Product Code Database
Chariot racing (, harmatodromía; ) was one of the most popular Ancient Greece, Roman Empire, and Byzantine Empire sports. In Greece, chariot racing played an essential role in aristocratic funeral games from a very early time. With the institution of formal races and permanent racetracks, chariot racing was adopted by many Greek states and their religious festivals. Horses and chariots were very costly. Their ownership was a preserve of the wealthiest aristocrats, whose reputations and status benefitted from offering such extravagant, exciting displays. Their successes could be further broadcast and celebrated through commissioned odes and other poetry.
In standard Greek racing practise, each chariot held a single driver and was pulled by four horses, or sometimes two. Drivers and horses risked serious injury or death through collisions and crashes; this added to the excitement and interest for spectators. Most charioteers were slaves or contracted professionals. While records almost invariably credit victorious owners and their horses for winning, their drivers are often not mentioned at all. In the ancient Olympic Games, and other Panhellenic Games, chariot racing was one of the most important equestrian events, and could be watched by unmarried women. Married women were banned from watching any Olympic events but a noblewoman is known to have trained horse-teams for the Olympics and won two races, one of them as driver.
In ancient Rome, chariot racing was the most popular of many subsidised public entertainments, and was an essential component in several religious festivals. Roman chariot drivers had very low social status, but were paid a fee simply for taking part. Winners were celebrated and well paid for their victories, regardless of status, and the best could earn more than the wealthiest lawyers and senators. Racing team managers may have competed for the services of particularly skilled drivers and their horses. The drivers could race as individuals, or under team colours: Blue, Green, Red or White. Spectators generally chose to support a single team, and identify themselves with its fortunes. Private betting on the races raised large sums for the teams, drivers and wealthy backers. Generous imperial subsidies of "bread and circuses" kept the Roman masses fed, entertained and distracted. Organised violence between rival racing factions was not uncommon, but it was generally contained. Roman emperor and later Byzantine emperors, mistrustful of private organisations as potentially subversive, took control of the teams, especially the Blues and Greens, and appointed officials to manage them.
Chariot racing faded in importance in the Western Roman Empire after the fall of Rome; the last known race there was staged in the Circus Maximus in 549, by the king, Totila. In the Byzantine Empire, the traditional Roman chariot-racing factions continued to play a prominent role in mass entertainment, religion and politics for several centuries. Supporters of the Blue teams vied with supporters of the Greens for control of foreign, domestic and religious policies, and imperial subsidies for themselves. Their displays of civil discontent and disobedience culminated in an indiscriminate slaughter of Byzantine citizenry by the military in the Nika riots. Thereafter, rising costs and a failing economy saw the gradual decline of Byzantine chariot racing.
Pausanias describes the Olympic hippodrome of the second century AD, when Greece was part of the Roman Empire. The perimeter groundplan, southeast of the sanctuary itself, was approximately 780 meters long and 320 meters wide. Competitors raced from the starting-place counter-clockwise around the nearest (western) turning post, then turned at the eastern turning post and headed back west. The number of circuits varied according to the event. Spectators could watch from natural embankments to the north, and artificial embankments to the south and east. A place on the western side of the north bank was reserved for the judges. Pausanias does not describe a central dividing barrier at Olympia, but archaeologist Vikatou presumes one.
Pausanias offers several theories regarding the origins of an object named Taraxippus ("Horse-disturber"), an ancient round altar, tomb or Heroon embedded within one of the entrance-ways to the track. It was thought to be malevolent, as it terrified horses for no apparent reason when they raced past it, and was a major cause of crashes. Pausanias reports that consequently "the charioteers offer sacrifice, and pray that Taraxippus may show himself propitious". It might simply have marked the most dangerous and difficult section of track, at the semi-circular end. Pausanias describes very similar, identically named places in other Greek hippodromes. Their name may have been an epithet of Poseidon, patron deity of horses and horse-racing.
Races began with a procession into the hippodrome, while a herald announced the names of the drivers and owners. The tethrippon consisted of twelve laps. The most immediate and challenging aspect of the races for drivers, judges and stewards was ensuring a fair start, and keeping false starts and crushes to a minimum. Then as now, the marshalling of over-excited racehorses could prove a major difficulty. Various mechanical devices were used to reduce the likelihood of human error. Portable starting gates ( hyspleges, singular: hysplex), employed a tight cord in a wooden frame, loosened to drop forwards and start the race. According to Pausanias, the chariot furthest from the start-line began to move, followed by the rest in sequence, so that when the final gate was opened, all the chariots would be in motion at the starting line. A bronze eagle (a sign of Zeus, who was patron of the Olympic games) was raised to start the race, and at each lap, a bronze dolphin (a sign of Poseidon) was lowered. The central pair of horses did most of the heavy pulling, via the yoke. The flanking pair pulled and guided, using their traces. Horse teams were highly trained, and tractable. Greek aficionadoes thought mares the best horses for chariot racing.
Entries were exclusively Greek, or claimed to be so. Philip II of Macedon, pre-eminent through his conquest of most Greek states and self-promotion as a divinity, entered his horse and chariot teams in several major pan-Hellenic events, and won several. He celebrated the fact on his coinage, claiming it as divine confirmation of his legitimacy as Greek overlord.
Women could win races through ownership, though there was a ban on the participation of married women as competitors or even spectators at the Olympics, supposedly on pain of death; this was not typical of Greek festivals in general, and there is no consistent record of this ban, or the penalty's enforcement. The Cynisca, daughter of Archidamus II, twice entered and won the Olympic chariot race as owner and trainer.
Most charioteers were slaves or hired professionals. Drivers and their horses needed strength, skill, courage, endurance and prolonged, intensive training. Like jockeys, charioteers were ideally slight of build, and therefore often young, but unlike jockeys, they were also tall. The names of very few charioteers are known from the Greek racing circuits, Victory songs, epigrams and other monuments routinely omit the names of winning drivers.
The chariots themselves resembled war chariots, essentially wooden two-wheeled carts with an open back, though by this time chariots were no longer used in battle. Charioteers stood throughout the race. They traditionally wore only a sleeved garment called a xystis, which would have offered at least some protection from crashes and dust. It fell to the ankles and was fastened high at the waist with a plain belt. Two straps that crossed high at the upper back prevented the xystis from "ballooning" during the race The body of the chariot rested on the axle, so the ride was bumpy. The most exciting parts of the chariot race, at least for the spectators, were the turns at the ends of the hippodrome. These turns were dangerous and sometimes deadly. In a full-sized racing stadium, the chariots could reach high speeds along the straights, then overturn or be crushed along with their horses and driver by the following chariots as they wheeled around the post. Driving into an opponent to make him crash was technically illegal, but most crashes were accidental and often unavoidable. In Homer's account of Patroclus' funeral games, Antilochus inflicts such a crash on Menelaus.
Consuls were obliged to subsidise races at the beginning and end of their annual terms, as a sort of tax on their office and a gift to the people of Rome. Races on January 1 accompanied the renewal of loyalty vows; emperors gave annual games on the anniversary of their succession, and on their own and other imperial birthdays.
Chariot races were preceded by a parade (pompa circensis) that featured the charioteers, music, costumed dancers, and gilded images of the gods, headed by Victoria, goddess of victory. These images were placed on dining couches, which were arranged on a viewing platform (pulvinar) to observe the races, which were nominally held in their honour.Ovid, Amores iii, 2.45, cited in . The sponsor or editor of the races shared the pulvinar with these divine images. In the imperial era, the pulvinar in the Circus Maximus was directly connected to the imperial palace, on the Palatine Hill.
Several deities had permanent temples, shrines or images on the dividing barrier (spina or euripus) of the circus. While the entertainment value of chariot races tended to overshadow any sacred purpose, in late antiquity the Church Fathers still saw them as a traditional "pagan" practice and advised Christians not to participate. Soon after the end of the Roman Empire in the West, the influential Christian scholar, administrator and historian Cassiodorus describes chariot racing as an instrument of the Devil.
The spina carried lap-counters, in the form of eggs or dolphins; the eggs were suggestive of Castor and Pollux, the mythic dioscuri, one human and one divine. They were born from an egg, divine patrons of horsemen and the Equites. Dolphins were thought to be the swiftest of all creatures; they symbolised Neptune, god of the sea, earthquakes and horses.
The spina bore water-feature elements, blended with decorative and architectural features. It eventually became very elaborate, with temples, statues and obelisks and other forms of art, though the addition of these multiple adornments obstructed the view of spectators on the trackside's lower seats, which were close to the action. At each end of the spina was a meta, or turning point, consisting of three large gilded columns.
