The Roman Arena - Bibliography - Archaeology Magazine Archive


Gladiator Bibliography	"The Roman Arena"

by Shelby Brown

(most recent publications cited first in each category)

Old Chestnuts

Carcopino, J., trans. 1940. Daily Life in Ancient Rome. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Robert, L., 1940. Les gladiateurs dans l'Orient grec (École des Hautes Études, fasc. 278). Paris: Librairie Champion.

Piganiol, A., 1923. Recherches sur les jeux romains (Faculte des lettres de l'Université de Strasbourg, fasc. 13). Paris, Strasbourg: Librairie Istra.

Friedlander, L., 7th ed., trans. 1913. Roman Life and Manners under the Early Empire IV. London: Routledge.

Selected Sources from the Past Quarter Century

Welch, K. 2007. The Roman Amphitheatre from its Origins to the Colosseum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Edwards, C. 2007. Death in Ancient Rome. New Haven: Yale University Press (chapter 2).

Futrell, A. 2006. The Roman Games: A Sourcebook. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Hopkins, K., and M. Beard. 2005. The Colosseum. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Gunderson, E. 2003. "The Flavian Amphitheatre: All the World as Stage," in A.J. Boyle and W.J. Dominik, eds., Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text: 637-658. Leiden: Brill.

Meijer, F. 2003. Translated by L. Waters. The Gladiators: History's Most Deadly Sport. New York: Thomas Dunne Books (St. Martin's Press).

Chase, R. 2002. Ancient Hellenistic and Roman Amphitheaters, Stadiums, and Theaters: The Way They Look Now. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

Augenti, D. 2001. Spettacoli del Colosseo nelle Cronache degli Antichi. Rome: L'Erma di Bretschneider. (Great pictures)

Koehne, E., and C. Ewigleben, eds. 2000. Gladiators and Caesars: The Power of Spectacle in Ancient Rome. Los Angeles: UCLA Press. (Good images and photographs of reenactments)

Three papers on the Colosseum and its arena: Journal of Roman Archaeology 13 (2000): 69-103.

Bergmann, B., and and C. Kondoleon, eds., 1999. The Art of Ancient Spectacle. Studies in the History of Art 56 (Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts Symposium Papers XXXIV). New Haven: Yale University Press.

Potter, D.S., and D. J. Mattingly, eds., 1999. Life, Death, and Entertainment in the Roman Empire. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Kyle, Donald, 1998. Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome. New York: Routledge.

Futrell, A., 1997. Blood in the Arena: The Spectacle of Roman Power. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Gunderson, E. 1996. "The Ideology of the Arena." Classical Antiquity 15: 113-151.

Edmondson, J.C. 1996. "Dynamic Arenas: Gladiatorial Presentations in the City of Rome and the Construction of Roman Society in the Early Empire," in W. Slater, ed., Roman Theater and Society: 69-112. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Plass, Paul, 1995. The Game of Death in Ancient Rome: Arena Sport and Political Suicide. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Brown, S., 1995. "Explaining the Arena: Did Romans Need Gladiators?" Review article focusing on T. Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators (Routledge: 1992), Journal of Roman Studies 8: 276-284.

Welch, K., 1994. "The Roman Arena in Late Republican Italy: A New Interpretation." Journal of Roman Studies 7: 59-80.

Barton, C.A. 1994. "Savage Miracles: The Redemption of Lost Honour in Roman Society and the Sacrament of the Gladiator and the Martyr." Representations 45: 41-71.

Barton, C. A., 1993. The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Potter, D. 1993 "Martyrdom as Spectacle." In Theater and Society in the Classical World (R. Scodel, ed.). 53-88. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Wiedemann, T., 1992. Emperors and Gladiators. New York: Routledge.

Brown, S., 1992. "Death As Decoration: Scenes of the Arena on Roman Domestic Mosaics," in A. Richlin, ed., 1992, Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome: 180-211. New York: Oxford University Press.

Welch, K., 1991. "Roman Amphitheaters Revived." Journal of Roman Archaeology 4: 272-281. Article reviewing Spectacula I. Gladiateurs et amphitheatres. Actes du colloque tenu a Toulouse et a Lattes les 26.27.28 et 29 Mai, 1987 (Lattes, France: Editions Imago Musée archéologique Henri Prades and Golvin, J.-C., 1988. L'amphitheatre romain I-II. Paris: Centre Pierre Paris 8, De Boccard.

Coleman, K. M., 1990. "Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments." Journal of Roman Studies 80: 44-73.

Barton, C. 1989. "The Scandal of the Arena." Representations 27: 1-36.

Clavel-Leveque, M., 1984. L'empire en jeux. Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.

Hopkins, K., 1983. Death and Renewal. Sociological Studies in Roman History II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ville, G., 1981. La gladiature en occident des origines a la mort de Domitien. Rome: École Francaise de Rome.

Tumolesi, P. S. 1980. Gladiatorum Paria: Annunci di Spettacoli Gladiatorii a Pompeii. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura (Istituto di Epigrafia e Antichità Greche e Romane dell'Università di Roma).

Shelby Brown is a classical archaeologist who has served as the Vice President for Education and Outreach of the Archaeological Institute of America. Her research interests include gender studies and institutionalized violence, including the Roman arena and Phoenician child sacrifice. She teaches Greek and Roman Archaeology and Latin at The Archer School for Girls in Los Angeles and is a Research Associate at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA.