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The Roman Of Gladiatorial Games

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Starting in 105 BC the Roman government began to provide the Roman people with a new form of entertainment. This new entertainment was the Roman gladiatorial games. The games not only served as an interesting past time, but also as a political ploy to gain citizen support, pay tribute to Roman gods, and feed the human craving for death and destruction. The Roman citizens saw the games as a way to improve social status, gain wealth, and provide punishment for those who deserved a cruel death. Gladiatorial games were therefore predominately supported by Roman society with the exception of Christians and a select number of philosophers. Though the philosophers and Christians objected to the games on the same grounds, the philosophical …show more content…

Seneca specifically felt as if watching the games made the Roman people more selfish, self-seeking, and self-indulgent.
"There is nothing so ruinous to good character as to idle away one 's time at some spectacle. Vices have a way of creeping in because of the feeling of pleasure that it brings. Why do you think that I say that I personally return from shows greedier, more ambitious and more given to luxury, and I might add, with thoughts of greater cruelty and less humanity, simply because I have been among humans?

Roman philosophers struggled because of the public’s strong positive attitude toward the munera; which was the public entertainment for the Roman people provided by the state. Their objection to the games conflicted with the Roman expression of true national sentiment. The Roman philosophers were enmeshed into Roman society and their opinions were valued, however, it was very difficult for these men who belonged to the ruling class, who were above all politicians, to publicly condemn the games. They had finally gained respect from the people of Rome and by going against something the public greatly supported was damaging to their popularity.
One prominent philosopher, who denounced the games, was Marcus Tullius Cicero, a Roman philosopher from 106 BCE- 43 BCE. Cicero considered himself an academic and leaned toward being dogmatic when it came to ethics. He was openly critical

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