The Use of Primary Source Evidence: Rome
The case study for this week focuses on gladiatorial combat in Rome. However, the main historical concept was to figure out how historians use primary source evidence. In the case study itself, many things stood out, But only some parts stood out the most to me for how historians use evidence to make sense of the past. These parts were step three, four, and six. This was mainly because it gave me a sense of how they could come to conclusions through the primary sources provided in these particular parts. Although the other parts were very important and played a huge part in the understanding of Rome and the historical concept.
Step three focuses on the gladiatorial games. The primary source provided was the Spectacles of Blood: Roman Gladiators and Christian Martyrs. (http://abacus.bates.edu/~mimber/blood/gladiator.sources.htm) This primary source is passages written by many different Roman and Greek authors. This source provided information on how the amphitheater (colosseum) came to be. “(22)… he [Julius Caesar]…He built a kind of hunting-theatre of wood, which was called an amphitheater…” The source shows the types of fighting. “… (23)horsemen against horsemen, men on foot against others on foot, and sometimes both kinds together in equal numbers.” It shows the type of animals and many other things.
Step four focuses more on the purpose of the gladiatorial games. I could not access the links that were provided in this step (Will figure it out for future use soon), but there were some examples brought up about gladiatorial art, gladiatorial artifacts, and gladiatorial architecture that I wanted to acknowledge in this. Based on those examples I felt like step four tied in with step six. Those examples from step four are like step six’s links, but the examples are more of a violent evidence, while the step six’s links give evidence for everyday lifestyle. For example, step six has coins, lamps, spoons, bowls, and everyday type of things. This showed a more civil and common side of Rome.
On the other hand you had the examples of gladiatorial art, artifacts, and architecture. I mean you could look at the colosseum just off of your basic knowledge and think fighting, battle, or something like that. The gladiatorial art, literally, shows people fighting people or beasts. There are people wearing armor, holding weapons, and it just depicts a feeling of battle.
In all honesty, as I went through this case study and had a better understanding of Rome, it was much easier to look at the evidence and make conclusions. It also helped that as I went through, a lot of misconceptions were fixed. The SCIM-C STRATEGY also helped because it gave me a basis of questions to ask myself as I went through the primary sources/evidence.
