Colleseo

Abby and I took a tour of the Collesium today and learned a lot of interesting facts, but two stick out in my mind. First, our guide told us that the emperor would often decide in advance who he wanted to win and then rig the competition to ensure his desired outcome. If the emperor wanted the contestant to die, he would either give him a fake sword or starve the lions for days prior to the event. If the emperor wanted the gladiator to win, he command that the lions be fed pills that acted as tranquilizers. In either case, the 50,000-70,000 fans in the arena wouldn’t have been able to tell that the contest was rigged, which reminded me of today’s reality T.V. phenom. The producers chop and edit the shows to fabricate heroes and villains and the masses soak it in thinking it’s real. I guess Solomon was right, “There’s nothing new under the sun.”
Secondly, we learned that at age 15, all Roman young men were required to join the army. If they refused, they were sent to the Collesium where they had the pleasure of fighting a professional gladiator. With this fate in mind, my guess is that most of them went ahead and signed up for the military. I thought about the 15 year old men that I teach and that are in the youth group out at Gridley and what is expected of the average American 15 year old today contrasted to what was expected of a 15 year old in Rome. I don’t think we should be shipping our American 15 year olds off to Iraq, but I think that a 15 year old can handle more than we often think or expect.
I’m afraid that when we coddle 15 year olds who are supposed to acting like men, they end up acting like babies. Self-centered, quick to complain, unable to persevere in hardship, and incapable of many things that a man ought to be able to do. My struggle is that I want to expect much out of the young men I teach, but I don’t want to be like a cold-hearted Roman general. When much is expected, failure is likely. Considering the fact that a Roman 15 year old likely died for the mistakes made on a battle field, maybe we should be more willing to challenge our young men and watch them fail . . . at least they’ll still be alive if they do.