Les spectacles à Antioche d’après Libanios

Abstract

The subject of my contribution might seem very wide. I intend, in fact, to develop it in two main directions: the theatrical shows and those of the circus. If Antioch people’s entertainment reaches its peak in the Olympic Games and Syriarch’s spectacles, more common ones were provided by theatrical shows and chariot-races. I shall study the part of these ordinary spectacles in Antioch people’s life, beginning with generalities on the already well-known world of actors, mimes and pantomimes, without lingering however, in order to move on to what I would like to focus: the circus world, the equestrian competitions which took place in the hippodrome, and the exaltation which they aroused. About the latter, I shall particularly analyse the following aspects: horses-race as a meeting point of the different social classes, and the possibilities for the hippodrome to have had a political function; modalities of circus games organisation and financing: harmatotrophia, and hippotrophia (personal or patrimonial liturgies?); the supply of horses (belonging personally to the bouleutes, or brought by the city?); purchase and resale of horses, which bring about outlay as well as profit. I shall consider these different procedures as being in correlation with one another. I shall also go through the problem of the circus factions in Antioch, on which opinions differ in the absence of textual indications enough definite. I shall notice the strict correlation between bouleutes’ statutory obligations and the passionate phenomena which comes with equestrian games: moral criticism which Libanios carried on circus games leads to an end while accepting the whole liturgical system which would not be called into question.