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The Circus Maximus (Latin for "largest circus"; Italian: Circo Massimo) is an ancient Roman chariot-racing stadium and mass entertainment venue in Rome, Italy.In the valley between the Aventine and Palatine hills, it was the first and largest stadium in ancient Rome and its later Empire.
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 ...
Floorplan of Circus Maximus. This design is typical of Roman circuses. The performance space of the Roman circus was normally, despite its name, an oblong rectangle of two linear sections of race track, separated by a median strip running along the length of about two thirds the track, joined at one end with a semicircular section and at the other end with an undivided section of track closed ...
The name Vallis Murcia is found only in late antiquity, [5] and earlier the place was simply designated ad Murciae, "at [the altar] of Murcia". [4] The relation of the Vallis Murcia to the cult of the goddess Murcia is somewhat unclear; because the name of the valley appears as such only in later sources, it may be that it derived from the shrine of Murcia. [6]
To organize the starts, the Romans used a series of barriers called carceres, a term that has the same meaning as the Greek hysplex. They were placed in steps like the hysplexes, but there were some slight differences because the Roman tracks had a median separating barrier, the spina, in the center of the track
The trigarium was an open space located south of the bend of the Tiber River, near the present-day Via Giulia. [2] It may be part of a larger field set aside as a public space for horse pasturage and military drill for youths, which was the original purpose of the Campus Martius. [ 3 ]
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For this reason, it is sometimes also called Atmeydanı ("Horse Square") in Turkish. Horse racing and chariot racing were popular pastimes in the ancient world and hippodromes were common features of Greek cities in the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine eras.