]] Seats in the Circus were free for the poor, and either free or subsidised for the mass of citizens (plebs), whose lack of involvement in late Republican and Imperial politics was compensated, as far as Juvenal was concerned, by an endless supply of handouts and entertainments, or panem et circenses ("bread and circuses"). The seating nearest the track was reserved for senators, the rows behind them for equites and the remainder for everyone else. The better-off could pay for shaded seats with a better view. The Vestal virgins occupied their own privileged seating, close to the track. Men and women were supposed to occupy segregated seating but the "law of the place" allowed most to sit together, which for the Augustan poet Ovid presented opportunities for seduction. The circus was one of few places where the populace could assemble in vast numbers, and exercise the freedom of speech associated with theatre factions and , voicing support or criticism of their rulers and each other.
The best charioteers could earn a great deal of prize money, in addition to their contracted subsistence pay. The prize money for up to fourth place was advertised beforehand, with first place winning up to 60,000 sesterces. Detailed records were kept of drivers' performances, and the names, breeds and pedigrees of famous horses. Betting on results was widespread, among all classes. Most races involved four-horse chariots ( ), or less often, two-horse chariots ( bigae). Just to display the skill of the driver and his horses, up to ten horses could be yoked to a single chariot. The quadriga races were the most important and frequent.
Tertullian claims that there were originally just two factions, White and Red, sacred to winter and summer respectively.Tertullian. De Spectaculis, 9. By his time, there were four factions; the Reds were dedicated to Mars, the Whites to the Zephyrus, the Greens to Mother Nature or spring, and the Blues to the sky and sea or autumn. Each faction could enter up to three chariots in a race. Members of the same faction often collaborated against the other entrants, for example to force them to crash into the spina (a legal and encouraged tactic). The driver's clothing was color-coded in accordance with his faction, which would help distant spectators to keep track of the race's progress.
The emperor Domitian created two new factions, the Purples and Golds, but they vanished from the record very soon after his death. The Blues and the Greens gradually became the most prestigious factions, supported by emperors and the populace alike. Blue versus Green clashes sometimes broke out during the races. The Reds and Whites are seldom mentioned in the literature, but their continued activity is documented in inscriptions and in curse tablets.
Most Roman charioteers started their careers as slaves, who had neither reputation nor honour to lose. Of more than 200 dedications to named charioteers catalogued by , more than half are of unknown social status. Of the remainder, 66 are slaves, 14 are freedmen, 13 either slaves or freedmen and only one a freeborn citizen., citing Horsmann, G. 1998. "Die Wagenlenker der römischen Kaiserzeit: Untersuchungen zu ihrer sozialen Stellung". Stuttgart, 1998, pp. 226–228.
All race competitors, regardless of their social status or whether they completed the race, were paid a driver's fee. Slave-charioteers could not lawfully own property, including money, but their masters could pay them regardless, or retain all or some accumulated driving fees and winnings on their behalf, as the price of their eventual manumission. While most freed slave-charioteers would have become clients of their former master, some would have earned more than enough to buy their freedom outright, assuming they survived that long. Scorpus won over 2,000 races before being killed in a collision at the meta when he was about 27 years old. The charioteer Florus' tomb inscription describes him as infans (not adult). Gaius Appuleius Diocles won 1,462 out of 4,257 races for various teams during his exceptionally long and lucky career. When he retired at the age of 42, his lifetime winnings reportedly totalled 35,863,120 sesterces (HS), not counting driver's fees. His personal share of this is unknown but Vamplew calculates that even if Diocles' personal winnings were only a tenth part of the declared prize money, this would have yielded him an average annual income of 150,000 HS.Vamplew, Wray. "Bread and Circuses, Olive Oil and Money: Commercialised Sport in Ancient Greece and Rome." The International Journal of the History of Sport (2022): p. 6
Most races and wins were team efforts, results of co-operation between charioteers of the same faction, but victories won in single races were the most highly esteemed by drivers and their public. Charioteers followed a ferociously competitive, charismatic profession, routinely risked violent death, and aroused a compulsive, even morbid reverence among their followers. A supporter of the Red faction is said to have thrown himself on the funeral pyre of his favourite charioteer. More usually, some charioteers and supporters tried to enlist supernatural help by covertly burying curse tablets at or near the track, appealing to spirits and deities of the underworld for the success of their favourites or disaster for their opponents; a common practise among Romans of all classes though like all magic, strictly illegal, and punishable by death.
