Abstract

This chapter explores the community-sanctioned spectacles of animal abuse, particularly the domination and/or destruction of animals as an entertainment, in the ancient world. It describes different practices of animal abuse in Crete, Greece, and Rome and suggests that it was the Romans who developed public spectacles of animal abuse unparalleled in scale. This chapter explains that the Romans considered the victimization of animals not only as a celebration of victory over Nature but also as a reminder that people and regions from which the exotic animals had been captured had been brought under Roman control.