Master of Spectacles

GW Bowersock ( Martyrdom and Rome (Wiles Lectures) ) cites an article by Louis Robert to explain Perpetua’s vision at her martyrdom. She saw “a man of enormous height, whose head rises above the very top of the amphitheater itself, and whose clothes show purple garments not only falling from his two shoulders but also spread over his chest. This huge figure has shoes embroidered in gold and silver, and he carries a wand like a judge at an athletic competition or a display of gladiators.”

Robert explains that the figure is an agonothetes , the head of the munera but also argues that the figure is also Christ, “Christ the giver of competitions, Christ the provider of spectacles that serve the will of God.” Bowersock suggests that the martyrs conceived of their deaths as “a kind of public entertainment offered by God to communities where it takes place as some kind of far more edifying transmutation of the traditional games . . . . the early martyrs see God or Christ himself as the agent of their martyrdom.”