Some of the most talented and successful charioteers were suspected of winning through the illicit agency of dark forces. Ammianus Marcellinus, writing during Valentinian I's reign (AD 364–375), describes various cases of chariot drivers prosecuted for witchcraft or the procurement of spells. One charioteer was beheaded for having his young son trained in witchcraft to help him win his races; and another burnt at the stake for practising witchcraft.Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman History, Trans. Yonge, G. Bell and Sons, 1911
Justinian I's reformed legal code specifically prohibits drivers from placing curses on their opponents, and invites their co-operation in bringing offenders before the authorities, rather than acting like assassins or vigilantes. This not only reiterates a very longstanding prohibition of witchcraft throughout the Empire but confirms a reputation that charioteers had for living at the very edge of the law, for violent thefts, blackmail and bullying as debt collectors on their masters' behalf, and an easy-going criminality that could extend to the murder of opponents and enemies, disguised as rough but rightful justice.
A sixth-seventh century Byzantine graffito in the Hagia Sophia shows a charioteer named Samonas, performing a victory lap. The graffito, no earlier than 537, includes an engraved cross to seek God's help for the charioteer. Samonas is otherwise unknown. Thomov, Thomas, Bulgaria Mediaevalis, 10/2019.
Several earlier Byzantine charioteers are known by name or race records, six of them through short, laudatory verse epigrams; namely, Anastasius; Julianus of Tyre; Faustinus and his son Constantinus; Uranius; and Porphyrius. Among these, the single epigram to Anastasius offers very little personal information, but Porphyrius is the subject of thirty-four. He is described as the best charioteer of his time; and as the only charioteer known to have won the diversium twice in one day.
The diversium was unique to Byzantine chariot racing, a formal rematch between the winner and a loser, in which the competing charioteers drove each other's team and chariot. A winning charioteer could thus win twice over, driving the same horse team that he had defeated earlier, virtually eliminating mere chance or better horses as the deciding factors in both victories. In Byzantine chariot racing, the expected standards of professional athleticism were very high. Competitors were sometimes assigned to age categories, though very loosely; youths under approximately 17 (described as "beardless"), young men (17–20), and adult men over 20; but skill counted more than age, or stamina. In some circumstances, the charioteers themselves performed formal, ritualised mimes, or dances, which won them fame and adulation Preparation for races could involve ritualised public dialogues between charioteers, imperial officials and emperors, a prescribed liturgy of questions, answers, and processional orders of precedence. Each race required the emperor's consent.An English-language translation of the Byzantine "Book of Ceremonies" is in The Greek Anthology (English Translation). W. R. Paton, 1918, Epigram 340, p. 362
Members of racing factions (known as ), were a minority among chariot racing enthusiasts as a whole. In Byzantium as elsewhere, racing fans cheered on their favorite charioteers, and sought out the company of like-minded supporters. Charioteers could change their factional allegiance but their fans did not necessarily follow them. Semi-permanent alliances of Blues (Βένετοι, Vénetoi) and Greens (Πράσινοι, Prásinoi) overshadowed the Whites (Λευκοὶ, Leukoí) and Reds (Ῥούσιοι, Rhoúsioi). In the 5th century, the outstanding Byzantine charioteer Porphyrius raced as a "Blue" or a "Green" at various times; he was celebrated by each faction, and by the reigning Emperor, and was honoured with several imperially subsidised monuments on a grand scale in the Hippodrome. While the racing factions, their supporters and the populace at large were overwhelmingly composed of commoners, as in Rome, Cameron (1976) sees no justification for the description of any Byzantine racing faction, racing sponsor or factional ideology as "populist", nor the conflicts between factions and authorities as expressions of "class conflict" or religious squabbling on a grand scale. The urban mass disturbances that characterise much of Byzantium's early history were not associated with racing factions until the 5th century, when the imperial government appointed managers of both the Circus races and the Theatres, responsible for the production and performance of the chants, theatrical displays and lavish religious ceremonies that accompanied imperial court rituals and chariot races. The acclamations of emperors and of winning charioteers employed much the same triumphalist language, symbolism, honours and pledges of allegiance. From around the mid-fifth century, the support and approval of the factions in confirming the legitimacy of emperors became a formal requirement. The factions were represented as loyal commoners, or "the people".
