제정 초기 전차 경주에서 팍티오(factio)와 폭력성 (Factio and the violence of chariot racing in the early Roman Empire)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국서양고대역사문화학회
· 수록지 정보 : 서양고대사연구 / 40호 / 69 ~ 99페이지
· 저자명 : 배은숙

초록

전차 경주에 필요한 말과 기수를 공급하는 조직은 ‘영향력을 행사하는 사람들의 집단’이라는 의미에서 팍티오로 불렸다. 팍티오 중심으로 운영되는 전차 경주의 특성상 팍티오를 지지하는 사람들끼리 경쟁했다. 팍티오 중심의 경기 운영 방식, 동일 팍티오 지지자들끼리 앉을 수 있는 좌석 배정, 팍티오에 돈을 거는 내기 방식, 상대편 팍티오의 패배를 기원하는 저주 서판 등을 볼 때 관중들끼리의 단순한 폭력 사건이 일어났을 개연성은 상당히 높았다.
“마음을 빼앗긴 관중”, “목이 쉬도록 외쳐대는 관중”, 상대편에게 “끔찍한 저주의 말들을 퍼붓는 관중”으로 인해 경주장의 열기는 더욱 달아올랐다. 이처럼 열정이 상당한 관중이 자신이 원하는 결과를 얻었거나 그렇지 않았을 때 집단행동을 할 여지는 충분히 있었다. 한 마디로 정황상 경주 과정이나 결과에 대해 불만을 가진 관중들끼리 폭력을 행사할 가능성이 많았다. 이는 지지하는 팍티오에 따라 싸움, 난동, 방화, 살인이 난무했던 소아시아와 이집트의 여러 도시들의 사례에서 알 수 있다.
관중의 집단행동을 경주장에서의 ‘광기’나 ‘격분’이라고 비난하는 사가들도 있었지만 황제와의 소통이라는 측면에서는 오히려 긍정적으로 파악해야 할 듯하다. 경주장은 사람들이 황제에게 곡물 공급이나 조세 경감을 탄원할 수 있는 기회의 장, 국정 현안에 대해 의사를 표현할 수 있는 소통의 장이었던 것이다.

영어초록

Chariot racing must have been an enthralling spectacle when the chariots shot out of the starting gates, when as many as several dozen might take part in a race. Spectators sat mixed together in the Circus Maximus. In the circus, large crowds must surely have gotten out of hand fairly regularly, with outbreaks of serious violence. But questions as to what form this violence took inside and outside the circus are not dealt with by the authors of the ancient world. They suggest it could have been turbulent up in the stands, but they do not go into detail.
There were four large racing stables at the start of the imperial era, each with its own faithful band of supporters. Referred to as factiones, they took their names from the colour of their chariots: the Reds, the Whites, the Blues, and the Greens. It is clear that the Roman audience could kick up a storm and did not shrink from rioting. We need only to look at the theater, where people lost control of themselves during stage shows and expressed their dissatisfaction through violence.
Despite the inherently nonverbal performance of the circus, tumultuous protest was frequent. The public was often violent to a degree still unknown in the modern world. Although chariot races were nonviolent in the sense that the drivers were prohibited by the rules from doing each other physical damage, they occasioned an incredible amount of sports-related spectator violence. In 190 A.D., the races at the circus were interrupted by a maiden who rushed forward, accompanied by a group children, to accuse the official Cleander of hoarding grain. The crowd took to the streets, threatened the emperor’s villa, and succeeded in persuading Commodus to fire Cleander. In 196 A.D., the historian Dio Cassius reported a day of racing during which there was an eerie silence after the sixth race, then clapping in unison and cries for peace. Therefore, fighting and disorder were not uncommon in the circus as well as the theater.
In the late Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire, the major cities were repeatedly disrupted by violence associated with the organised groups responsible for arranging public entertainments and leading the chanting and applause at them, in particular the Blue and Green circus factions. The behaviour of the Blues and Greens was organised in the sense both of being perpetrated by bodies with substantial organizational structures which extended throughout most of the cities of the empire, and of being organised through the factions by patrons to further their own particular interests.

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