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This inquiry into the collective psychology of the ancient Romans speaks not about military conquest, sober law, and practical politics, but about extremes of despair, desire, and envy. Carlin Barton makes us uncomfortably familiar with a society struggling at or beyond the limits of human endurance. To probe the tensions of the Roman world in the period from the first century b.c.e. through the first two centuries c.e., Barton picks two images: the gladiator and the "monster."
List of contents
| Acknowledgments | |
| Introduction | 3 |
| The Gladiator | |
| 1 | Despair | 11 |
| The Scandal of the Arena | 11 |
| 2 | Desire | 47 |
| Wine without Water | 47 |
| The Monster | |
| 3 | Fascination | 85 |
| A Vain, Barren, Exquisite Wasting | 85 |
| 4 | Envy (Part One) | 107 |
| Embracing the Monster | 107 |
| 5 | Envy (Part Two) | 145 |
| Striking the Monster | 145 |
| 6 | Conclusions | 176 |
| The Widening Gyre | 176 |
| Modern Works Cited | 191 |
| Index | 203 |
About the author
Carlin A. Barton is Associate Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Summary
This inquiry into the collective psychology of the ancient Romans speaks not about military conquest, sober law, and practical politics, but about extremes of despair, desire, and envy. Carlin Barton makes us uncomfortably familiar with a society struggling at or beyond the limits of human endurance. To probe the tensions of the Roman world in the period from the first century b.c.e. through the first two centuries c.e., Barton picks two images: the gladiator and the "monster."
Additional text
"The main achievement of the author is a wealth of documentation of some rather odd-looking aspects of Roman culture. . . . [Barton] is especially stimulating on the subject of the gaze in the Roman context, on the dynamics of watching."---James Davidson, Journal of Roman Studies
