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Everyone, including me and my wife, binged the fuck out of Squid Game, making it the most popular show in Netflix history. Why? Because we like to watch competitions where the loser dies. Roman gladiatorial combat began three centuries before Christ, and it was a Christian monk who helped bring the practice to an end.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: January 1, 404--
Squid Game wasn’t an anomaly. The Hunger Games trilogy has sold over 65 million copies in the U.S. alone. That may be fiction, but during the rise and fall of the Roman Empire much entertainment was found in a live show of real death. And the majority of people thought it was awesome. Few said ah shit this is sick watching people fight to the death. That’s why when some foreign monk walked into the Colosseum and got between two combatants and said hey stop this shit, the crowd stoned him to death.
The first gladiators were slaves, although it gained such popularity that later many volunteered. It wasn’t always lethal, as training and feeding gladiators was expensive. There were even some female gladiators. Although there was the occasional dissenting voice, gladiatorial combat was a binding social and economic force that crossed class lines in Roman society. People fucking loved it. Continues below …
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But then sometime around 391 a monk named Telemachus, who was probably from Turkey and not the son of Odysseus, said enough of this shit. Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman Empire only 11 years previous, but like the modern American evangelical, its followers weren’t very Christ-like. During the games Telemachus entered the arena and attempted to stop two gladiators from fighting. Allegedly, he said, “In the name of Christ, forbear!” Contemporary historian Theodoret wrote of the incident that the spectators “were irritated at the interruption of their cruel sports, and stoned him who had occasioned the cessation.”
Emperor Honorius, however, was moved by the martyrdom, although it took him a while to do anything about it. It is believed that Telemachus made his statement and died for it in 391, but Honorius was only seven at the time. Perhaps he had only heard the story, or perhaps he was in attendance, because children were allowed to watch the games. Shit, sometimes children were allowed to fight. That’s sure fucked up, watching children fight to the death. *cough* Hunger Games *cough*
Anyway, many previous emperors had tried to stop the games, but they always seemed to worm their way back into being. I mean, the empire had gone to all this trouble to build these expensive amphitheaters, and there was money to be made. But Honorius was determined. He assumed the throne at the age of nine in 393, and in 399 he made an edict that said no more gladiators. But there were more gladiators, so he said I said no more fucking gladiators! The last recorded gladiatorial fight in Rome took place on January 1, 404.
Telemachus was later canonized by the Church, becoming Saint Telemachus.
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