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28 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating material but difficult reading, December 30, 1998
By A Customer
The book was fascinating but as it was translated from the French the wording and puncutation is often awkard. It was very difficult to stay focused while reading this book. It uses lots and lots of foreign terms/words and at times I felt I was reading a book written in a foreign lancuage. The author also seemed to assume the reader was already thoroughly familiar with the basics of the matertial presented so he jumped right into technical jargon. If you read for pleasure I wouldn't recommend this book.
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29 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
thumbs down, December 3, 1999
For many centuries in "civilized" Europe, the mostpopular form of mass entertainment was watching other people being putto death in horrible ways. This phenomenon reached its apex (or if you will, its nadir) during the Roman empire, with the infamous games of the amphitheater. As Roland Auguet relates, in his recent book, Cruelty and Civilization, the games had their origin in the funeral customs of wealthy Etruscan families, who would compel a few of their slaves to kill each other in ritual combat as a form of sacrifice to appease the spirit of the deceased. By the time of Caesar Augustus, these gladiatorial combats had pretty much lost any vestige of a religious character and become huge spectacles, organized with all the style of big budget Hollywood productions. Like the blockbuster movie, they often featured a cast of thousands. The big difference was that in the Roman shows, the blood was real, the stunts weren't faked, and the stars really died. Everyone loved the games. The most respectable women in Rome, the Vestal Virgins, had their own reserved seating so they could have a close-up view of men being hacked to pieces, disembowelled, or torn apart by wild animals. Roman fathers would take their sons to see murder done for the same reasons they'd take them to a hockey game today; it was good clean fun. The Romans revelled in violence in a way that is hard for us to accept or understand. In Cruelty and Civilization, Mr. Auguet promises us something more than just a standard narrative history of the Roman games; he also proposes to offer some kind of psycho-moral analysis. Unfortunately, he is such a slavish admirer of Roman culture that he can't bring himself to see it clearly. Right at the beginning of the book, he asserts that "there is nothing more incompatible with the Roman mentality than the form of cruelty known as sadism." - in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. Having ruled out the most natural and logical explanation for the games - that the Romans, like all human beings, had their dark side - Auguet is then unable to come up with any alternative theory. He raises all the usual questions but doesn't provide any new answers. So why did he bother to write the book? And why should we bother to read it?
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
"Not Impressive; Not Disappointing", April 6, 2002
This review is from: Cruelty and Civilization: The Roman Games (Paperback)
Roland Auguet's "Cruelty and Civilization: The Roman Games", translated out of the original French edition, is a work that fails to provide itself as an introduction to the games. It also fails to furnish itself as a comprehensive, scholarly overview of the spectacles, which caught a hold of the everyday passions and imagination of Roman civilization. Instead, this work is something in between. It is neither impressive or, on the whole, disappointing. In this work, Auguet briefly touches on the nature and origin of the Circus Maximus, the gladiatorial combats, the hunts, and the patrons and factions which provided funds and fueled the populace to back these extravagant and brutal events. The process of recruiting men and beasts, is a subject in Auguet's work, which carries significant merit in interest and depth. Just how the gladiators, who were notoriously born of humble origins, rose to the status of superstars by the arts of the sword, is another aspect of this work deserving of recommendation. The prose style used in this work, on the other hand, is at times fluid and completely in tune, however other times it is difficult to follow, awkward, and is distasteful to read. Again, there are many terms the author uses that will be difficult for anyone seeking for an introduction to the games to discern. The short glossary in the back does some justice to this minor setback though. Overall this work should not be discounted; but it is not a recommendation. Instead try Michael Grant's "Gladiators."
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