It is amazing that one of the most common Latin words in have in English usage among ordinary people is “Gladiator”. On its own, it is a word that conjurers up so many images. In the 19th Century, amongst those who were visiting art galleries regularly, they would have seen one of the greatest paintings of the 1870s, Pollice Verso by Jean Leon Gerome. In the 19th Century, Gerome was among one of the preeminent artists just as Rubens had been in the 17th Century. His paintings show that the Gladiator as a subject was popular even without the help of film to flesh out the material reality of what it meant to Ancient Rome.
However, were gladiatorial games ever popular in art with the Byzantines?
Based on my readings and research on Byzantine history, I would say that they were not. The Byzantines as they would were more interested in depicting the gospels than any Pagan Roman themes. Those call backs to Classical Antiquity were already there in the capital, standing proud as statues to their ancestors.
This is quite an interesting departure from how modern people in the West tend to think ab0ut the past. They tend to emphasize the Roman Colosseum and the Pantheon in the center of the city, expanded by the Emperor Hadrian and his architects. However, not much is said about the Pantheon and that it was turned into a Christian temple after the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire.
Christian history in the Byzantine Empire was more important than talking about the glories of gladiators. To the modern West, this seems strange. One also has to consider the context.
In the consumeristic binge after World War II, there was little appetite for the restraint and self-denial which Christianity and honestly most religions demand of their adherents. Moralism had been replaced by Legalism. While not the brutal type which was practiced by the Qin, people were more interested in how the world could come together in a government that would defy borders and history. More importantly, technology would be the vehicle by which a government would replace moralism with rational and dispassionate technocrats. However, that wasn’t to be the case.
Instead, we get a culture which largely turned onto itself and has mostly recreated Gladiatorial games through the UFC games. The UFC began in 1992 and are very popular with young men. Many in this mixed-martial arts sport are men and women who display bravery in a violent arena. It was not the gruesome violence that was seen in the arenas of Roman Empire. However, it is step up from boxing or other sports that were popular earlier in the American republic.
In the Byzantine Empire, bloodsports were no longer popular anymore. In the early phases of the empire, beast hunts were still popular but by Heraclius, they had disappeared and only occasion races were held in the Hippodrome.
When the Greeks overthrew the shackles of their Ottoman rulers in the 1820s, they drew upon the Ancient Greek traditions not the Byzantine. The glories of the Ancient Greek cultures was all the rage in Europe at the time. The Byzantine Empire to the rising Protestant Britain, as a symbol of Papal Oppression with long beards and black robes.
Gladiators were always more of an attraction to the Victorians and the moderns now. Pollice Verso was seminal work for an era that was seeking to leave the Medieval behind and rediscover Classical Antiquity. This Antiquity was seen as the true progenitor of modern culture. It is not surprising that the Greeks would seek to distance themselves from an Empire that could resist the Turks.
Whether they were correct or not in this view, Pollice Verso and Gladiator later on showcase the modern world’s obsession with the bloodsports in the Romans. The deeds of Edward the Confessor or even the deeds of the Apostles in Judea remain largely put into the background of performative virtue. The sports that we consume are in many ways harkening back to those many sports that made up the Roman Empire’s traditions.
Byzantine-Empire.com 