Chariot racing

Chariot racing (Ancient Greek: ἁρματοδρομία, harmatodromía; Latin: ludi circenses) was one of the most popular ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine 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 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 "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 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 Ostrogothic king, Totila. In the Eastern Roman (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.

Images on pottery show that chariot racing existed in thirteenth century BC Mycenaean Greece. The first literary reference to a chariot race is in Homer's poetic account of the funeral games for Patroclus, in the Iliad, combining practices from the author's own time (c. 8th century) with accounts based on a legendary past. The participants in this race were drawn from leading figures among the Greeks; Diomedes of Argos, the poet Eumelus, the Achaean prince Antilochus, King Menelaus of Sparta, and the hero Meriones. The race, which was one lap around the stump of a tree, was won by Diomedes, who received a slave woman and a cauldron as his prize. A chariot race also was said to be the event that founded the Olympic Games; according to one legend, mentioned by Pindar, King Oenomaus challenged suitors for his daughter Hippodamia to a race, but was defeated by Pelops, who founded the Games in honour of his victory.

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. 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. Votive offerings associated with Olympic victories include horses and chariots. 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.

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.