Fatal Charades
Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9296283 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kathleen Coleman (University of Cape Town, corresponding author), K M Coleman |
| Year | 1990 |
| Volume | 80 |
| Pages | 44-73 |
| Publication date | 1990-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Roman Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0075-4358 • E-ISSN: 1753-528X |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/300280 |
| OpenAlex | W2135647588 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 198 |
| References cited | 19 |
Tertullian, illustrating the sacrilegious nature of pagan religion, records that in an auditorium he saw a person being burned to death in the role of Hercules and another being castrated as Attis; both of these examples he adduces to substantiate his assertion to his pagan audience that ‘criminals often adopt the roles of your deities’ (‘et ipsos deos vestros saepe noxii induunt’). The practice that Tertullian here deplores is the subject of this paper: the punishment of criminals in a formal public display involving role-play set in a dramatic context; the punishment is usually capital
Archaeology · Art · Assertion · Capital punishment · Context (archaeology · Criminology · Literature · Mythology · Political science · Punishment (psychology · Set (abstract data type · Sociology · Subject (documents · Theology · Classical Antiquity Studies · Computer Science · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology
Eusebius and Empire
The Dangers and Virtues of Theatricality in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso
Seneca, Ethics, and the Body
Social Mobility and the Cities of Italy
Conclusion
Yes and No
The Rural Landscapes of Imperial Italy
Supplication, Republic, and Principate
The Fourth and Last Step
Supplication and Greek Law
Ceremony and Morals
The First Three Steps in Supplication
The Transformation of the City in Imperial Italy
Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome
Statius and Virgil
Reading Fiction with Lucian
Exemplary Ethics in Ancient Rome
Christianity and Roman Society
Gladiators
Punishment and penalties, Greece and Rome
Perpetua
Buildings of an Emperor – How Nero Transformed Rome
Nachwort
Cicero's Philosophy of History
Theatre and spectacle in Apuleius’ tale of the robber Thrasyleon (Met. 4.13–21)
Sex in the Arena
Apuleius' Invisible Ass
Theatre of Cruelty
Local and provincial institutions and government
Commerce and finance
The growth of administrative posts
Disciplining the Slaves of God
Senecan Drama and the Age of Nero
Seneca and Augustan Culture
Africa
Post-Augustan Revisionism
Overview
Rome
Philosophers and the State under Nero
Social Control in Late Antiquity
The emperor and his advisers
The army
The Dialogue in Seneca’s Dialogues (and Other Moral Essays)
Nero in Hollywood
Petronius, Realism, Nero
Religion
The Danube provinces
Nero and the Senate
Self-definition vis-à-vis the Graeco-Roman world
Female Crime and Female Confinement in Late Antiquity
Theory and Practice in Seneca’s Writings
Nero’s Women
Cyrenaica
Seneca and the Quest for Glory in Nero’s Golden Age
Hadrian to the Antonines
Roman Germany
Art and the Decadent City
Nerva to Hadrian
Family and household
Seneca Redivivus
Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis
Towards a Christian paideia
Seneca’s Shame
Britain
Style and Form in Seneca’s Writing
Words at War
Burning Rome, Burning Christians
Emperor, Senate and magistrates
The fall of Troy in Seneca’sTroades
Exploring Appearances
Senecan Emotions
Asia Minor and Achaea
Provincial administration and finance
Introduction
The Neronian “Symptom”
Greece and Asia Minor
The Flavians
Rome and Italy
Power, Faith, and Reciprocity in a Slave Society
“Ain’t Sayin’”
Trade
Seneca’s Originality
Religious Change and the Use of Religion in Greek and Roman Cities
Holy Beatings
Theater and Theatricality in Seneca’s World
Frontiers
A Predator and a Gentleman
Reading Thecla in Fourth-Century Pontus
Seneca
Status and patronage
Seneca and the Moderns
Lucan’s Civil War in Nero’s Rome
Art and architecture
Rebels and outsiders
Nero’s Memory in Flavian Rome
Seneca and the Christian Tradition
Staging Nero
Persecutions
Resurgences of Nero in the Enlightenment
Seneca on Monarchy and the Political Life
The World of the Citizen in Republican Rome
Surveiller et punir
Punishment and Social Structure
Catullus and his World
Roman circuses
Injustice
L'empire en jeux
The Prison and the Factory
Le pain et le cirque
The Offensive Weapon in the Pyrrhic
Martial, De Spectaculis 8
The Emperor Titus
Stigma
The Golden Bough
Les Villes libres de l'Orient greco-romain et l'Envoi au Supplice par Acclamations populaires
La mosaïque de chasse à l'amphithéâtre découverte à Smirat en Tunisie
Injustice
| Unique citing works | 198 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 5,82 |
| Citation span | 1992 - 2025 (34) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 195 |