> Actually - the art of oval racing was conceived in the UK
FOR HISTOrY BUFFS, Turning left 2000 years ago:
Circus Maximus
(revised)
It was at the first celebration of the Consualia in honor of Consus,
an ancient god of agriculture, that the rape of the Sabine women was
thought to have occurred. Romulus is said to have held chariot races
then which were so distracting, says Livy, that "nobody had eyes or
thoughts for anything else." While the men watched the races, their
unmarried women were abducted by the Romans to be their wives.
The races took place on either side of a brook that ran between the
Aventine and Palatine hills, and it was in the middle of this valley
that the Circus Maximus traditionally was thought to have been founded
in the sixth century BC by Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king of Rome.
By channeling and bridging the stream, an euripus was created that
served as a barrier (spina) for the track. Livy records that in 329 BC
permanent starting gates were constructed and, in 174 BC, that they
were rebuilt and seven large wooden eggs set up between columns on the
spina to indicate the completion of each lap. There was reconstruction
by Julius Caesar, and, in 33 BC, Agrippa supplemented the eggs with
seven bronze dolphins, and had another set of eggs placed near the
starting gates to mark laps for the charioteers. After a fire in 31
BC, Augustus constructed the pulvinar, a shrine built into the seating
below the Palatine Hill, which was used as an imperial box to watch
the games and where images of the gods were installed after having
been brought in procession (pompa) from the Capitol. In 10 BC,
Augustus also erected an obelisk on the spina as a dedication to the
Sun and monument of his conquest of Egypt.
This is the Circus that so impressed Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who
described it in 7 BC as "one of the most beautiful and admirable
structures in Rome." It measured approximately 2,035 feet in length
and 460 feet in width and could seat 150,000. Outside, says Dionysius,
"there are entrances and ascents for the spectators at every shop, so
that the countless thousands of people may enter and depart without
inconvenience." Inhabited by cooks, astrologers, and prostitutes, it
was in this arcade of wooden shops (tabernae) that the disastrous fire
of AD 64 broke out during the reign of Nero. Of the Circus then, Pliny
the Elder considered it to be one of the great buildings in the world,
able to seat 250,000 persons. (Seating capacity probably was closer to
170,000.)
By AD 103, after another fire (possibly the one of AD 80), Trajan had
restored the Circus to its greatest splendor, rivaling the beauty of
temples says Pliny the Younger. Three stories high, with arches and
engaged columns in the first story, the seating areas were divided
into zones by walkways. The seats in the first tier were of marble
and, aside from those in the front row, along a portion of the podium
wall reserved for senators, and other seats for the equites who sat
behind them, were not segregated as they were in the Colosseum and the
theater. Men and women could sit together, an opportunity for
flirtation and dalliance of which Ovid was not unaware.
Although the Circus Maximus was designed for chariot racing (ludi
circenses), other events were held there, including gladiatorial
combats (ludi gladiatorii) and wild animal hunts (venationes),
athletic events, and processions. Caesar showed wild beasts in the
Circus and had a water-filled channel ten feet wide and ten feet deep
dug around the arena to serve as a protective moat. When, in AD 63, it
was filled in by Nero to provide space for additional seating, it no
longer was safe to have animal fights in the Circus and, eventually,
they were transferred to the Colosseum.
By the time of Augustus, seventy-seven days were given over to public
games during the year, and races were run on seventeen of them. There
usually were ten or twelve races a day, until Caligula doubled that
number and, from the time of Nero, twenty-four races became typical.
Still, Domitian once had one hundred races a day but reduced the
number of laps to five to fit them all in, and Commodus ran thirty
races run in just two hours one afternoon in AD 192. These numbers are
exceptional, of course, and not likely to have been repeated, if only
because the horses had to be transported from the Campus Martius,
where they were stabled, over a mile away.
