Chariot racing
Chariot racing (
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 Spartan 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 "
Chariot racing faded in importance in the
Early Greece
Images on
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games were traditionally founded in 776 BC, by the Eleans, a wealthy, prestigious horse-owning aristocracy. Pindar, the earliest source for the Olympics, includes chariot racing among their five foundation events.[5] Much later, Pausanias claims that chariot races were added only from 680 BC, and that the games were extended from one day to two days to accommodate them. In this tradition, the foot race of a stadion (approximately 600 feet) offered the greater prestige.[6][7] Votive offerings associated with Olympic victories include horses and chariots.[8][9] The single horse race (the keles) was a late arrival at the games, dropped early in their history. The major chariot-races of the Olympic and other Panhellenic Games, were four-horse (tethrippon, τέθριππον) and two-horse (synoris, συνωρὶς) events.[b][10][11]
Pausanias describes the Olympic hippodrome of the second century AD, when Greece was part of the Roman Empire.[c] The perimeter groundplan, southeast of the sanctuary itself, was approximately 780 meters long and 320 meters wide. [d] 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. [12]
Pausanias offers several theories regarding the origins of an object named
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.[16] 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.[17] 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.[18][g] 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.[20]
Owners and charioteers
In most cases, the owner and the driver of the Greek racing chariot were different persons. In 416 BC, the
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.[24]
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. [6] The Spartan Cynisca, daughter of Archidamus II, entered and won the Olympic chariot race, twice as owner and trainer, and at least once as driver. [25]
Most charioteers were slaves or hired professionals.[7] 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,[h] Victory songs, epigrams and other monuments routinely omit the names of winning drivers.[28]
The chariots themselves resembled war chariots, essentially wooden two-wheeled carts with an open back,
Pan-Hellenic festivals
Race winners were celebrated throughout the Greek festival circuit, both on their own account and on behalf of their cities. In the classical era, other great festivals emerged in
Roman chariot racing
The Romans probably borrowed chariot technology and racing track design from the
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.[44]
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.[45] 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.[46]
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.[47] 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.[48]
Roman circuses
Most cities had at least one dedicated chariot racing circuit. The city of Rome had several; its main centre was the Circus Maximus which developed on the natural slopes and valley (the Vallis Murcia ) between the Palatine Hill and Aventine Hill.[49] It had a vast seating capacity; Boatwright estimates this as 150,000 before its rebuilding under Julius Caesar, and 250,000 under Trajan.[41][k] According to Humphrey, the higher seating estimate is traditional but excessive, and even at its greatest capacity, the circus probably accommodated no more than about 150,000.[51] It was Rome's earliest and greatest circus. Its basic form and footprint were thought more or less coeval with the city's foundation, or with Rome's earliest Etruscan kings.[49][41] Julius Caesar rebuilt it around 50 BC to a length of about 650 metres (2,130 ft) and width of 125 metres (410 ft).[52] It had a semi-circular end, and a semi-open, slightly angled end where the chariots lined up across the track to begin the race, each enclosed within a cell known as a carcere ("prison") behind a spring-loaded gate. These were functionally equivalent to the Greek hysplex but were further staggered to accommodate a median barrier, known originally as a euripus (canal) but much later as the spina (spine).[53][54] When the chariots were ready the editor, usually a high-status magistrate, dropped a white cloth;[55] all the gates sprang open at the same time, allowing a fair start for all participants. Races were run counter-clockwise; starting positions were allocated by lottery.[56]
The spina carried lap-counters, in the form of eggs or dolphins; the eggs were suggestive of
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.
Spectators
Seats in the Circus were free for the poor, and either free or subsidised for the mass of citizens (
The races
The charioteers had to keep to their own lanes for the first two laps. Then they were free to jockey for position, cutting across the paths of their competitors, moving as close to the spina as they could, and whenever possible forcing their opponents to find another, much longer route forwards. Every team included a hortator, who rode horseback and signalled their faction's charioteers to help them navigate the dangers of the track.[61] Roman drivers wrapped the reins round their waist, and steered using their body weight; with the reins looped around their torsos, they could lean from one side to the other to direct the horses' movement while keeping the hands free "for the whip and such".[62][63] A driver who became entangled in a crash risked being trampled or dragged along the track by his own horses; charioteers carried a curved knife (falx) to cut their reins, and wore helmets and other protective gear.[62][58] Spectacular crashes in which the chariot was destroyed and the charioteer and horses were incapacitated were called naufragia, (a "shipwreck").[64]
The best charioteers could earn a great deal of prize money, in addition to their contracted subsistence pay.[65] 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.[66][67][68] Most races involved four-horse chariots (quadrigae), 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.[54]
Frequency and laps
Magnates and emperors courted popularity by staging and subsidising as many races as they could, as often as possible. In Rome, races usually lasted 7 laps, or even 5, rather than the typical 12 laps of the Greek race.
