Languishing in prison and awaiting her execution ad bestias - by exposure to ravenous wild beasts during spectacular shows in the amphitheatre - the early Christian martyr Perpetua experienced a vision of her impending death.
She dreamt that she would indeed be led into the arena in front of an enormous crowd watching in astonishment, but instead of wild beasts coming to maul her, as she expected, a large Egyptian athlete entered the arena opposite and prepared to fight her.
Perpetua then dreamt that her clothing was stripped off and that she suddenly became a man. As her Egyptian opponent rolled in the sand in preparation for combat, an enormous, aristocratic man entered the arena, his head reaching higher even than the amphitheatre itself. He wore a tunic with purple stripes and sandals of silver and gold, and he carried a wand like that of a trainer (a lanista) and a large branch with golden apples. The vision continues, remarkably recorded by Perpetua herself:He asked for silence and said, ‘If this Egyptian defeats her, he will kill her with his sword, but should she defeat him, she will receive this branch.' Then we came close to one another and let our fists fly. He tried to get hold of my feet, but I kept striking him in the face with the heels of my feet. Then I was raised up into the air and I began to beat him without, as it were, even touching the ground. Then I saw a pause and I joined my hands together linking my fingers and I took him by the head. He fell on his face and I stepped on his head. The people began to shout and my assistants began to sing. I approached the trainer and took the branch. He kissed me and said to me, ‘Peace be with you, my daughter.' I began to go in glory to the Porta Sanavivaria, the Gate of Life. (Martyrdom of Perpetua, 10.10-12)
Shortly after this fantastic victory, Perpetua awoke, determined now to face her fate with renewed conviction. She felt certain that, though she would die by the beasts, her real foe was not the wild animals but the devil himself. At this point the narrative written in Perpetua's own hand breaks off, and the story of her subsequent execution is told by another.
While it is unsurprising that a Christian martyr should envision her execution as a public spectacle, since Roman executions were often showy exhibitions staged in the amphitheatre, it is remarkable that she should conceive of that execution as a sort of combat sport in which she would fight - and win. Rather than a passive victim of the arena, Perpetua imagines herself to be a famous athlete, a triumphant victor, the star of the show. The combat she briefly describes would probably be recognisable to contemporary Greeks and Romans at the beginning of the third century ce as a pancratium, a no-holds-barred mixture of wrestling and boxing, though there are also elements of gladiatorial combat in her vision too.1 Like a proper athlete, she is male, naked, and oiled for competition. Her opponent, the Egyptian, rolls in the dust in preparation for the fight. Even the enormous man who enters the arena in her dream to introduce the contest is readily identifiable as either an agonothetes (Greek) or a munerarius (Latin), the person who organised a spectacle for the assembled people. But more than simply a supervising official, he seems to be identified by Perpetua as Christ himself. He stands taller than the amphitheatre when he introduces her to the people, explaining the punishment for defeat and the reward for victory. Though in reality she will die horribly in the arena in games organised for the thrill of the crowd and as a demonstration of Roman power, in her mind she would fight and be victorious in games offered by Christ for the betterment of the world.[994] [995]
That a Christian martyr could adopt the language, imagery, iconography and ideology of combat sports (boxing, wrestling, pancratium and even gladiatorial combats) as a way to conceive of and give meaning to her own very public suffering and death, suggests that these events carried cultural consequence that went far beyond simple performance and entertainment. Important social values - such as perseverance in the face of adversity, individual courage, discipline, skill and personal excellence - could be expressed and celebrated through such violent athletic events.
By the time of Perpetua’s death in 203 ce in Carthage, combat sports had been a key part of the cultures of the Mediterranean and Levant for well over a thousand years, maybe more. There is evidence for wrestling in the earliest works of literature: Gilgamesh and Enkidu wrestled one another at Uruk in Mesopotamia and as a result became fast friends (c. 2700 bce).[996] But this chapter will examine combat sports in the Greek and Roman worlds. While most cultures know sports of various kinds, including what we should think of as violent combat sports, few other ancient societies institutionalised such sport and gave it so central a role in their ideologies and identities. In the Greek world multiple athletic competitions (agones) were held in every city and town in connection with the worship and celebrations of local and national deities. These innumerable festivals were in addition to the great Pan-Hellenic ‘periodic' games at Olympia and elsewhere. The games were sacred and victory in one of the great festivals, such as Olympia, marked one as a heironikes, a ‘sacred victor'. Even if the prize was only an olive wreath, victory could be more cherished than one's life. But as ubiquitous as the games were in Archaic (800-500 bce) and Classical Greece (500-323 bce), their number and importance only expanded during the Hellenistic period (323-30 bce), and especially under the dominion of the Roman Empire (30 bce-c. 500 ce). Furthermore, Roman society introduced gladiatorial combats, another type of contest held in a sacred context, to the Mediterranean world.The violence inherent in combat sports, which would not have been tolerated in a normal social context, was a defining feature. Athletes hit, kicked, even stabbed each other, and this was deliberate. They agreed to do it and to have it done to them, and spectators expected it and celebrated it. Any evaluation of violence, however, depends on context. Ancient sporting contests were public spectacles, but although public, the events themselves were deemed to be outside of the normal social rules and conventions.
The same act of violence (for example, hitting another person) may be considered ‘unacceptable' or ‘valuable' depending on the context. One man striking another in the street, the agora or forum, was ‘unacceptable' violence and there were laws to control that sort of behaviour. The athletic violence of combat sports was in general ‘valuable' and could carry with it ideals and values cherished by the very society that might reject the same violent acts in a normal day-to-day context - so long as this athletic violence took place within the bounds of the established rules or standards of behaviour which spectators expected of the athletes.[997] For Christian Perpetua, an imagined victory in combat sport was a way to express her immortality and the glory that her martyrdom in the arena would bring to herself and even to Christ, the host of the games.