Communication Culture on a Mass Scale
Ancient Roman Games and Methods of Communicating with the Audience
Abstract
The aim of this article is to analyse sources on a verbal and written mass communication between the organisers of the games (editores) and the audience in ancient Rome. Methods established by the Romans as senders and recipients of the conveyed information gave a range of possibilities to communicate needs and preferences, as well as to express often extreme emotions. The model, the creation of which stemmed from the necessity to inform the audience about the upcoming arena events (by the organiser) and to communicate the experienced emotions (by spectators), became over time the distinctive culture of communication, applied before the games but also throughout the event and after it ended. This communicative social construct typical of ancient Rome was necessary for the efficient distribution of oral and textual messages. The preserved sources allow us to state that the communication model included:
1) verbal/oral information conveyed to the public by the games organisers (via the announcements made by heralds); people’s cheers and chants (including both criticism and praise);
2) written information conveyed by the organisers (edicta munerum advertising the games before the event and announcements presented on placards distributed around the theatres and amphitheatres throughout the event); acclamationes and graffiti, painted and inscribed accordingly, by the audience after the spactacula. This article is to define the individual types of ancient methods of oral and written communication, to determine their function depending on their context, and to establish their effectiveness in the discourse carried out on a mass scale in ancient Rome.
References
AE = L’Année Epigraphique
CIL IV = Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Liber IV, Inscriptiones parietariae Pompeianae Herculanenses Stabianae
Aelian Nat. Anim. = De Natura Animalium
Aulus Gellius [Au. Gell.] NA = Noctes Atticae
Cassius Dio Cocceianus [Dio]
Cornelius Tacitus [Tac.]
Ann. = Annales
Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis [Iuv.] Sat. = Saturae
Eusebius of Caesarea [Euseb.] Hist. Eccl. = Historia Ecclesiastica
Gaius Petronius Arbiter [Petr.] Sat. = Satyricon liber
Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus [Plin.] Pan. = Panegyricus Traiani
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus [Suet.] Aug. = Augustus Cal. = Caligula Claud. = Claudius Dom. = Domitian Iul. = Divus Iulius Nero = Nero Tib. = Tiberius Tit. = Titus Vit. = Vitellius
Lucius Annaeus Seneca Maior [Sen.] Contr. = Controversiae
Lucius Anneus Seneca Minor [Sen.] Epist. = Epistulae morales ad Lucilium
Marcus Tullius Cicero [Cic.] Att. = Epistulae ad Atticum Fam. = Epistulae ad familiars Phil. = Philippicae
Marcus Valerius Martialis [Mart.] Spect. = Liber spectaculorum Martyrium Polycarpi [Mart. Poly.]
P. Ovidius Naso [Ovid] Ars am. = Ars amatoria
Passio sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis [Pass. Perp. et. Feli.]
Publius Papinius Statius [Stat.] Silv. = Silvae
Publius Vergilius Maro [Verg.] Aen. = Aeneid
Quintus Aurelius Symmachus [Symma.] Epist. = Epistulae
Strabo Geogr. = Geographica hypomnemata
Bowman, A.K. (1991). Literacy in the Roman Empire: Mass and Mode. In J.H. Humphrey (ed.), Literacy in the Roman World, Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series No. 3. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 119-131.
Campbell, V. (2015). The Tombs of Pompeii: Organization, Space and Society. London: Routledge.
Coleman, K.M. (1999). ‘Informers’ on Parade. In B. Bergmann & C. Kondoleon (eds.), The Art of Ancient Spectacle. New Haven: Yale University Press, 231–245.
Coleman, K.M. (2003). Euergetism in Its Place. In K. Lomas & T. Cornell (eds.), Bread and Circuses: Euergetism and Municipal Patronage in Roman Italy. London: Routledge, 61–88.