The chariots started from twelve gates (carceres), six on either side
of an entrance that led from the Forum Boarium. Above sat the
presiding magistrate at whose signal the races began. Far at the other
end, along the sweeping curve of the track, was another gate by which
processions entered the Circus. In AD 80, it was rebuilt as a
triumphal arch to commemorate the conquest of Judea by Titus. On the
spina, itself, were various monuments and shrines, including one to
Consus and another to Murcia, who may have been the divinity of the
brook over which the Circus was built. At either end were the metae or
turning posts, both comprised of three gilded bronze cones grouped on
a high semicircular base. There were thirteen turns, run
counter-clockwise, around the metae for a total of seven laps
(spatia), a distance of approximately three or four miles
(approximately twice that of a modern track), depending upon how close
to the inside the driver could stay.
To ensure a fair start, the starting gates were built along a slight
curve so that the distance to the break line, before which the
chariots were not allowed to leave their lanes, was the same for each.
Drivers were required to stay within a marked lane until that point
was reached, after which they could jockey for position. Lots were
drawn to determine which gate was selected. The presiding magistrate
(either a consul or praetor) dropped a white starting flag (mappa),
the gates to the stalls flew open, and the race began.
The quadrigae was pulled by four horses, two outside horses, which
were not yoked but harnessed only by a trace, and a yoked pair in the
center, the right horse of which was considered to be the more
important. The inside trace horse also had to be the strong to set the
pace and take the turns around the metae. The number of sharp turns
and the hard surface of the track meant that the animals often
suffered concussions and strains or even broken bones. There were
other dangers, as well, which Pelagonius, a fourth-century
practitioner, enumerates in his Ars Veterinaria. They included blows
to the eyes from an opponent's whip or a cut tongue from a bit pulled
too hard. The horse's tail also could tangle in the reins, and usually
was bound.
Race horses were carefully bred and their conformation and pedigree a
matter of importance. They did not begin racing until they were five
years old (although Columella says that three-year olds could begin
training) and often had long careers afterwards. The best horses came
from stud farms in North Africa and Iberia (Spain), and were
transported to Rome on special ships (hippago) designed for the
purpose. Most often, those that competed in the Circus were stallions,
which also were in demand for breeding. A popular horse often was
recognized by sight, a fact about which Martial complains in not being
so readily known, himself.
If the horses were well bred, the charioteers (aurigae) who drove them
were not. Most were slaves or freedmen and, like the gladiator, were
infamis and of low social status. Competitors often would turn in
front of one another, hoping to force a collision and cause their
opponent to wreck (naufragium). To gain leverage, the charioteer
wrapped the reins around his waist, and, in the event of a crash,
could extricate himself only by cutting them away with a knife. Since
fouls often were deliberate, the risk of being dragged was very real.
There were times, too, when, as Martial hints, it might be prudent to
hold back and not disappoint the expectations of the emperor. Too
egregious a situation, however, and there would be an outcry from the
spectators, who, as Ovid indicates, would wave their togas and insist
that the race be stopped and run again. Cassius Dio records that the
number of races that had to be started again eventually became so
excessive that Claudius severely limited their number.
Still, the best charioteers were lionized by the public, consulted and
cursed as magicians (how else to explain their repeated victories),
and fabulously wealthy, at least those who were freedmen, who always
could threaten to drive for another faction. Prize money ranged from
fifteen to thirty thousand sesterces to as much as sixty thousand for
a single victory. Juvenal complains that a chariot driver could earn a
hundred times the fee of a lawyer, and Martial writes of Scorpus
winning fifteen bags of gold in an hour. Diocles, a charioteer from
Lusitania (Spain) who competed during the reign of Hadrian and
Antoninus Pius, won prize money totaling 35,863,120 sesterces before
retiring at age forty-two. An inscription dedicated in his name
records 1,462 wins in 4,257 races over twenty-four years, beginning
with his first race in AD 122 at age eighteen (although he raced for
two years before his first victory). One thousand sixty-four of these
were in singles, in which he raced for himself rather than as a team.
He rode nine horses to one hundred victories apiece and one to two
hundred. Although there were others who won more victories, Diocles at
least lived to enjoy his success. Scorpus, who had 2,048 victories,
died in the arena at age twenty-six, his death eulogized by Martial
and his gilded busts over all the city.
The Circus was the most popular of the diversions provided by the
emperor, the diverting panem et circuses which Juvenal satirizes, and
its fans fanatical in their devotion to the races. Originally,
professional stables were contracted to provide the necessary horses,
personnel, and equipment; in time, these factions
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