Factions
Most Roman chariot drivers, and many of their supporters, belonged to one or another of four factions, social and business organisations that raised money to sponsor the races. The factions offered security to members in return for their loyalty and contribution and were headed by a patron or patrons. Each faction employed a large staff to serve and support their charioteers. Every circus seems to have independently followed the same model of organisation, including the four-colour naming system: Red, White, Blue, and Green. Senior managers (domini factionum) were usually of equestrian class. Investors were often as wealthy, but of lower social status; driving a racing chariot was thought a very low class occupation, beneath the dignity of any citizen, but making money from it was truly disgraceful, so investors of high social status usually resorted to negotiations discreetly, through agents, rather than risk loss of reputation, status and privilege through infamia. No contemporary source describes these factions as official, but unlike many unofficial organisations in Rome, they were evidently tolerated as useful and effective rather than feared as secretive and potentially subversive.[54][l]
Tertullian claims that there were originally just two factions, White and Red, sacred to winter and summer respectively.[74] By his time, there were four factions; the Reds were dedicated to Mars, the Whites to the Zephyrus, the Greens to Mother Earth or spring, and the Blues to the sky and sea or autumn.[74][75] 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).[54] 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.[76]
The emperor
Roman charioteers
Charioteers occupied a peculiar position in Roman society. If originally citizens, their chosen career made infames of them, denying them many of the privileges, protections and dignities of full citizenship. Undertakers, prostitutes and pimps, butchers, executioners, and heralds were considered infamous, for various reasons; but although gladiators, actors, charioteers and any others who earned a living on stage, arena or racetrack were infames, the best of them could earn popular and elite support that verged on adoration, and near-fabulous wealth if not respectability. Juvenal bewailed that the earnings of the charioteer Lacerta were a hundred times more than a lawyer's fee. Emperors who took the reins as charioteer, or promoted drivers to elite status or freely mixed with arenarii—as did Caligula, Nero and Elagabalus, for example—were also notoriously "bad" rulers. Two jurists of the later Imperial era, and some modern scholars, argue against the legal status of charioteers as infames, on the grounds that athletic competitions were not mere entertainment but "seemed useful" as honourable displays of Roman strength and virtus.[78]
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 Horsmann , 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.[79]
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[1] 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).[80] 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 [81] 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.[82][28]
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.
Some of the most talented and successful charioteers were suspected of winning through the illicit agency of dark forces. Ammianus Marcellinus, writing during Valentinian'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.[85]
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. [86] 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. [87]
Byzantine context
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.[80]
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.[93] Several earlier Byzantine charioteers are known by name or race records, six of them through short, laudatory verse
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 athleticsm 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 [96] 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.[97][98][99][100]
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.[n][101][102]
Members of racing factions (known as demes), 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.[103] 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 and was celebrated by each faction, by the reigning Emperor, and as the subject of several imperially subsidised monuments on a grand scale in the Hippodrome.[104] 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 squabling 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".[105]
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. In 498, the crowd showed its dissatisfaction with the emperor
Civil law reforms enacted by
See also
Media related to Chariot racing at Wikimedia Commons
Footnotes
- Geometric vases.[1]
- ^ The races differed only in the number of horses used. Synoris succeeded tethrippon in 384 BC. Tethrippon was reintroduced in 268 BC.[7]
- ^ The remains of the hippodrome lie under several metres depth of unexcavated alluvium but its presence and orientation are confirmed by radar.
- stadia long and one stade four plethrawide
- ^ Little is known of the construction of Greek hippodromes before the Roman period.
