history – Page 6 – THE LEGEND OF THE GREAT HORSE trilogy

History as an afterthought

History is an inexact science to be sure, relying at least partially on hearsay and filtered through the political whims of its era. History is also old in the physical sense of the word, an unattractive quality to some.

But the past isn’t dead. As William Faulkner said, “it isn’t even past.”

Yes, the actors are gone, places have closed or vanished. Attitudes and beliefs have also changed … but it is this sort of mental change that is the value of knowing history: to discover what fails, and what succeeds.

A society’s shared knowledge of history can be compared to a person’s memories. It would be a tragedy for an adult to lose the lessons of youth, to forget what happens when your hand meets a hot stove or a light socket. We could not expect an adult without memories of prior experience to prosper, or even to survive very long. Human society may be no different.

There is nothing inherently needful about human society on Earth: nature proceeds quite well without us. Mankind has the tendency to forget the value of cooperation and commonwealth and retreat to our primitive tribal tendencies as frightened creatures suffering Hobbesian lives–“nasty, brutish, short.” These cycles have been called “dark” ages, and these times of forgetting have occurred throughout human history. The “Middle Ages” are a recent example, a backward era that existed between antiquity’s civilization and our own. Human progress is not a straight line.

If mankind had never discovered fire, or the wheel, or horsemanship, or any of the multiplicity of specializations and customs and insights that make up civilized life–the forests and plains would be there, the world would still turn.

Some may see the world today and mistake success for inevitability. But there is nothing inherently necessary about human civilization on Earth. There is no observable feature of nature to preserve us in our ignorance. We prosper by our hard-learned knowledge, but the cliff is always there to fall from if we forget.

Naufragia!

Naufragia was the name Romans gave to crashes during a chariot race, the shocking pileups of man, machine and thrashing horses. Naufragia is the latin word for “shipwreck,” which conjures the shocking destruction and tangled ruin that so dismayed—and ultimately delighted—the screaming spectators of the Circus.

Naufragia was ultimate disaster, an end not only to hopes of victory but to lives, careers, destiny. A favorite champion could be undone in an instant—every moment of a chariot race was fraught with potential disaster. The extremes of emotion provoked by collisions and near disasters shocked spectators into wild states of euphoria and despair.

A crash was the ultimate calamity for a chariot, but with the growth of the spectator sport Rome twisted the calamity into attraction. The shock of destruction that punctuated the spectacle drove spectators into frenzy, and became a catharsis for the tensions surrounding the race. Spectators grew addicted to the emotional drama of the Circus, filling their increasingly empty lives with it’s loud distraction as their society declined.

Fate was capricious and all of life was subject to naufragia! Honor, duty, love, courage, all one’s hopes, all effort, all resources—naufragia!—gone in an instant.

Naufragia was the point of distraction. As the lives of ordinary citizens were drained of promise by their darkening Empire—they cheered for naufragia! Deprived of property and rights, they cheered—naufragia! And in the end, distracted, frenzied, caught in its own social dysfunction and spectating madness, Rome itself became the grand metaphor of its own distraction—naufragia!

History Repeats

zpage239 In our modern society we have celebrity athletes of different sports, but this is not simply a continuation of historical tradition. Rome was the society that first grew athlete-superstars was Rome. After their collapse, Europe endured a period of centuries known as the Dark or Middle Ages in which there were no celebrity athletes. It was not until the Industrial Age and the organization of modern sports that athletes began to again capture the popular imagination as celebrated stars.

Rome was the first Republic and the grandfather of Western culture. It was a society that flourished as a “melting pot” of peoples with citizen representation in government—and grew the world’s first Middle Class—before corrupting into a tyranny that ended in the destruction of human consciousness. There were two Romes: the long period of growth during the Republic, and its shorter stagnation and decline as an Imperial power.

Celebrity charioteers were a feature of Imperial Rome, and it is Imperial Rome that holds the common imagination today. There has been a reawakening in modern times of ancient forces, whether these forces are (or can be made) positive or not. The destructive element of Rome’s manic celebrity was the power of distraction. Chariot racing was the “circus” of Juvenal’s famous quote about “Bread and Circuses”:

…for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.

The Charioteers of Rome

Oh no! He’s taken the corner wide!
What are you doing? The next chariot is crowding you.
What are you doing, you idiot? You’re going to lose what my girl’s prayed for!
Pull, please, PULL left as hard as you can.
We are rooting for a bum.

–Ovid (43 BC – AD 17) Roman poet, Amores

This poem from circa year Zero is recognizable today. Rome was very modern, though more primal and untested, civilized thought existed then. We can feel the connection.

The idea that human nature does not change has been part of human culture since at least Aristotle’s claim that “All men by nature desire knowledge.” Repetition of historical events across cultures—revolution, poverty, despots, war—could be evidence of an unchanging basic human nature. Our ideas and knowledge have advanced, but there is a part of humanity that still shouts on the bleachers in Rome.

charioteerrelief Unpredictable new things have occurred in society, or at least have emerged in forms unrecognizable to that which has gone before. Such is the case of the charioteer in Ancient Rome.

Top talent on the racing circuit of antiquity attracted throngs of followers, including dignitaries and high officials, wealthy sponsors and fanatics (fans) of all levels of society. The adulation of a sports figures is familiar in our televised age, but in Rome’s day it was something new.

In earlier Greek sport, charioteers were honored along with other athletes (and poets) but Rome twisted the premise. Roman charioteers were professionals. Instead of glorifying the charioteer for achievement, Roman racing grew into a “win at all costs” spectacle that favored violent confrontation and cutthroat tactics. Ironically this escalation of conflict gave advantage to the lowest levels of society, who would take risks avoided by those of more privileged rank. (This gave no clue to the Roman elite.)

For their part, charioteers gradually developed an impunity to societal laws and accepted conduct. The profession became synonymous with thuggery, cheating, bribery and other “low” behavior, to the point Emperor Nero “forbade the revels of the charioteers, who had long assumed a license to stroll about, and established for themselves a kind of prescriptive right to cheat and thieve, making a jest of it.” [Suetonius, “The Lives of Twelve Caesars”]

Greek’s held the reins in their hands, but Roman charioteers tied them around their waists which (deliberately?) dramatically increased the danger and fatality of collisions as the pilot was subject to being dragged unless he cut his reins in time. Whether the spectacle of chariot-racing was a symptom or a cause, Roman societal attitudes became increasingly fatalistic and competitive, and finally merciless and capricious. And then … nothing.

The Greek view of awarding athletes “honor and glory” was replaced in Rome with the material rewards of fame and wealth. We don’t know the names of many Greek chariot-racing heroes; we know more about the celebrated Roman charioteers. However, while Greek racing flourished and developed into a new form, there was no second act for the Roman Circus.