The Danger at Midday: Death Threats in the Apocalypse 3 one should note that, while it is true that the book’s revelation is a prophetic denunciation of the fundamental incompatibility that exists between the pagan religion on which the Roman empire is based on the one hand and the Christian faith on the other, this does not in any way imply the absence of all risks entailed by faithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ, risks which are mentioned many times in the book of Revelation, in terms that are barely veiled (6). I would like to concur with this grandmaster in the exegesis of the Apocalypse. By making a comparison between what happens at the munera, the games which are organized by the rich as filotimiva (7) and the text of the Apocalypse, I want to show where P. Prigent is right in talking about the risks which in the Apocalypse are mentioned in terms which are barely veiled. 1. The munera The gladiatorial games which are a part of the munera enjoy great scholarly interest (8). Originally these games were connected with the death of an important public figure as tribute to the deceased. At the end of the Republic (through Sulla, Pompey, Caesar and Anthony) they are also put into service in the internal political struggle to win popular (6) P. PRIGENT, Commentary on the Apocalypse of St. John (Tübingen 2001) 74. (7) According to L. ROBERT, Les gladiateurs dans l’Orient Grec (Amsterdam 1971) 277-280 the words munus and filotimiva become fully synonymous in the course of the second-third century. (8) See e.g. A. ROLAND, Cruelty and Civilization. The Roman Games (London – New York 1972); A. CAMERON, Circus Factions. Blues and Greens at Rome and Byzantium (Oxford 1976); K.M. COLEMAN, “Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments”, Journal of Roman Studies 80 (1990) 44-73; Th. WIEDEMANN, Emperors and Gladiators (London – New York 1992); M. CARTMILL, A View to Death in the Morning. Hunting and Nature through History (Cambridge, MA 1993); C.A. BARTON, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans. The Gladiator and the Monster (Princeton, NJ 1993); P. PLASS, The Game of Death in Ancient Rome. Arena Sport and Political Suicide (Wisconsin – London 1995); D.G. KYLE, Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (London – New York 1998); F. MEIJER, Gladiatoren. Volksvermaak in het Colosseum (Amsterdam 2003). For this paper the book of L. ROBERT, Les gladiateurs dans l’Orient Grec is obviously the most important. In citing the inscriptions I write ROBERT + number (= the number that Robert gave to the inscription in his study). When I refer to the pages, I write ROBERT, Gladiateurs + number. With the cities from the Apocalypse I have also indicated always the most up-to-date or the first publication. I have completed and corrected the inscriptions of Robert by the texts from the Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (SEG) from 1971-1998.