- ^ In 2008, Annie Muller and staff of the German Archeological Institute used radar to locate a structure whose location, orientation and size fit Pausanias's description.[citation needed]
- ^ Some of the problems in Pausanias' account, and the likely problems involved in fair starts, are discussed in Harris (1968).[19]
- ^ One of them is Carrhotus who is praised by Pindar for keeping his chariot unscathed.[26] Carrhotus' chariot was owned by his friend and brother-in-law Arcesilaus of Cyrene; his win could be claimed as evidence that the traditional aristocratic organisation of Greek society was also a success.[27]
- ^ The returning athletes also gained various benefits in their native towns and cities, such as tax exemptions, free clothing and meals, and prize money.[1]
- ^ In Rome, chariot racing constituted one of the two types of public games, the ludi circenses. The other type, ludi scaenici, consisted chiefly of theatrical performances, whether tragedies with a moral lesson, or homegrown popular comedies.[38][39]
- Via Appia. There were major circuses at Alexandria and Antioch, and Herod the Great built four circuses in Judaea. Archaeologists working on a housing development near the earliest Romano-British capital, Camulodunum, unearthed the first Roman chariot-racing arena to be found in Britain.[50]
- ^ Legitimate, semi-official organisations included funeral and burial societies, which were usually self-regulated under the supervision of a local magnate or magistrate; they also had important social functions and were eligible for government grants but were expected to use all their income on provision of funeral services, not to make a profit for investors or stakeholders.
- ^ This may be an exaggeration, as epigram 374 claims that a charioteer named Constantine won 25 races in the morning, 21 of them by diversium.
- ^ Emperors could also hold consular office, sometimes several times during their rule, with the same obligation to fund their own inaugural games.
References
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- ^ Homer. The Iliad, 23.257–23.652.
- ^ Pindar. "1.75". Olympian Odes.
- ^ Pindar, Isthmian Odes 1, edited and translated by Race, W. H., Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.
- ^ a b Polidoro & Simri 1996, pp. 41–46.
- ^ a b c Valettas & Ioannis 1945–1955, p. 613.
- ^ Montgomery, HC. The controversy about the origin of the Olympic Games: did they originate in 776 B.C.? The Classical Weekly, 1936 19.22, 169–174
- ^ Mouratidis J., The 776 B.C. Date and Some Problems Connected with it, Canadian J Hist Sport. 1985; 16 (2) pp. 1–14
- ^ Golden 2004, pp. 85–86, 94.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 1998a, pp. 350, 420.
- ^ Vikatou 2007.
- ^ Pausanias. "6.20.10–6.20.19". Description of Greece.
- ^ Humphrey 1986, p. 9.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 1998a, pp. 218–219}).
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 1998a, p. 420.
- ^ Golden 2004, p. 86.
- ^ Pausanias. "6.20.13". Description of Greece.
- JSTOR 642422.
- ^ Golden 2004, pp. 34–35.
- ^ Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War, 6.16.2.
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- ^ Kyle 2007, p. 172.
- ^ Golden 2004, pp. 157–167.
- ^ Golden 2004, pp. 46, 57, 198.
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- ^ a b Golden 2004, p. 34.
- ^ Valettas & Ioannis 1945–1955, p. 614.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 1998a, p. 416.
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- ^ Scullard 1981, pp. 177–178.
- ^ Bell 2014, pp. 493–495.
- ^ a b Bell 2014, p. 499.
- ^ Ovid, Amores iii, 2.45, cited in Cameron (1973), p. 250.
- ^ Lançon 2000, p. 144.
- ^ Beard, North & Price 1998, p. 262.
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- ^ Prudames 2005.
- ^ For discussion see Humphrey 1986, p. 126
- ^ Kyle 2007, p. 305.
- ^ Kyle 2007, p. 306.
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- ^ a b c d Ramsay 1876, p. 348.
- ^ Harris 1972, p. 190.
- ^ Potter & Mattingly 1999, Hazel Dodge, "Amusing the Masses: Buildings for Entertainment and Leisure in the Roman World", p. 237.
- ^ Bell 2014, p. 494.
- ^ a b Futrell 2006, pp. 191–192.
- ^ Köhne, Ewigleben & Jackson 2000, p. 92.
- ^ Futrell 2006, p. 191.
- ^ Futrell 2006, pp. 198.
- ^ Harris 1972, pp. 224–225.
- ^ Laurence 1996, p. 71.
