Reply With Quotevery interesting article, thanks for posting
Were Christians really thrown to the lions?
Were Christians really thrown to the lions?
January 30, 2009
Dear Cecil:
My friend says Christians weren't actually thrown to the lions in ancient Rome, but when I was at the Colosseum, I saw a big cross there in honor of all the Christians martyred at that spot. He insists this was just made up by the church to perpetuate their religion. What gives?
— vbunny
Cecil replies:
The story has its suspicious aspects, I guess. According to the historian Tacitus, Christians during Nero's time (at least) were mainly torn apart by dogs, crucified, or burned alive — no mention of lions. The Romans did throw people to lions on occasion, and Tertullian, writing later, remarks that the Romans were always ready to exclaim "Away with the Christians to the lion!" whenever times got tough. However, Tertullian doesn't claim he witnessed any martyrdoms-by-lion personally, and anyway he was a Christian himself. Fact is, while the Romans evidently fed Christians to animals, and people to lions, we have no source stating directly that they specifically fed Christians to lions.
So theoretically it's possible the whole Christians-lions thing was a Christian ploy for sympathy.
But probably not. The Romans did a big business in mass slaughter by and of animals, showing great enterprise in arranging dramatic forms of killing, so if they didn't throw any Christians to the lions, it was likely an oversight. While record keeping at the time wasn't the best, and many early Christian texts have their implausible moments, here's what we can say with reasonable certainty:
1. During the early Christian era, the Romans executed some prisoners using animals, sentencing them ad bestias, "to the beasts." The beasts in question included dogs, bears, boars, and lions.
2. Christians were executed by the boatload during that time, often in cruel and unusual ways, with animals regularly playing a role. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, wrote letters en route to execution in Rome predicting he’d be thrown to the beasts. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, was threatened with being thrown to the beasts but as it turned out was finished off by the sword. Possibly no one saw more animal action than the Christian priest Saturus — reportedly he was first tied to a boar (which turned on its handler instead), then exposed to a bear (it proved too cowardly to attack him), and finally killed by a leopard. Speaking of Nero's persecutions, Tacitus adds the detail that the emperor had Christians dressed in the skins of animals before throwing them to the dogs, possibly to help overcome any performance anxiety on the dogs’ part.
3. Animals weren't used just for execution in ancient Rome; animal combat, usually ending in the animals' demise, was unfailingly popular. Sometimes armed men fought beasts; sometimes the beasts were made to fight one another. Such games, originally held for religious purposes, became ever more lavish and were staged in amphitheaters across the empire. One well-loved event was the venatio, or hunt, often conducted amid elaborately constructed scenery, including real trees, rocky hills, artificial lakes, and the like.
4. Roman executions typically were considered a form of public spectacle. When coinciding with a game day, they usually took place during the midday break between the morning animal hunts and the afternoon gladiator matches. A favored method was exposing an unarmed criminal to lions or bears. Since it’s pretty clear that Christians were at times sentenced to death by beast (see 1 and 2 above), one may surmise that some of them met their end via lion in front of a Colosseum crowd, but we have no sure knowledge of this. The entertainment value of executions was apparently low due to their sheer number — many people found them boring, either leaving for lunch or sticking around and writing letters to friends about the tedium.
5. You have to think the killing of animals might have eventually gotten dull as well — it’s estimated that 9,000 beasts were slain during the inaugural games of the Colosseum alone (possibly an exaggeration; another source says 3,500 during 26 events). Over time more exotic animals were introduced to hold the crowd's interest: lions and panthers turned up in 186 BC, bears and elephants in 169 BC, hippos and crocodiles in 58 BC. Pompey brought rhinos to Rome; Caesar wowed 'em with giraffes. The ever-growing number and variety of animals required put a considerable burden on the supply chain. In his Natural History Pliny the Elder tells us lions were originally hard to catch (the idea was to chase them into covered pits), but later it was discovered they could be subdued by throwing a cloak over their heads. Elephants were captured and tamed by beatings and starvation. A major source of animals was the Roman army, which had a special rank (venator immunis) for those in charge of animal procurement.
A sorry business for sure, but Roman animal sports did at least provide an answer to one perennial question: Which is tougher, a bull or a rhino? Answer: Never bet against a rhino, which according to the writer Martial had no problem getting its horn under a bull and flipping it like a flapjack.
— Cecil Adams
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very interesting article, thanks for posting
The whole thing sounds pretty moot. So even though the Christians weren't thrown to lions per say, they were still probably thrown to some other animal, with the same results (more or less). I guess getting eaten by a lion just sounds cooler than torn apart by a pack of dogs.
I think it's more accurate to say there isn't direct evidence that they were, but that it was possible.Originally Posted by IraGlacialis
The Romans did throw people to lions on occasion, and Tertullian, writing later, remarks that the Romans were always ready to exclaim "Away with the Christians to the lion!"
The Bibull is a fun storybook at times.
Real history is always better though.
Maybe this is where the Jews got the idea to invent the holocaust.
So many Christians, so few lions...
I would humbly submit that neither the original question nor the response mention the Bible
Obviously... as obvious as my mention of it is relevant in my context. Myths and history.I would humbly submit that neither the original question nor the response mention the Bible
:P
Its that kind of talk that gets heretics thrown into a pit of us blood thirsty Christians.
Us Christians eat unbelievers. FACT.
Last edited by Redguy; 02-14-2009 at 01:09 PM. Reason: I **** spell.
Wasn't there something on the History channel last month surmising that the Christians were persecuted during the Nero period because they were blamed for the great fire of Rome? I guess you would have to make up your own mind on if it was true or political expedience of the time.
I would just make the argument that the persecution historically did happen, but as has been pointed out, the Romans liked to mix things up an awful lot so it probably would have happened by a lot of different methods.
Last edited by Sierrakitten; 02-14-2009 at 02:56 PM. Reason: typo
Sorry, only in German and Rusian.
About 300.000 dead humans and millions of animals.
Damnatio ad bestias was used a lot, not only against christians.
Das Kolosseum,Die Todesmaschine
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegelgeschic...604041,00.html
Damnatio ad bestias
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_ad_bestias
Said beasts were typically leopards and bears, but lions were used.
There is at least one piece of evidence re lions and Christians specifically - in one ase a Roman audience called for (later Saint) Polycarp to have a "lion" set on him - the only reason their desire was turned down was that the beast portion of the show was already over. It's therefore a fair inference that Christians were indeed thrown to lions, and they definitely were killed by other wild animals.
Even Noahas took 20 lions in his cruise to entertain passengers by tossing some Palestinians into their mini coliseum
The romans were quite creative in death penalties.
On the other hand, christian prosecution seems to have varied greatly under various emperors.
Nero and Domitian are notorious, but others simply didn't care.
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