Seating order in Flavian Ampitheater/Colusseum

[JeffF]

on various documentaries it is stated that Senators and the Vestals sat on the lowest level, Equestrians on the next highest, other men on the next while women and slaves sat on the top level. Did the wives and children of the senatorial and equestrian classes sit with them or did they have to separate and sit with the women and slaves in the top section?

[Nathan Ross]

All the women sat at the top, I believe. It was only at the Circus that the sexes could sit together, which made it a good place for picking up women (according to Ovid!).

Quite possibly, within the upper tiers there was some internal division based on rank - but since the wealthier women would probably want to have their slaves and servants on hand, they may well have all sat together.

[JeffF]

Is it a reasonable assumption that the seating order in all gladitorial amphitheaters was the same?

Thanks,
Jeff

[Forty-One]

Yes. Segregated seating was a feature of all Imperial Roman theatrical and gladiatorial venues. The first official enforcement of the privileged seating for the social elite was in 194 BC (according to Livy 34.54). This apparently made official what had been the general custom already. A republican law of 67 BC (the lex Roscia theatralis) further regulated this by reserving the first 14 rows for equestrians and senators.

Special seating was also set aside for those who had performed some public service or who had won military awards. These persons were allowed to sit at the front with the senators. (Pliny Nat.Hist 16.6)

Augustus reinforced the practice by promulgating the lex Iulia theatralis (Suetonius, Augustus. 44). This upheld the old lex Roscia by stipulating that the first fourteen rows were reserved for those worth more than 400,000 HS and thus eligible for the equestrian order. It also went further by separating soldiers from civilians, giving special seating to married commoners, boys and their tutors and the Vestal virgins. Initially these laws applied to the drama theatre but it is clear that they were also soon applied to gladiatorial venues too (which in Augustus' time were still being held in the forum and in circuses and drama theatres). Augustus was also the first to restrict women to the back rows at gladiatorial shows. Hitherto men and women had sat together (Suetonius explicitly mentions this). Plutarch also mentions an incident during the life of Sulla (Plutarch Sulla, 35) remarking "[A]t this time men and women used to sit all together in the theatre, with no separate seating accommodation for the sexes".

Calpurnius (Eclogues 7.23-24) talks about Nero's amphitheatre on the Campus Martius and describes climbing up towards the back-rows until he reaches the seats for the commoners which were "next to the women's benches". He also mentions that, on that day, these back-row seats were in shade under an awning while the equestrians and senators, in the prime seating at the front, were open to the sun.

Domitian is also credited with renewed enforcement of the lex Roscia. In regard to this, Martial mentions the added presence of ushers whose task was to check the qualifications of claimants to these prime seats. He also talks about people who tried to move into seating areas to which they were not entitled.

To answer the original question. Augustus restricted all women, regardless of social class, to the back rows - with the sole exception of the Vestals. In later years some female members of the imperial family were allowed the same status as the vestals. So wives were not permitted to sit with their husbands (the special seating for married commoners of course only means married men). Slaves were also restricted to the back rows. Calpurnius makes it clear that this rule was still in force in Nero's day and by the end of the Flavian period it had become a well established part of the culture.

Ovid seems to imply that men and women could interact at gladiatorial shows (Ars amatoria 1, 135-170), but it is not entirely clear what the exact circumstances of this might be (in contrast, he says explicitly that men and women sat close together in the horse-racing circus). His Ars amatoria, however, was published very early in the first century, so may have been written before Augustus' decree banishing women to the back rows.