- ^ Potter 2006, p. 375.
- ^ Cameron 1973, p. 256.
- ^ Kyle 2007, p. 304.
- ^ Liebeschuetz 2003, pp. 219–220.
- ISBN 978-0-674-51173-6.; citing Procopius, The Gothic Wars, 3. 37. 4. For the last known beast-hunt at the Circus, see Humphrey 1986, p. 131. Humphrey describes the last known Circus event (549) as "games".
- ^ Balsdon 1974, p. 252.
- ^ De Spectaculis, 9.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 1998b, p. 347.
- ^ Futrell 2006, p. 192.
- ^ Futrell 2006, p. 209.
- ^ Bell 2014, pp. 492–504, citing Ulpian, Digest, 3. 2. 4.
- ^ Bell 2014, pp. 495–496, citing Horsmann, G. 1998. "Die Wagenlenker der römischen Kaiserzeit: Untersuchungen zu ihrer sozialen Stellung". Stuttgart, 1998, pp. 226-228.
- ^ JSTOR 4122472.
- ^ Golden 2004, p. 164.
- ^ 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
- ^ Harris 2014, p. 308.
- ^ Futrell 2006, pp. 191–192 203–205.
- ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman History, Trans. Yonge, G. Bell and Sons, 1911
- ^ Futrell 2006, pp. 205–206.
- ^ Golden 2004, pp. 35–36, 94, 121, 162, 192.
- ^ Treadgold 1997, p. 41.
- ^ Osiek 2006, p. 287.
- ^ McComb 2004, p. 21.
- ^ Cameron 1973, p. 228.
- ^ Cameron 1976, p. 172.
- ^ Thomov, Thomas, Bulgaria Mediaevalis, 10/2019.
- ^ Harris 1972, p. 240.
- ^ Harris 1972, pp. 240–241.
- ^ Cameron 1973, pp. 121–151, 155.
- ^ Schrodt, Barbara (Winter 1981). "Sports of the Byzantine Empire". Journal of Sport History. 8 (3): 56.
- ISBN 978-90-04-34492-1.
- ^ The Greek Anthology (English Translation). W. R. Paton, 1918, Epigram 340, p. 362
- ^ Harris 1972, p. 241.
- ^ See Humphrey 1986, p. 539; See also Codex Theodosianus 15.10.1
- ^ Humphrey 1986, pp. 430–439.
- ^ Cameron 1976, pp. 202–203, 75.
- ^ Futrell 2006, p. 200.
- ^ Liebeschuetz 2003, p. 211.
- ^ Bell, Peter N. (2013). Social Conflict in the Age of Justinian: Its Nature, Management, and Mediation. Oxford University Press. p. 145.
- doi:10.2307/1291048.
- ^ Cameron 1976, pp. 202–203, 260–263.
- ^ Evans 2005, p. 17.
- ^ Cameron 1973, pp. 56–57, 79, 234–239.
- ^ Cameron 1973, pp. 255–257.
- ^ Liebeschuetz 2003, p. 219.
- ^ Cameron 1976, p. 299.
- ^ Cameron 1976, pp. 302–304.
- ^ Cameron 1973, pp. 256–258.
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Sources
Primary sources
- Theophanes; Turtledove, Harry (1982). The Chronicle of Theophanes: An English Translation of anni mundi 6095–6305 (A.D. 602–813). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-1128-3.
- Homer. – via Wikisource.
- Pausanias. Description of Greece, Book 6: Elis II. English translation Perseus program.
- Pindar. Isthmian Odes – Isthmian 1. See original text in Perseus program.
- Pindar. Olympian Odes – Olympian 1. See original text in Perseus program.
- Pindar. Pythian Odes – Pythian 5. See original text in Perseus program.
- Prokopios; Kaldellis, Anthony (2010). The Secret History with Related Texts. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, Incorporated. ISBN 978-1-60384-180-1.
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External links
- Chariot Races (United Nations of Roma Victrix (UNRV) History – Roman Empire)
- The Circus: Roman Chariot Racing (VRoma: A Virtual Community for Teaching and Learning Classics) Archived 2017-09-20 at the Wayback Machine
- Peter Donnelly – Some Observations on Roman Chariot-Racing Archived 2009-02-26 at the Wayback Machine
- Pasko Varnica – Sports In Antiquity