{"id":1488,"date":"2019-11-13T18:03:29","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T18:03:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ajaonline.org\/2019\/11\/13\/4047\/"},"modified":"2024-08-13T03:45:59","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T03:45:59","slug":"4047","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/article\/4047\/","title":{"rendered":"Gladiatorial and Beast-Fight Monuments from Mytilene"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This article gathers the evidence for gladiatorial and wild-beast spectacles in the ancient city of Mytilene on Lesbos in the Roman province of Asia. It summarizes the available information regarding the conversion of the town theater into an arena and then presents four inscriptions related to gladiatorial and beast-fight spectacles, 12 panel- and altar-shaped stelae depicting single gladiators, and five reliefs depicting scenes of beast fights<em>. <\/em>I argue that most of the pieces should belong to monuments dedicated to the sponsors who offered these kinds of spectacles. With the exception of one inscription that is safely dated to the early first century CE and attests to <em>venationes<\/em> (beast fights) at Mytilene already in Augustan times, the other monuments are chronologically located in the second to third centuries CE. The monuments are local products and are characterized by their simple iconography. Of particular interest, however, is a relief presenting a mythologized beast-fight scene that may have been actually enacted in the amphitheater.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article gathers the evidence for gladiatorial and wild-beast spectacles in the ancient city of Mytilene on Lesbos in the Roman province of Asia. It summarizes the available information regarding the conversion of the town theater into an arena and then presents four inscriptions related to gladiatorial and beast-fight spectacles, 12 panel- and altar-shaped stelae [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1487,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[904],"tags":[4,5,9,29],"issues":[776],"region":[802],"class_list":["post-1488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-inscriptions","tag-iconography","tag-sculpture","tag-romanperiod","issues-776","region-greece"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Gladiatorial and Beast-Fight Monuments from Mytilene | January 2020 (124.1) | American Journal of Archaeology<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/article\/4047\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gladiatorial and Beast-Fight Monuments from Mytilene | January 2020 (124.1) | American Journal of Archaeology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This article gathers the evidence for gladiatorial and wild-beast spectacles in the ancient city of Mytilene on Lesbos in the Roman province of Asia. It summarizes the available information regarding the conversion of the town theater into an arena and then presents four inscriptions related to gladiatorial and beast-fight spectacles, 12 panel- and altar-shaped stelae [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/article\/4047\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"American Journal of Archaeology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/aja.journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-11-13T18:03:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-08-13T03:45:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/1241_Karambnis.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"653\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"website\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"website\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/article\/4047\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/article\/4047\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"website\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/#\/schema\/person\/f93c211048ad920b94c1e8abdb2053f0\"},\"headline\":\"Gladiatorial and Beast-Fight Monuments from Mytilene\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-11-13T18:03:29+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-08-13T03:45:59+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/article\/4047\/\"},\"wordCount\":166,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/article\/4047\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/1241_Karambnis.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Inscriptions\",\"Iconography\",\"Sculpture\",\"Roman Period\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Article\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/article\/4047\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/article\/4047\/\",\"name\":\"Gladiatorial and Beast-Fight Monuments from Mytilene | January 2020 (124.1) | American Journal of Archaeology\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/article\/4047\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/article\/4047\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/1241_Karambnis.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-11-13T18:03:29+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-08-13T03:45:59+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/article\/4047\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/article\/4047\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/article\/4047\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/1241_Karambnis.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/1241_Karambnis.jpg\",\"width\":653,\"height\":800,\"caption\":\"Inscription commemorating the gladiatorial troop of Tryphonianos (cat. no. 3). 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