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The Shows

Chapter VIII.

To follow out my plan in regard to places: the circus is chiefly consecrated to the Sun, whose temple stands in the middle of it, and whose image shines forth from its temple summit; for they have not thought it proper to pay sacred honours underneath a roof to an object they have itself in open space. Those who assert that the first spectacle was exhibited by Circe, and in honour of the Sun her father, as they will have it, maintain also the name of circus was derived from her. Plainly, then, the enchantress did this in the name of the parties whose priestess she was--I mean the demons and spirits of evil. What an aggregation of idolatries you see, accordingly, in the decoration of the place! Every ornament of the circus is a temple by itself. The eggs are regarded as sacred to the Castors, by men who are not ashamed to profess faith in their production from the egg of a swan, which was no other than Jupiter himself. The Dolphins vomit forth in honour of Neptune. Images of Sessia, so called as the goddess of sowing; of Messia, so called as the goddess of reaping; of Tutulina, so called as the fruit-protecting deity--load the pillars. In front of these you have three altars to these three gods--Great, Mighty, Victorious. They reckon these of Samo-Thrace. The huge Obelisk, as Hermeteles affirms, is set up in public to the Sun; its inscription, like its origin, belongs to Egyptian superstition. Cheerless were the demon-gathering without their Mater Magna; and so she presides there over the Euripus. Consus, as we have mentioned, lies hidden under ground at the Murcian Goals. These two sprang from an idol. For they will have it that Murcia is the goddess of love; and to her, at that spot, they have consecrated a temple. See, Christian, how many impure names have taken possession of the circus! You have nothing to do with a sacred place which is tenanted by such multitudes of diabolic spirits. And speaking of places, this is the suitable occasion for some remarks in anticipation of a point that some will raise. What, then, you say; shall I be in danger of pollution if I go to the circus when the games are not being celebrated? There is no law forbidding the mere places to us. For not only the places for show-gatherings, but even the temples, may be entered without any peril of his religion by the servant of God, if he has only some honest reason for it, unconnected with their proper business and official duties. Why, even the streets and the market-place, and the baths, and the taverns, and our very dwelling-places, are not altogether free from idols. Satan and his angels have filled the whole world. It is not by merely being in the world, however, that we lapse from God, but by touching and tainting ourselves with the world's sins. I shall break with my Maker, that is, by going to the Capitol or the temple of Serapis to sacrifice or adore, as I shall also do by going as a spectator to the circus and the theatre. The places in themselves do not contaminate, but what is done in them; from this even the places themselves, we maintain, become defiled. The polluted things pollute us. It is on this account that we set before you to whom places of the kind are dedicated, that we may prove the things which are done in them to belong to the idol-patrons to whom the very places are sacred. ¹

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De spectaculis

8

1 ut et de locis secundum propositum exequar, circus Soli principaliter consecratur. cuius aedes in medio spatio et effigies de fastigio aedis emicat, quod non putaverunt sub tecto consecrandum quem in aperto habent. 2 qui spectaculum primum a Circa Soli patri suo, ut volunt, editum affirmant, ab ea et circi appellationem argumentantur. plane venefica eis utique negotium gessit hoc nomine, quorum sacerdos erat, daemoniis et angelis scilicet. quot igitur in habitu loci illius idololatrias recognoscis? 3 singula ornamenta circi singula templa sunt. ova honori Castorum adscribunt qui illos ovo editos credendo de cygno Iove non erubescunt. delphines Neptuno vomunt, columnae Sessias a sementationibus, Messias a messibus, Tutulinas a tutela fructuum sustinent; 4 ante eas tres arae trinis deis parent, Magnis Potentibus Valentibus. eosdem Samothracas existimant. 5 obelisci enormitas, ut Hermateles affirmat, Soli prostituta. scriptura eius unde eius et census: de Aegypto superstitio est. frigebat daemonum concilium sine sua Matre Magna; ea itaque illic praesidet euripo. 6 Consus, ut diximus, apud metas sub terra delitescit Murcias. eas quoque idolum fecit: Murciam enim deam amoris volunt, cui in illa parte aedem voverunt.

7 animadverte, Christiane, quot nomina inmunda possederint circum. aliena est tibi regio, quam tot diaboli spiritus occupaverunt.

de locis quidem locus est retractandi ad praeveniendam quorundam interrogationem. 8 quid enim, inquis, si alio in tempore circum adiero, periclitabor de inquinamento? nulla est praescriptio de locis. nam non sola ista conciliabula spectaculorum, sed etiam templa ipsa sine periculo disciplinae adire servus dei potest urguente causa simplici dumtaxat, quae non pertineat ad proprium eius loci negotium vel officium. 9 ceterum et plateae et forum et balneae et stabula et ipsae domus nostrae sine idolis omnino non sunt: totum saeculum satanas et angeli eius repleverunt. 10 non tamen quod in saeculo sumus, a deo excidimus, sed si quid de saeculi criminibus attigerimus. proinde si Capitolium, si Serapeum sacrificator vel adorator intravero, a deo excidam, quemadmodum circum vel theatrum spectator. loca nos non contaminant per se, sed quae in locis fiunt, a quibus et ipsa loca contaminari altercati sumus: de contaminatis contaminamur. 11 propterea autem commemoramus, quibus eiusmodi loca dicentur ut eorum demonstremus esse quae in iis locis fiunt, quibus ipsa loca dicantur.