She talks for a while about how the Circus Maximus was really where the fun was (250k spectators, chariot races, betting, mixed seating). That sounds super fun. However, she also pitches that the Coliseum was like going to the opera - formal seating rules, formal dress, segregated seating.

On the one hand, okay - it was fancier. However, I do not believe that any public air ceremony with fighting, dying, and live animals in it will be sedate. I’ve been to open air events in many continents, and people just aren’t naturally all quiet like when life and death things are happening. I just cannot imagine this behavior outside of a religious ceremony.

Even at the opera or live theater, both of which darken lights, light a stage, architect for acoustic carry, there is often shushing, resettling, multiple cues for the audience to sort of ‘settle down’ and pay attention. The idea that 50k people are going to watch some captured Christians face down a lion and make no noise while they were their Tuxedo equivalents seems to me to be in its own way a weird and just off Anglicism. I guess I might be straw manning her pitch a little, but I think she just over pitches this idea — I truly think a society that did that would be very, very unusual, to the point of being extremely creepy.

▲ eucyclos 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I have a DVD set of old UFC events - I think UFC 1 to 84 or something - and I remember in one very early event in Japan the commentators talk about how silently focused the crowd is. Of course, some people do find Japanese culture extremely creepy, but many would say the same of ancient Rome.

I wouldn't actually expect to see those norms in Roman culture, given how Latin is naturally a very flowing language and I've never heard of Romans valuing silence like the Spartans (or Japanese for that matter). But I wouldn't consider it particularly strange either - to me, making noise during a tense, violent event seems far stranger.

	▲	vessenes 8 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Hmm. Interesting; that surprises me. Enough that I did some googling: here's a quote from reddit that sounds more like what I'd expect: `> Japan has by far the best combat sports audience in the world. Most of the time they are so quiet that you can literally hear the corners talking and even the ring shifting as the fighters move around. But then when something cool happens they go crazy.` That's how I'd imagine it at the edges of the "quiet crowd" phenomenon; even then it's cultural, that is, I wouldn't expect the same culture that did this to also have brisk 250k person events that are generally raucous.
	▲	inglor_cz 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		If the Romans regularly scribbled graffiti about gladiator fights and their outcomes, I would expect them to shout during them as well. It feels to me that such behavior naturally dovetails together: excited, rowdy, norm-breaking.
	▲	pessimizer 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Check out old Pride events (or any older Japanese MMA.) Everybody is quiet (with a few isolated shouts of encouragement) until someone does something heroic, and then there's a polite and energetic round of applause. The only reason that Zuffa UFC sounds like it does is because they intentionally tried to steal audiences from US professional wrestling. They also spent years standing people up almost immediately when they were jiu-jitsuing each other because the wrestling audience would just start booing aggressively after about a minute, the result being that the UFC were very kickboxer and greco-roman focused and some real killers had all their weapons taken away from them by UFC's application of their "Unified Rules." Japanese MMA was founded and branded by people who were saying that Japanese professional wrestling was too theatrical, and Zuffa UFC was branded by people who were saying that professional wrestling wasn't violent enough (if anything, they were competing with "backyard" wrestling.) UFC has improved since, but imo that's because it became a monopoly and had to absorb all the other MMA audiences (and fighters), and the wrestling fans who didn't get bored with MMA eventually got less stupid. > to me, making noise during a tense, violent event seems far stranger. I also don't think there's any safe assumption of how Colosseum crowds behaved other than how contemporary narratives say they did. I agree that life and death brings an atmosphere of seriousness that wouldn't often exist at the Circus.

▲ jbandela1 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Actually we have the descendants of both with us now and they are roughly the same size in terms of spectatorship

Circus Maximus - Nascar - 250,000 spectators

Coliseum - Football - 50,000 - 80,000 spectators

▲ HarHarVeryFunny 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'd assume the Circus Maximus was rowdier, given that chariot racing was "team" based (greens vs blues, etc), with betting evolved, and I imagine the action was a lot more exciting than the spectacle of seeing yet another public execution (death as bestias) from the nosebleed seats, or animal "hunt". During the french revolution the public executions (guillotine beheadings) sound like somewhat of a snooze-fest with the old ladies doing their knitting in the front (Les Tricoteuses).

From what I've read I wouldn't call games at the Colloseum formal, other than the senators (seated in the front) apparently having to wear togas. There were more (class-based) levels of seating, and restictions on women, but the Circus Maximus also reserved the best seating for the equestrians.

▲ zmgsabst 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Opera, symphony, etc weren't the affairs we see today throughout their history: the quiet sterility is a modern behavior — and my understanding that it used to be quite a bit more like, eg, movie premiere crowds that made noise in response to the show.

I think the emphasis is on the class structure, formality, etc. rather than saying the Coliseum followed modern theatre etiquette. And the according comparison about status of attendees, etc.

	▲	justincormack 10 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Yes, Bernard Shaw used to complain in his reviews that no one listened to the music and constantly talked, as concerts were a social event, and you promenaded around. SOme history here too https://ledbooks.org/proceedings2019/tag/silence/
	▲	vessenes 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		So I think this backs my point - when she's referring to Opera, she's referring to a modern conception of opera, not an 18th century concept of opera. I agree that's more normal sounding.

▲ anthk 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Reading up Reissanance everyday-drama novellas from Spain/Italy in the 1600s/1700s but being placed into the Roman Empire would actually yield a similar society and behaviour than anything made from Hollywood.

Romance and picaresque dramas weren't that dissimilar to love epics from the Classical times. And ofc treasonry, backstabbings, and the like would be the same today, 300 years ago and millenia ago.

The townsfolk shouting and laughing against a poor dude being burned down between logs wouldn't be that different to similar peasants reacting in the same way to slaves fighting at the Circus.

▲ helloooooooo 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The assumption that the Anglo idea of being well mannered, quiet and not rowdy at such an event is wrong IMO. The Roman upper classes probably got loud and very obnoxious by our standards, but assuming that the Romans perceived that as “low-class” is probably not correct