ABSTRACT
A ncient Rome is virtually impossible to define, for like all civilizations, it is rife with contradiction. The level of sophistication it achieved in law, art, religion, literature and politics was as high as humankind has known. Yet other aspects are barbaric by most any standard. The idea that Rome’s most prominent citizens gathered to watch hundreds — sometimes thousands — of men and animals be butchered for mere sport shatters any illusion that their world was very similar to our own.
