaldi, 475–81 with figs. 2–3; Malcolmson, op. cit., 50; Boulton, op. cit., 174 f., 189 f., 192 ff., 200f., 206.

page 119 note 1 Pliny, N.H. 11. 268: ‘aliis in pugna uox, ut coturnicibus, aliis ante pugnam, ut perdicibus, aliis cum uicere, ut gallinaceis.’

page 119 note 2 Jennison, 101 and 115; Toynbee, op. cit., 255 f. with notes 185 and 194.

page 119 note 3 Fighting breeds: Varro, R.R. 3. 9. 6, 19; Columella, R.R. 8. 2. 4, 12–14; Pliny, N.H. 10. 48. Delians: Varro, R.R. 3. 9. 2; Columella, R.R. 8. 2. 4; Pliny, N.H. 10. 139.

page 119 note 4 The same statement is made. independently it seems, by Dioscorides, Mat. med. 4. 134. Pliny's comment is cited by Jennison, 101, and Toynbee, op. cit., 255 and n. 185.

page 119 note 5 Columella, R.R. 8. 2. 5 (the text is that printed by LundstrOm and Josephson [Uppsala, 1955]). The passage is invoked by Magaldi, 474 f.; Jennison, 101; Balsdon, op. cit., 152; and Toynbee. op. cit., 257.

page 120 note 1 The evidence is presented by van Wees, Thes. Lat. Ling., vii. 2, fasc. 6 (1972), 933–4, although he quite fails to note this point. There is no evidence that cock-fighting ever took place in the so-called cockpit theatres of Northern Gaul and Britain. This was a surmise by the originator of the term, Kenyon, Kathleen M. (Archaeologia lxxxiv [1934], 246), even though it has since been represented as fact, e.g., by Olwen Brogan, Roman Gaul (1953), 79.Google Scholar

page 120 note 2 The use of pyctes, a Greek term, surely hammers home the point.

page 120 note 3 Perhaps the games which had once been celebrated annually in Athens (Aelian, Var. Hist. 2. 28; cf. Schneider, 2210 f.; Jennison, 14 n. 1) had lapsed by this date.

page 120 note 4 It is not my intention to deny that there were cock-fights in Pompeii (see below), but the arguments of Magaldi, 482 ff. are in any case unconvincing. He proposed restoring the relevant section of a single graffito (C.I.L. iv. 3890) to read ‘IV NON NOV IN LVD(is) GALLIN(ariis) DAT(is?) V T GALL’, nowhere explaining the meaning of the three final abbreviations. In fact, the inscription makes perfect sense when read thus: ‘IV NON Nov IN LVD(is) GALLL1N(ae) DAT(ae) V ET GALL(us).’ For such gifts see Aelian, Hist. anim. 2. 30; de Witte, 380; Schneider, 2214f.

page 121 note 1 Plutarch, fort. Rom. 7 (319f); Ant. 33. 4. Cf. de Witte, 378; Magaldi, 472; Balsdon, op. cit., 152. Nothing can be made of the fact that on each occasion Plutarch introduces the anecdote with ; as is remarked by Westlake, H. D. (Hermes lxxxiv [1956], 110 f.), it need not indicate disbelief.Google Scholar

page 121 note 2 Plutarch, Ant. 33. 1–5.

page 121 note 3 K. Ziegler, Plutarchos von Chaironeia2 (1964), 83 ff.; C. P. Jones, Plutarch and Rome (1971), 4 ff. and 67 ff.

page 121 note 4 That Plutarch was not surprised at Fortune's working through birds is shown by fort. Rom. 8 (320 d) and especially 12 (325 c-f).

page 121 note 5 It might alternatively be argued that by the time he came to write the Vita Antonii, Plutarch knew where the incident or incidents occurred—for example, the Bay of Naples—and thus that the Greek context made the episode less surprising.

page 121 note 6 See especially Magaldi, 473 ff. with figs. 1–4; Toynbee, op. cit., 255 ff. with figs. 226–7 and 131; A. Kiss, Roman Mosaics in Hungary (1973), 26 with fig. 18.

page 121 note 7 See especially Keller, 137 ff. on the symbolism of the cockerel.

page 121 note 8 Magaldi, 472 f.; cf. R. Etienne, La Vie quotidienne à Pompéi (1966), 404 ff.

page 121 note 9 S. H. A., Sev. Alex. 41. 5 (cited by Toynbee, op. cit., 255 with n. 185) and 7.

page 122 note 1 A. R. Birley, Marcus Aurelius (1966), 37, linking our passage with S. H. A., Marcus 4. 9. Cf. Balsdon, op. cit., 152, terming Marcus ‘young’.

page 122 note 2 Herodian 3. 10. 3; adduced by de Witte, 378 and Balsdon, loc. cit. (dating the episode ‘in their youth’).

page 122 note 3 Quails: see above, p. 118 n.6. Cockerels: H. Kähler, Die Villa des Maxentius bei Piazza Amurina (1973), pl. 41; cf. Plautus, Asin. 666 and, perhaps, Pliny, N.H. 10. 47: ‘(galli) regnum in quacumque sunt domo exercent.’ In general see Balsdon, op. cit., 91.

page 122 note 4 Magaldi, 482. On Roman cruelty there is much of value in A. W. Lintott, Violence in Republican Rome (1968), 35 ff.

page 122 note 5 This is not to subscribe to the view that gladiatorial bouts invariably ended in death (a subject I hope to pursue elsewhere).

page 122 note 6 For the excitement chariot races aroused in the republican period see, e.g., Ennius, Ann. 82–8V.; Vergil, Georg. 1. 512–14; Pliny, N.H. 7. 186 and (perhaps) 10. 71.

page 122 note 7 See H. A. Harris, Sport in Greece and Rome (1972), 223 ff.; Balsdon, op. cit., 154 ff.

I wish to express my thanks for most helpful comments and criticism on a previous draft of this paper to Miss Salle Ann Schlueter, Mrs. Kristin ZapalaČ, Mr. Michael Adams, and Mr. James Hopkins.