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1. A Roman dice game.
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2. A Chinese board game.
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Detail of a
painted marble showing Roman ladies playing knucklebone, a dice-like game
coming from the Greeks. Found in Herculaneum.
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Glazed pottery figures
showing the game of Liu Po, a board game in which pawns are moved along
fixed routes. From a grave of the first or second century.
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3. Roman flue and harp.
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4. Chinese horn and rattle.
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Detail of a
fresco showing musicians playing double pipe and lyre. From the Tomb of
Leopards at Tarquinia, c 480-470 BCE. (Etruscan
Necropolis Tarquinia.)
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Detail of a brick
relief showing musicians in a funeral procession. Two are playing long
curved horns with streamers, followed by a third playing drum and rattle.
(North Dynasty).
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5. Bells for courts.
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Bronze
bells were a courtly instrument for the feudalistic aristocrats of
pre-imperial China. Each bell can produce two tunes when struck at difference
places. This set of 64 bells covers about five octaves. The largest bell is
60 inches high, weighing 450 pounds. (Warring-states period, Hubei).
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6. A musical band for gladiator shows.
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Musical performance accompanied gladiator shows. This detail of a
mosaic shows a trumpet player, a water organ player, and two horn players.
(Leptis Magna, North Africa).
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7. A Roman amphitheater.
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8. A Chinese stage.
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The Greeks
and Romans built open-air theaters in which the audience sitting on stone
steps faced a large stage. This one is at Sabratha,
Lybia.
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Pottery model
showing five performers on the second-floor stage. The building is topped
by a drum tower. Latter Han. (Guoyang, Anhui
Province).
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9. Roman actors.
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10. Chinese dancer and story teller.
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Itinerant actors wearing theatrical masks and performing dance, music,
and mime. Mosaic from Pompeii. (Archeological Museum, Naples).
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Left: Terracotta figure of a dancer from the tomb of Emperor Jing,
died 141 BCE. Right: Pottery
figure of storyteller, Latter Han Dynasty. (Sichuan Provincial Museum.)
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11. Roman masks.
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12. Chinese faces.
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Masks for tragedy and comedy. (Detail of mosaic, Capitoline Museum,
Rome).
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Two expressions of storytellers.
(Pottery figures, Sichuan Provincial Museum).
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With
gladiator combats, chariot races, and other circuses, the Roman Empire was
unsurpassed in public entertainment. Ruins of the Colosseum
and numerous amphitheaters remind us of their grandiose scale. Although much
more modest, the Chinese too enjoyed public performances, especially in
acrobatic.
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13. A Roman chariot race.
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14. Han stunt artists.
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Terracotta
relief showing a chariot race. (British Museum.)
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Brick
relief showing men performing stunts on a high wire strung between poles
erected on two separately racing chariots.
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15. Death by being eaten alive.
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16. Chinese acrobats and jugglers.
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Mosaic
showing damnation ad bestias, wherein a prisoner is eaten alive by wild
beasts. From El Djem, Tunisia. Late second
century.
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Brick
relief showing acrobats and jugglers.
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