Fin de partie : les larmes des éléphants et la rupture du pacte ludique chez Pline, Histoire naturelle, VIII, 20-21

Abstract

Resorting to violence on animals, particularly in socially organized forms in public settings for the sole purpose of entertaining a human audience, has been considered a real cultural taboo in modern Western society for some decades. This kind of violent behaviour, judged inhumane and disrespectful of the lives of other animals, has often been presented as normal and widespread in ancient Roman culture. Indeed, the circus and the amphitheatre games are normally portrayed as occasions where Roman society as a whole ritually enjoyed the bloody spectacle of killing animals. By analysing a specific episode where an elephant hunt, presented as a fictional entertainment, is interrupted and fails miserably, this article will try to offer a different perspective on the treatment of animal violence in Roman culture. This paper will focus on the particular ecological relationships that ancient Roman culture had established with other living beings and whose transgression could not be accepted in an uncontroversial way, not even in a playful and amusing context such as that of a public show offered by the city magistrates.

Keywords

• animals
• animal communication
• ancient Rome
• circus games
• elephants
• fiction and play