When was chariot racing introduced

The first chariot appeared in the Bronze age as a vehicle of war. Lightweight and agile, it was the most powerful unit in the armies of the ancient empires such as Egypt, Assyria, or Persia. Greeks, and later, Romans, did not use chariots in battle, relying on infantry instead. Chariots, however, preserved a special place in their culture.

Gods raced fiery chariots across the sky, while earthly rulers and high priests used them in religious and triumphal processions. However, those imposing vehicles gained popularity in sports events. For ancient Greeks, chariot racing was an important part of the Olympic games.

Two-horse biga and four-horse quadriga chariots led by amateur charioteers raced on a racetrack called hippodrome , with up to sixty chariots participating in the same race. This made chariot racing dangerous. One of the documented events reported a crash of up to forty chariots. The very term for the crash — naufragia shipwreck evokes the dangers and horrors of this sport.

Greeks exported chariot racing to Italy, where it was adopted by the Etruscans around the 6th century BCE. Romans, who shared the Etruscan need for speed, turned chariot racing into a mass entertainment spectacle.

In imperial Rome , racing became a professional sport, with stars and teams funded by private owners and municipalities. Most of the athletes were slaves, who could earn their freedom, fame, and fortune, by winning in the races.

All charioteers belonged to one of the four principal circus factions: Blues, Greens, Whites, and Reds named after colors worn by both the athletes and fans. Like the professional football teams of today, the factions had hordes of fanatical followers, including the emperor himself. Drivers could change factions, but fans did not. Writing in the first century CE, Pliny the younger criticized this partisanship and Roman obsession with games.

The importance of chariot racing in the Roman empire was further emphasized by the grandiose arenas where the games took place. The biggest and most important among them was the Circus Maximus in Rome.

Originally just a flat sandy track, the area gradually developed into a grandiose stadium-style building with a central divider spina , and a host of accompanying structures, as well as a two-tiered sitting platform.

The Circus Maximus was the largest and most expensive edifice in the capital. The second important sporting arena in the empire was the Hippodrome in Constantinople.

Built by emperor Septimius Severus in the 3rd century CE when the city was known as Byzantium it got its final form hundred years later, under Constantine the Great.

The races took place in massive purpose-built structures called circuses. Races took place as part of festival days to honor gods or prominent men. Both Julius Caesar and Sulla declared annual race days in honor of their accomplishments. Consequently, race days were frequent, with as many as 60 or more in a given year Meijer Chariot racing was already an ancient tradition by the time of the Romans. Chariots were frequently used in Greek warfare.

It was also one of the principal events of the Panhellenic Games Kyle Book 23 of the Illiad recounts the chariot race that took place at the Funeral games of Patroclus Kyle All circuses consisted of an oblong race track with a long stone divider called a spina running down the center.

Two large stone metae on either end of the spina served as turning markers. They were built to be sturdy, to withstand the force of any crashes. The track itself consisted of fine sand to allow for greater speed and reduce dust as much as possible during the race. Though no literary evidence attests to it, the track almost certainly would have needed to be raked in between races; otherwise the uneven track would slow the racers down Meijer Lap counters were mounted on the spina, at the Circus Maximus these were seven dolphins each race was seven laps that would dip down into water as the racers completed each lap the dolphin was a symbol of Neptune who was also associated with horses and horsemanship Harris , Meijer Unlike at gladiatorial games and theaters, seating was not segregated by gender.

It was segregated by class however, and the wealthiest Roman had the nearest seats to the track. The horse trade spanned the entire Roman world, and racing horses came from as far as Turkey, Spain, and Cappadocia, but the most prized race horses came from North Africa according to inscriptions. Selective breeding was common, and the most successful horse trainers were highly sought.

The fans followed the team color more than they followed the individual drivers or horses, similar to modern sports. This is a transcript from the video series The History of Ancient Rome.

Watch it now, on The Great Courses. If you had 12 chariots racing, that would mean you would have three chariots from each team that would be fielded for a typical race. For each chariot, the normal number was four horses. We do hear of two-horse and even six-horse chariot racing on occasion, but that was quite rare. Imagine trying to control six galloping horses. Trying to control four is hard enough; six would be stretching it.

The most popular seats were at the curved end of the bullet shape of the arena, since that is where most of the crashes took place. The chariots would break out of the starting gates at the one end. In the Circus Maximus, there were 12 starting gates, and the chariots would come out with the drivers wrapped up in leather and with their team colors on.

They would do the circuit of the circus seven times, seven laps being required to complete the race. Learn more about how Rome became so powerful. The most popular seats were at the curved end of the bullet shape of the arena since that is where most of the crashes took place. The Charioteer of Delphi, one of the most famous statues surviving from Ancient Greece. Chariot racing was also an event at other games in the Greek world, and was the most important event at the Panathenaic Games in Athens.

At these games, the winner of the four-horse chariot race was given amphorae of olive oil, an extremely expensive prize, as this was more oil than an athlete would ever need in his career. Most of it was probably sold to other athletes. There was another form of chariot racing at the Panathenaic Games, known as the apobotai or the anabotai. This involved jumping out of the chariot and running alongside for some distance the anabotai ; the apobotai apparently also including jumping back into the chariot after running alongside it.

In these races there was a second driver who held the reins while the first driver jumped out, but of course neither of these were considered the winner. The first chariot over the line would win, no matter if the driver was in the chariot or out. If the driver crashed, and could still walk, he would win if he crossed the finish line on foot.

In the ancient Olympic Games, as well as the other Panhellenic Games, there were both four-horse tethrippon and two-horse synoris chariot races, which were essentially the same aside from the number of horses. The chariot racing event was first added to the Olympics in BC but was not, in reality, the founding event. The race was begun by a procession into the hippodrome, while a herald announced the names of the drivers and owners.