- Jean-Paul Thuillier –
stretched out under the stands, amused themselves with more or less innocent games,
“noble” spectators were seated on benches, men and women mixed, and this public
socializing is a highly signifi cant trait, since, in at least one case, it is a woman who
seems to occupy the foreground, if not the place of honor, on the grandstand. This
image would not be seen in the Greek stadia, like that of Olympia, where no female
spectators were allowed – although an exception was made for the priestess of Demeter
Chamynē – and this image brings us closer to Rome where the Circus Maximus,
according to Ovid (Amores 3.2; Ars amatoria 1.135–162), was a privileged place for
attempted seduction.
LUDI CIRCENSES ET SCAENICI:
THE CONTRIBUTION OF TEXTSThe importance and antiquity of stage shows and sports in Etruria proper are, instead,
fully attested by literary sources that reveal unambiguously that the Romans borrowed
heavily from their Tuscan neighbors in this fi eld. Thus according to Livy (7.2) the ludi
scaenici, the Roman theater productions, sprang up in 364 bce after an epidemic (pestis),
which traditional religious means failed to end, ravaged Rome: in the event of such a
failure of properly Roman techniques then a “foreign rite” (res peregrina) must be involved
and it is the Etruscans who are then called upon to help appease the gods (in the passage,
this rite of proxy, the institution of games, ludi, to stop the divine wrath and the epidemic
sent by the gods, appears as a typically Italic, Etruscan and Roman rite, and quite alien to
the world of Hellenic religion). The fact remains that “without words in verse, without
mime imitating the action of a poem, performers called from Etruria were dancing to the
sound of the fl ute and, in the Etruscan manner, were striking graceful poses.” These are
modest beginnings, no doubt, that will include the intervention of the Roman youth and
then the contribution of authors such as Livius Andronicus who arrived from Tarentum
or Naples with a Greek repertoire. But the local actors (vernaculi artifi ces) will now be
called “histriones” because “ister” is the Etruscan word to denote a professional performer:
thus our theatrical lexicon also retains the Etruscan imprint.
As Livy shows again in the same chapter (7.2.3), before the fourth century bce the
Romans knew nothing more than the “spectaculum circi”: and clearly these circus games are
equally associated with Etruria. At the end of the seventh century bce, Tarquin the Elder
organized the most sophisticated games yet in Rome to celebrate his victory over the
Latins – which shows how the Romans had already experienced sports-entertainments
- the program (ludicrum) includes equi, horses, (mounted or driven?) and pugiles, boxers,
who had been brought especially from Etruria (1.35.5–7). Thus we see that the Etruscans,
for example, Veientines, who live so close to the Urbs (legend held that Ratumenna was a
Veientine charioteer who gave his name to one of the gates of Rome) did not have to wait
for the Greeks in order to see both equestrian and athletic sporting events. This theory of a
Hellenic origin to sports in Italy, which is part of a powerful Grecocentrism in Etruscology
and the history of sport in Antiquity, relies primarily on a passage in Herodotus (1.166–
- concerning the Battle of Alalia in the years 540–535 bce. Following prodigies and
yet another epidemic, the Etruscans of Caere appealed to the Pythia to avert it and the
oracle at Delphi had advised them to set up gymnastic and equestrian games. Besides the
fact that the Greek historian deliberately concealed the techniques of Etruscan expiation
of prodigies to enhance the role of the sanctuary at Delphi and to distract from the defeat