Social discontent and disturbances in Constantinople tended to focus on the Hippodrome, which was not only ideal for racing but by far the largest and most conveniently designed space for mass meetings and their containment. The structure of the Hippodrome in Constantinople allowed the people to voice their religious and political opinion in the presence of the emperor, thus empowering the charioteers who were presented as political mediators between the people and the emperor. In 498, the crowd showed its dissatisfaction with the emperor Anastasius by launching a hail of stones at the kathisma; during a near-revolutionary riot of 512 at the Hippodrome, the same emperor feared for his life, and offered to abdicate; the crowd, apparently seeing this offer as both humble and magnanimous, found something like a "popular voice" and shifted their collective posture from opposition to support. Byzantium's theatre claques, which already had a reputation for well-organised violence, were now identified with the racing factions, and were thought to represent the rowdiest, most uncontrollable elements among the Blues and Greens. Blue–Green rivalry increasingly erupted into armed and lethal gang warfare. Justin I (r. 518–527) took severe, but apparently indiscriminate, misdirected and ultimately ineffective measures against urban violence after a citizen was murdered in the church of Hagia Sophia. Long-running factional disorder culminated in the Nika riots of 532 AD, against the backdrop of scheduled chariot races on the Ides of January, and factional "discontent" at political corruption and mismanagement. The Blues and Greens united and attempted but failed to overthrow the emperor; thousands were killed by the Byzantine military in retribution, including many ordinary citizens. The Byzantine historian Procopius saw the entire affair as a failure of the Emperor and his authorities to manage their imperial troops and govern their people, and the almost complete lack of a dedicated police force.
Civil law reforms enacted by Justinian I in 541 ensured that only emperors or their representatives could subsidise the races; soon after, the emperor Tiberius II Constantine curbed imperial spending on the factions, which further reduced their power and influence. Chariot racing declined further in the course of the seventh century, in line with the Empire's dwindling economy and loss of territory. After the Nika riots, the factions had become less antagonistic to imperial authority as their importance and roles in imperial ceremony were increased. The iconoclast emperor Constantine V (r. 741–775) deployed both Green and Blue "rowdies" in his anti-monastic campaigns, staging theatrical shows in which monks and nuns were exposed to public ridicule, abuse and forced marriages. The number of races per race-day declined sharply to eight in the 10th century. The racing factions in Byzantium continued their activity, though much reduced, until the imperial court was moved to Blachernae during the 12th century.
Horses
The horses, too, could become celebrities; they were purpose-bred and were trained relatively late, from 5 years old. The Romans favoured particular native breeds from Hispania and north Africa. One of Diocles' horses, named Cotynus, raced with him in various teams 445 times, alongside Abigeius, a treasured "trace" horse. A chariot's "trace" horses partly pulled the chariot and partly guided it, as flankers to the central pair, who were yoked to the chariot and provided both speed and power. A left-side trace horse's steady performance could mean the difference between victory and disaster; mares were thought the steadiest. Left-side trace horses were the closest to the spina, and are most likely to be named in the race record. Another key performer in a standard quadriga race was the right-hand yoke-horse. Celebrity horses named in Diocles' extraordinary record of 445 races and more than 100 wins in a year include Pompeianus, Lucidus and Galata.
Byzantine context
Constantine I (r. 306–337) refounded the eastern Greek city of Byzantium as a "New Rome", to serve as the administrative center of the eastern half of the Empire, and renamed it Constantinople. He replaced or restored the city's chariot-racing circuit ( hippodrome), which had been provided by Septimius Severus. As a Christian emperor, or at least one with Christian leanings, Constantine supported and financed Constantinople's chariot racing infrastructure and overheads in preference to combat, which he considered a vestige of paganism. A possibility of spiritual damage through the witnessing of traditional public spectacles had concerned Christian apologists since at least Tertullian's time. The Olympic Games were eventually ended by Emperor Theodosius I (r. 379–395) in 393, perhaps in a move to suppress paganism and promote Christianity. Gladiator contests were eventually abandoned, but chariot racing and theatrical entertainments remained popular. The Church did not, or perhaps could not, prevent them, although prominent Christian writers attacked them.
Byzantine racing factions
In the eastern provinces, and Constantinople itself, the earliest evidence for colour factions is from AD 315, coincident with the extension of imperial authority into local government and public life. The cost of financing the races was split between the factions, the state, the Emperors, and senior officials. The annually appointed consuls were obliged to personally fund their own inaugural games.See ; See also Codex Theodosianus 15.10.1
See also
Footnotes
Sources
Primary sources
Secondary sources
John Mck. Camp (1998). 9780876616390, The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. . ISBN 9780876616390
John Hugo Wolfgang Gideon Liebeschuetz (2025). 9780199261093, Oxford University Press. . ISBN 9780199261093
External links
|
|
