Mauricio Pastor Muñoz

Las reformas de Augusto en los munera gladiatoria

The munera gladiatoria were the most popular ludi among those offered in Rome and the other provinces of the Empire. Augustus played a crucial role in the history of the profession of gladiator. In fact, during the Empire, politicians were no longer able to decide about the munera. Rather, it was only the emperor who had any authority over the games. Augustus used the munus as one of the instruments to build his Empire. In that respect, he decided to provide gladiator performances with an organized structure, devising a meticulous system of regulations. This paper analyzes Augustus’ reformations and the impact they had on gladiator fights, which so much entertained Roman audiences.

La mort en face. Le dossiers gladiateurs [Death in face. The gladiatorial dossiers]

religion’ (2) facilitated a wider embrace of both cultural practices. While there certainly are parallels here, these perhaps seem broadly generalised and would hardly be confined to these unique cultural activities. Indeed, the very notion that cultural activities developing within the same socio-historical environment might at times share certain intrinsic qualities shaped by the circumstances in which they were formed, risks sounding less like an interventionist argument and more like an inevitability. At other times, however, these claimed parallels seem a little less convincing. Thus, Guttmann claims ‘In the decades following World War II, when American culture became ubiquitous, two modern team games invented in western Massachusetts within four years of each other – baseball and volleyball – became the world’s second and third most popular sports. These postwar years were also the moment when New York replaced Paris as the global center of the visual arts’ (3). This claimed parallel seems underpinned by a set of assumptions that might not perhaps be universally shared. For sure, American culture emerged from the ashes of the Second World War as a dominant force on the world stage, but the nature of its reception in different national arenas has been seen less as ubiquitous than contested and problematic. Certainly while claims were made for the ‘triumph’ of American painting in New York during the post-war years, many have challenged the legitimacy of such claims and continue to do so. Similarly, while basketball and volleyball may well have drawn strong followings beyond the borders of the United States, these sports nonetheless failed to make much headway at all in many national arenas. This is not intended to deny the legitimacy of attempting to draw such broad historical parallels. After all Guttmann acknowledges that these are at times imperfect. Rather it suggests that perhaps closer, more detailed, analyses of the intersections between sport and art might paint a considerably more complex picture, if you’ll forgive the obvious metaphor here. Nonetheless, Guttmann’s book is highly useful as a broad historical sketch and may help to open the door to research that focuses in greater detail on the relationship between art and sport in more concentrated arenas. This is certainly to be hoped.

Paleoetnología de la Andalucía Oriental (etnogeografía)

espanolSe analizan las fuentes antiguas sobre las etnias prerromanas de esta region andaluza, partiendo de los datos mas antiugos, desde Avieno (siglo VI a.C.) y otros autores de distintas epocas (Hecateo de Mileto, Esteban de Bizancio, Teopompo de Quios, Eforo, Apiano, Estrabon, Plinio, Mela, Ptolomeo, etc...). Tambien se analizan los grupos etnicos identificados, con su situacion, limites y ciudades correspondientes, senalando sus diferencias y su hitoriografia y apuntando ciertos caracteres culturales que apoyan un polimorfismo antiguo en la parte oriental andaluza. Una segunda parte, tras el acercamiento tradicional al problema, plantea la posible inexistencia de diversidad etnica en ese mundo prerromano, pues, la prehistoria de la region evidencia que loos habitantes de Andalucia Oriental son basicamente los mismos desde el neolitico, lo que desmonta las tesis invasionistas y la falcia del polimorfismo prerromano. Se argumenta arqueologicamente que el mundo prerromano andaluz ofrece mas elementos comunes de lo que se suponia. EnglishThe classical sources on the pre-Roman tribes of this Andalusian region are analysed, starting from the oldest data, from Avieno (6th century B. C.) and other authors from various eras (Hecateus of Miletus, Stephen of Byzacium, Theopompus of Chios, Ephorus, Apianus, Strabo, Pliny, Mela, Ptolemy, etc.). The ethnic groups identified, their situation, limits and corresponding cities are also analysed, observing iheir differences and their historiography and nothing certain cultural characteristics that support polymorphism in eastern Andalusia in ancient times. A second part, after the traditional approach to the problem, considers the possibility dial diere was no ethnic diversity in this pre-Roman world, since the Prehistory of the region indicates that the inhabitants of Eastern Andalusia remained basically the same from the Neolithic onwards, which contradicts the invasionist thesis and the fallacy of pre-Roman polymorphism. It is argued that the pre-Roman Andalusian world has more elements in common than previously demonstrated.