01.04.24: Hearing the Romans; unfriendly rivalry

As the Roman historian Tacitus tells us, violence at “sports” events is nothing new:

"About this time [AD 59] there was a serious fight between the inhabitants of two Roman settlements, Nuceria and Pompeii. It arose out of a trifling incident at a gladiatorial show....During an exchange of taunts - characteristic of these disorderly country towns - abuse led to stone-throwing, and then swords were drawn. The people of Pompeii, where the show was held, came off best. Many wounded and mutilated Nucerians were taken to the capital. Many bereavements, too, were suffered by parents and children. The emperor instructed the senate to investigate the affair. The senate passed it to the consuls. When they reported back, the senate debarred Pompeii from holding any similar gathering for ten years. Illegal associations in the town were dissolved; and the sponsor of the show and his fellow-instigators of the disorders were exiled."

That disorder is recorded on a fresco which I’ve posted. And there is a photograph of the same stadium now. [images #1 and #2]

In the images of the inscriptions and in the quotations below, you’ll see the abbreviation CIL with a number which is a unique identifier. The Corpus Īnscrīptiōnum Latīnārum is a collection of Latin inscriptions maintained by Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, and the book entitled Scribblers, Sculptors and Scribes by La Fleur also gives a fascinating range of all sorts of inscriptions that give us an insight into the lives of the ordinary Romans themselves.

There are several examples of graffiti from Pompeii that show the kind of animosity between neighbouring towns that may have contributed to, or been the result of, the event that Tacitus describes.

From a grammar point of view, note the frequent use of -īs, the dative plural of 1st and 2nd declension nouns wishing good or bad luck to the respective sides.

PUTEOLANIS FELICITER / OMNIBUS NUC{H}ERINIS / FELICIA ET UNCU(M) POMPEIANIS / PETECUSANIS (CIL IV 2183) [image #3]

• Good fortune to the Puteolans; good luck to all Nucerians; the executioner’s hook to Pompeians (and) to the Pithecusans.

NUCERINIS / INFELICIA (CIL IV 1329)

• Ill luck ¦ to the Nucerians.

Take a look at the writing below image #4; there's the preposition cum with the ablative case, which is the same ending as the dative.

CAMPANI VICTORIA UNA / CUM NUCERINIS PERISTIS. (CIL IV 1293)

• Campanians, in our victory you perished ¦ with the Nucerians.

In the same way that rivalry can escalate now, so too it escalated 2000 years ago.