This work belongs to a group from the History of Rome series for the Buen Retiro Palace. Dedicated to depictions of Roman public pastimes, the group includes athletes, gladiators, chariots, animal fights, mock sea battles and so on. Following initial doubts, the Buen Retiro Palace was conceived as a place of leisure, where it would be possible to forget the worries associated with running the monarchy. This group of paintings probably sought a simple association of the palace’s leisure activities and those of Antiquity.

In these works, the painters show considerable knowledge of the literature on Antiquity produced in Italy in the previous seventy years, and the general idea presented in this group reflects considerable reading. The two authors most influential in its constitution were Onofrio Panvinio and Justo Lipsio, although one can easily imagine that Jerónimo Mercurialis, Antoine Lafréry, Giacomo Lauro and Serlio were also consulted. Panvinio wrote a considerable number of texts about Roman customs, especially De ludis circensibus (1600), from which the painters drew general aspects of the series, such as parades in the circuses as a prelude to the feasts, with elephants (P91) or soldiers on horseback (P93) in preparation for the pugna equestris (equestrian battles). The same group of works also presents the ceremonies held before events, such as the athlete’s offerings (athletica) visible in the present work.

Besides gladiatorial scenes, it is possible to detect the origin of the athletes’ scenes in Panivinio and other authors such as Jerónimo Mercurialis, whose De arte gymnastica was published in 1573 and includes a great variety of prints with athletic exercises similar to those depicted by Francanzano (P142) or Falcone in his Roman Athletes.

There are no contemporaneous descriptions of the location of these works, so Charles II’s will and the palace plans are the only sources that allow us to speculate as to how they may have been presented at the Buen Retiro Palace. In 1701, these paintings were distributed among four parts of the grand plaza, although we may suppose that they were originally intended to form a more unified group. The scarce indications in Charles II’s will suggest certain rhythms that may correspond to the artists’ original intentions. Thus, Falcone’s Roman Soldiers at the Circus (P93) is mentioned as a work designed to hang over a door. That may explain its exceptional size. His Roman Athletes is mentioned as intended to hang over a window, and it is possible that all of the nearly square works in this series were conceived for similar locations.

In recent decades, efforts have been made to establish the existence of a series of paintings related to the History of Rome -including the present work- that Philip IV’s representatives would have commissioned in that city and in Naples around 1634 for the Buen Retiro Palace. Today, twenty-eight extant works can be related to this project (most in the Museo del Prado or Patrimonio Nacional), along with another six mentioned in Charles II’s will but now lost or destroyed. This total of thirty-four paintings constitutes the largest group from the Retiro, including the Hall of Realms. The only larger group consists of mythological scenes that the king’s brother, Cardinal-Infante don Fernando, commissioned Rubens to paint for the Torre de la Parada. The size of the Roman group is the first indication of its importance in the new palace (Text drawn from Úbeda de los Cobos, A. in: El Palacio del Rey Planeta. Felipe IV y el Buen Retiro, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2005, pp. 169-170; 178-180).