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The reader would be surprised at the few grams of fiction that we have needed to add to the classical sources to create this evocation of a peculiar Iberian single combat ( monomachia; pl . monomachiae ). The episode, completely real, is known to us by various authors, interested above all in the picturesqueness of the situation and who, consequently, dwell on aspects as accessory as those we have used in our brief narrative (Liv. XXVIII, , et seq.; Val. Max. ext. ; Sil. Pun . XVI, -); Additionally, they avoid any effort of historical inquiry, reducing the episode to the status of an anecdote.
In all cases, our sources speak of “ gladiator combat ,” valuing the confrontation according to their own – and distant – cultural experience. Gladiatorial fights developed in the Roman world a recreational value that had little to do with the funerary B2B Email List meaning that we glimpse in their confusing origins . In our case, we are faced with a sample of the original content of what would be a magnificent spectacle in the future: the confrontation between Orsua and his cousin, named Corbis , was part of the games organized in BC by P. Cornelius. Scipio in honor of his father and uncle, who died five years ago during one of the actions fought on the Iberian front of the Second Punic War . According to Titus Livy, Scipio celebrated these “gladiatory” combats as a funerary munus , that is, as a posthumous satisfaction of the duties contracted with his ancestors; and he did it in the city of Cartago Nova , a strategic nodal point of his campaigns in Eastern Andalusia since he took it in BC through a bold coup de main .
However, this interpretation is problematic in several ways. If piety was Scipio's sole goal, how to explain the five-year hiatus between the death of his ancestors and the celebration of the munus ? Questions of opportunity could be raised in a war situation, but being content with such an explanation would imply ignoring the peremptory status that funeral ceremonies had in Roman religion, intended above all to appease the vengeful spirits of the deceased. It is not the only exceptional element of the exhibition that concerns us: Livio makes an effort to make it clear that the type of men who fought there were not “of the type usually presented by the lanistas [NB: those in charge of the sale and/or training of gladiators in the Roman world] ” ; On the contrary, they faced each other of their own free will, trying to show off their courage, please the general who had organized the games, or, in the exceptional case of Corbis and Orsua that concerns us, resolve internal dynastic disputes under the gaze of Scipio ( XXVIII, , -). For his part, Silio Itálico highlights how “those who equally faced the sword did not do so because of a crime or crimes that threatened life, but because of bravery and a vehement passion to achieve glory” ( Pun . XVI, vv. -).
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發表於 2024-3-12 14:53:57