Roots of the Circus Milestones: Hannah's 2017 Advent Calendar

The Roots of the Circus

Stone age

Some scientists believe juggling goes back this far.

We know from ceramics and other art that every civilization has had acrobats, from Mayans to Turks.

c. 3000 BC

Roots of circus in Europe

There were acrobats and jugglers in Egypt.

They spread to Greece. Greeks added stilt walking performers and clowns with a red nose, drunken behavior, and a giant phallus.

Greek acrobats and clowns spread to Rome. The Romans added ropewalkers, and itinerate troupes spread throughout Europe.

Priests of Cybele used trained lions and leopards, jugglers, and magicians to spread the cult of Dionysus, the god of fertility. Dionysus evolved into Bacchus and Sarapis, the Greco-Roman god of the underworld. Friction developed between advocates of entertainment and those who saw the displays as religious.

c. 2000 BC

India

Elephants were an integral part of life in the Indus Valley.
Mahouts trained them for labor, war, and temple life.

c. 1200 BC

Turin

Dancing acrobat girls were sculpted.

c. 900–500 BC

Mexico and Japan

Ceramics portrayed acrobats.

c. 200 BC

Asia

In China's Han Dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD) there were acrobats, jugglers, and magicians in harvest celebrations, representing the human capacity to survive.

Acrobats, jugglers, and other performers were well established by the 8th century in both China and Japan.

First century AD

Wild animals were killed in the Roman Coliseum as entertainment: the ultimate animal abuse. Europe continued animal fights as entertainment until performing animals in circuses replaced them.

There were chariot races around a ring called a hippodrome, but these weren't really circuses.

Middle Ages

Acrobats, ropedancers, jugglers, and magicians performed in giant fairs in Europe and Asia. Merchants welcomed them as they drew crowds. The fairs were international marketplaces, so the troupes became intercultural. In 1102 "Freaks of Nature" were shown in St. Bartholomew's Fair, London. Itinerant troupes walked on hot coals and drank boiling oil.

However, these circus precursors gradually faded out. They were even illegal in Scandinavia. In the fifth century rope dancing was illegal in France.

Renaissance

Courts throughout Europe had troupes of acrobats, generally Italian. (The Italians still have dynasty families of acrobats that go back many generations.)

The first treatise on acrobatics, by Arcangelo Tuccaro, was published in 1599.

Commedia dell'arte, clown-like theater, began in Italy. Harlequin and Columbine amused audiences in Paris, Madrid, and London.

Bears performed for centuries, mimicking human behavior.

The first known use of "freak" as a label came in 1563. An archaic definition of the word freak is: whim, sudden arbitrary change of mind, "as the freak takes you." So a freak of nature is nature trying something new just on a whim.

"A Young Daughter of the Picts," c. 1585, showed a lady covered with flowers, although they were probably not tattoos. The painting is attributed to Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues.

"The Famous Dutch Woman" engraving by Marcellus Laroon, c. 1688, showed a slack ropedancer doing a trick that distorted the shape of the rope into a trapezoid-like shape (hence "trapeze"). (This is a similar engraving by Laroon. I can't find the one described.)

Want to know more about an image? Instructions for looking up images on Google.


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