Porphyrius The Charioteer
Alan Cameron
Number of quotes: 21
Book ID: 180 Page: 3
Section: 5B
appropriately enough in the person of Porphyrius, champion of hippodromes all over the Empire for more than forty years.
Quote ID: 3938
Time Periods: 56
Book ID: 180 Page: 17
Section: 4B
They are winged Victories,
Quote ID: 3940
Time Periods: 56
Book ID: 180 Page: 28
Section: 4B
The Tychae, city goddesses, that hover so uneasily above Porphyrius’ head on the upper registers of three out of four faces, are absent from the old base, perhaps beneficially so.
Quote ID: 3941
Time Periods: 56
Book ID: 180 Page: 43
Section: 4B
there is a much restored statue in the Vatican of a charioteer of the early Empire holding a palm. {1}
Quote ID: 3942
Time Periods: 56
Book ID: 180 Page: 150
Section: 4B
Malalas then describes how Porphyrius led his fellow Greens in an attack on a synagogue in the suburb of Daphne, killing many worshippers. {1}
Quote ID: 3944
Time Periods: 56
Book ID: 180 Page: 158
Section: 4B
Actors, dancers, and charioteers were all members of the entertainment profession, and (in the eyes of the Church, if not the public at large) all equally undesirable, refused baptism, and in peril of their immortal souls.
Quote ID: 3945
Time Periods: 56
Book ID: 180 Page: 159
Section: 4B
We do not know what sort of achievements were deemed to merit a statue for charioteers—and Porphyrius’ honours were in any case exceptional, as the epigrams proclaim time and again.
Quote ID: 3946
Time Periods: 56
Book ID: 180 Page: 159
Section: 4B
It looks as if Porphyrius’ poetic admirers somewhat extended the period of his first down—notoriously a peculiarly attractive time of life to ancient eyes {2} – but even so, the first four monuments must surely have been erected within about half-a-dozen years. The first, that is, when Porphyrius was about 17, the fourth when he was, at the latest, about 22.[……this is the footnote with the Greek writing in it.]
Quote ID: 3947
Time Periods: 56
Book ID: 180 Page: 159
Section: 4B
2 Elagabalus once fell in love with a charioteer at the ‘beardless’ stage (???????????? , Dio lxxx, 15, 2). )
Quote ID: 3948
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 180 Page: 228
Section: 4B
Gladiatorial games had of course long been gone by Porphyrius’ day {1} –though less perhaps because of imperial disapproval than simply as a result of changing taste and the sheer difficulty and expense of procuring gladiators
Quote ID: 3949
Time Periods: 56
Book ID: 180 Page: 228
Section: 4B
No doubt Christianity had some effect, but moral considerations can hardly have been to the fore, or the scarcely less brutal and bloody wild-beast hunts (venationes) would not have been allowed to continue for nearly two centuries more.
Quote ID: 3950
Time Periods: 567
Book ID: 180 Page: 228
Section: 2E4
Venationes were long performed to imperial frowns—Leo’s disapproval emerges clearly from the law he issued in 469 banning public entertainments on Sundays {3}
Quote ID: 3951
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 180 Page: 230
Section: 4B
The other great rival to the circus was the theatre. Not indeed the legitimate stage, dead and gone for centuries, but the mime and (above all) the pantomime. Pantomimes of both sexes became popular idols, and we know the names of many of the most famous.
Quote ID: 3952
Time Periods: 56
Book ID: 180 Page: 231
Section: 4B
The pantomime acted out in dumb show a sort of ballet, usually on a theme from Greek mythology. {1} It was normally a solo performance (to the accompaniment of music and /or singing), and each of the four factions had its own top dancer. It might not sound very exciting, yet an experienced pantomime could evidently do with his audience all that a modern pop singer does—and more. As early as the first century top pantomimes had substantial fan clubs, who often got out of hand.
Quote ID: 3953
Time Periods: 256
Book ID: 180 Page: 231
Section: 4B
Church Fathers tend to wax indignant about most forms of public entertainment, but it is always for the theatre that they reserve their choicest invectives.
Quote ID: 3954
Time Periods: 56
Book ID: 180 Page: 244
Section: 4B
The charioteer had always been a popular idol at Rome. As early as the 70’s B.C. we hear of a grief-stricken fan who threw himself on the funeral pyre of his favourite driver. {1}
Quote ID: 3955
Time Periods: 0
Book ID: 180 Page: 246
Section: 4B
Now the charioteer was not the only popular idol of late Roman society. There was of course the Holy Man, {7} the ascetic saint, with whom not even a Porphyrius could compete. Yet among the ordinary range of mortals the charioteer soon came to outstrip all competitors.
Quote ID: 3956
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 180 Page: 254/255
Section: 4B
The truth is that few statues of any sort, whether in bronze or stone, were erected after Justinian. Indeed, it is a commonplace of Byzantine art history that ‘sculpture in the round, after the sixth century, was used only for statues of emperors and occasionally members of the imperial family’. {1}
Quote ID: 3957
Time Periods: 67
Book ID: 180 Page: 255
Section: 4B
But this is the sort of exception that proves the rule. Nicetas’ services to Heraclius were altogether exceptional—and he was a kinsman after all. {4} Otherwise I know of only one private citizen honoured with a statue after the death of Justinian: the great chamberlain-general Narses, under Justin II. {5}
Quote ID: 3958
Time Periods: 6
Book ID: 180 Page: 255
Section: 4B
And the chariot-races of the hippodrome certainly remained a key point in imperial ceremonial right down to the eleventh or twelfth century.
Quote ID: 3959
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 180 Page: 257
Section: 4B
And after 541 no more consuls were appointed—largely because no one could afford the honour any more.
Quote ID: 3960
Time Periods: 6
End of quotes