12-08-2005, 02:32 AM
I think it's a bit disingenuous of us to apply modern expenditure-against-return economics to an ancient institution. After all the whole point of putting on games was to win popularity by a tremendous waste of your own fortune. The ancients had a potlatch mentality and one way to earn status was to throw away your own wealth publicly. A set of games was in no way an investment after the Republic, when it helped get elected to higher office. Also, there was the religious significance of the munera. From the beginning, they were funeral games in honor of the dead. I believe that in a modest showing of, say twenty pairs in the amphitheater of Pompeii or Capua, there would have to be at least two or three killings, just to keep the proceedings properly solemn. A mere display of swordsmanship without at least the prospect of violent death would not have held popular interest. We have hundreds of tomb steles of gladiators who died young in the arena. I know of none for a retired veteran.
Pecunia non olet
