Free The Unofficial Hunger Games Companion by Lois H. Gresh Page A

names. We have Venia, Octavia, Seneca, Plutarch, and Flavius, just to note a few. Of particular interest is the name Flavius because in reality, the Flavians built the Colosseum , the amphitheater and main sports-blood arena of the Romans, in AD 80. At first, it was called the Flavian Amphitheater, though it is commonly known now as the Colosseum.
    Imperial Rome included many large forums for Games: In addition to the Colosseum were the Circus of Flaminius, the Theater of Marcellus, the Circus Maximus where chariot battles were held, the Theater of Pompey, and many others. Though originally, the fights were held in the Roman Forum. Spectators watched from galleries around the Forum, and by Caesar’s time, underground passages enabled gladiators to emerge suddenly into the arena.
    As in the Capitol of Panem, the ancient Romans enjoyed their festivals of death so much that the bloody spectacles formed a major aspect of the social lives of people from all classes. Everyone flocked to the arenas, where they gossiped during the violent and deadly shows, and they showed themselves off in hopes of “being seen” by more prominent and wealthy citizens.
    People even attended the inhumane arenas in hopes of attracting lovers. Finery and show, as in The Hunger Games, dominated; as translated by George Rolfe Humphries, Ovid wrote in ancient times that:
    There is another good ground , the gladiatorial shows .
    . . .
    Hither [women] come , to see ;
    Hither they come , to be seen .
    [Women seeking love] Go and look at the games ,
    where the sands are sprinkled with crimson 3
     
    The eroticism associated with gladiators, the arena, and violence was enormous. It is similar to the eroticism of the Spanish matador, who slaughters bulls for public entertainment. The gladiators were so close to blood and death that they were perceived as symbols of the prohibited; in modern terms, they were certainly “bad boys” of their times, and hence, women were fascinated by them.
    The ancient Romans gambled on the outcomes of the gladiatorial battles, just as they do in The Hunger Games. The Romans looked all over their Empire for victims to serve in their games, and they glorified their bloodbaths in art.
    So why did the ancient Romans have no opposition to the inhumanity of their games while we, as readers of The Hunger Games series, find the violence and bloodbaths deplorable? Have people really changed that much over time? If so, why does the world still have so much violence and brutal death?
    While modern society seems obsessed with violence and death in literature, film, art, and video games, we don’t condone unnecessary brutality in our own lives. We read about horrors in other nations far away, but as long as the horrors don’t hit too close to home, most people have learned that there’s no point in doing anything other than shrugging it off. We feel impotent to do anything about the horrors in other countries. In fact, we’re impotent, if you get right down to it, to fix the indignities, starvation, homelessness, and senseless violence in our own countries. Most people are disgusted, albeit horrified, by the conditions of cows, chickens, horses, and other animals, particularly those meant for human consumption. And yet, most of us feel impotent to do anything about it.
    And yet, compared to the ancients, we are much more sensitive to animal rights, to the inhumane living conditions of animals intended for slaughter, the rights of those on death row to have “humane” executions, the cruelty of bullfights and rodeos, and to lab experiments on animals.
    In the times of the gladiators, as Duke University Professor Matt Cartmill writes:
    No intrinsic value was attributed to the lives of beasts in ancient Greece and Rome. . . . In a world where philosophers could seriously argue that human slaves are only detached parts of their masters’ bodies, and where grotesquely awful deaths were regularly meted out to human victims to amuse the