Connolly, J. (2007). The State of Speech: Rhetoric and Political Thought in Ancient Rome. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Dominik, W.J. (1997). Roman Eloquence: Rhetoric in Society and Literature. New York: Routledge.
Fagan, G.G. (2011). The Lure of the Arena: Social Psychology and the Crowd at the Roman Games. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fleischer, M. (2007). Ogólna teoria komunikacji. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego.
Fleischer, M. (2011). Reklama. Struktura i funkcje w wymiarze komunikacyjnym. Łódź: Primum Verbum.
Frampton, S.A. (2019). Empire of Letters: Writing in Roman Literature and Thought from Lucretius to Ovid. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Franklin, J. (1991). Literacy and the Parietal Inscriptions of Pompeii. In: J.H. Humphrey (ed.), Literacy in the Roman World, Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series No. 3. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 77–98.
Hammer, D. (2010). Roman Spectacle Entertainments and the Technology of Reality. Arethusa, no. 43(1), 63–86.
Harris, W.V. (1983). Literacy and Epigraphy I. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, no. 52, 87–111.
Kaiser, A. (2011). What Was a Via? An Integrated Archaeological and Textual Approach. In K. Cole, M. Flohr, E. Poehler (eds.), Pompeii: Art, Industry and Infrastructure. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 115–130.
Kruschwitz, P. (2016). Inhabiting a lettered world: exploring the fringes of Roman writing habits. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, no. 59(1), 26–41.
Lewiński, P.H. (2008). Retoryka reklamy. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego.
Miączewska, A. (2023). Advertising and Promotion of Gladiatorial Games in Ancient Pompeii (forthcoming).
Millar, F. (1998). The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Nevett, T., Nevett. L. (1987). The Origins of Marketing: Evidence from Classical and Early Hellenistic Greece (500–300 B.C.). In T. Nevett & S.C. Hollander (eds.), Marketing in Three Eras: Proceedings of the Third Conference on Historical Research in Marketing. East Lansing: Michigan State University, 3–12.
Pobjoy, M. (2000). Building Inscriptions in Republican Italy: Euergetism, Responsibility, and Civic Virtue. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, no. 73, 77–92.
Sage, E.T. (1916). Advertising among the Romans. The Classical Weekly, no. 9(26), 202–208.
Susini, G. (1988). Spelling Out Along the Road: Anthropology of the Ancient Reader, or Rather, the Roman Reader. Alma Mater Studiorum, no. 1, 117–124.
Tempest, K. (2011). Cicero: Politics and Persuasion in Ancient Rome. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Tuck, S.L. (2008/2009). Scheduling Spectacle: Factors Contributing to the Dates of Pompeian munera. The Classical Journal, no. 104(2), 123–143.
Woolf, G. (2015). Ancient Illiteracy? Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, no. 58(2), 31–41.
Copyright (c) 2022 Jesuit University Ignatianum in Krakow
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Autor, zgłaszając swój artykuł, wyraża zgodę na korzystanie przez Wydawnictwo Uniwersystet Ignatianum z utworu na następujących polach eksploatacji:
- utrwalania utworu w formie papierowej, a także na nośniku cyfrowym lub magnetycznym;
- zwielokrotnienia utworu dowolną techniką, bez ograniczenia ilości wydań i liczby egzemplarzy;
- rozpowszechniania utworu i jego zwielokrotnionych egzemplarzy na jakimkolwiek nośniku, w tym wprowadzenia do obrotu, sprzedaży, użyczenia, najmu;
- wprowadzenia utworu do pamięci komputera;
- rozpowszechniania utworu w sieciach informatycznych, w tym w sieci Internet;
- publicznego wykonania, wystawienia, wyświetlenia, odtworzenia oraz nadawania i reemitowania, a także publicznego udostępniania utworu w taki sposób, aby każdy mógł mieć do niego dostęp w miejscu i czasie przez siebie wybranym.
Wydawca zobowiązuje się szanować osobiste prawa autorskie do utworu.
