Friday, October 12, 2007

21st Century Colosseum

I was watching a documentary about the Colosseum on National Geographic today and the dude was explaining how it was originally designed for gladiatorial fights. Over the centuries it became a popular sport, until it was outlawed in the 4th century. Yeah, it's beyond me how it took them couple of centuries to figure out that maybe killing other humans is not a bright idea. The weird thing is that later today I saw this show ' Robotica' which basically have two teams design two competing robots and then fight them to death, you're seeing where I am going right? Do you think that this robotic gladiatorial fights will be outlawed in the future? Say 25th century?

I agree that initially it sounds like one of the many stupid ideas I blurp regularly BUT I am sure stopping fights in the Colosseum 17 centuries ago wasn't a popular idea too! And if you're thinking this doesn't apply because we can't compare humans being killed with robots, then how do you justify the current international pressure to stop the Spanish bullfighting for example?

Think about it, it's the 25th century, cyborgs roam the earth serving us in every possible aspect. They have become an integral part of our civilization. Will bot fighting be outlawed? I would argue that it would, because as our civilization progresses we develop more compassion towards others, be it man, animal or cyborg.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

4th century is about right, that's right after Constantine stopped slaughtering Christians in the colosseum and become one himself...I guess they slaughtered other minorities in the intervening years.

Fesh said...

Zero, I don't think the games stopping was linked to Constantine's faith. Also I don't think that it was only applicable to Christians. Let me clarify:

- The Colosseum was used for gladiatorial games, executions, animal-on-animal fights and animal hunts.

- The games started to witness a gradual decline in attendance, mainly because Christian spectators didn't like the gore-filled games.

- It is true that Constantine converted to Christianity, but the Roman empire was not. The empire will be become Christian almost a 100 years later. He would ban the games in AD 325, much after he converted to Christianity.

- In AD 367 Valentinianus I banned the executions of Christians IN the Colosseum. But they still got executed somewhere else! Non-Christians still got executed in the Colosseum (this is the point you are confusing). This was mainly because, in the early years, death of early Christians in the Colosseum got linked to martyrdom so in the later years it didn't make sense to kill Christian criminals in the very same way the early Christian martyrs were killed.

- Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in AD 393 under the reign of Theodosius.As the Barbarian attacks on the provinces during the third century AD led to an economic recession and decreased funds for such shows. Honorius, Theodosius' son, finally decreed the end of gladiatorial contests in 399 AD.

The last known gladiator competition in the city of Rome occurred on January 1, 404 AD.

This link can give you more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladiator

Anonymous said...

I merely said off the top of my head, that Constantine was the here said impetus that triggered the banning of the games. Ergo, the propinquity of the early Christians to pacifism, culminated with the banning of the games 398, as you so eloquently stated ya fesh-fesh. :D

Anonymous said...

sorry didn't have my glasses on 399 :DD......looks like we're taking 2 different routes to get to the same place :DD

Fesh said...

Dude, 'impetus', 'Ergo', 'propinquity' and 'culminated' in ONE comment? Are you sure you're alright? :)

Anonymous said...

NO!!!!!!!!:D

Jade said...

I dont think it will be banned because we have more compassion towards anything - it will be because Robots then will rule the earth & they will ban it themselves - & I assume they might allow the Colloseum to return with Human Killings as their means of entertaining themselves...

Touche!!

Zeow - Get a Grip

Fesh said...

hehehehehe I see this is a common vision of the future, a friend of mine left me this comment:

In Terminator 5, robots will take over the world and the Colosseum will re-open. They'll watch us fight while having buttered bolts and diet oil and shouting OOOOOOOLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEE.