Is there life after death in the Coliseum?
Keywords:
Power, violence, spectacle, poetryAbstract
A show at the Coliseum is argument enough in favor of the idea that reality overcomes fiction. Blood won in the arena, more than horror and violence, is the consecration of the imperial power, which submitts savagery, executes the traitor, surpasses the one who dares to defy its Roman superiority. The execution under state sponsorship is not intended to figure the theater of sympathy, but to be affirmation of the right of life and death. The poet Martial will be presented in his celebrating verses of “Caesareo Amphitheatro”. This paper aims to understand which relations can be established between the intrinsic values of poetry and political projects implicit in the building of that celebrated place.
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