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Images on pottery show that chariot racing existed in thirteenth century BC Mycenaean Greece. [a] 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 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.
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 ...
During the first century, people across Rome were obsessed with chariot races, which frequently produced horrific crashes.However, one charioteer steered his way to victory more than 2,000 times ...
At both ends of the hippodrome were posts (Greek termata) that the chariots turned around. This was the most dangerous part of the track and the Greeks put an altar to Taraxippus (disturber of horses) there to show the spot where many chariots wrecked. It was built on the slope of a hill if possible and the ground taken from one side served to ...
The track's outer walls were laid out to be wider at the start to allow the racers to spread out before reaching the spina, and were also made wider at the point of the turn, which accommodated the turning circle of the chariots. At the east end of the track is a small triumphal arch, in which exposed opus vittatum work can be seen. The judges ...
The track could hold 12 chariots, and the two sides of the track were separated by a raised median termed the spina. Chariot races continued to enjoy great popularity in Byzantine times, in the Hippodrome of Constantinople , even after the Olympic Games had been disbanded, until their decline after the Nika riots in the 6th century. [ 58 ]
The Roman circus of Mérida is a Roman circus in the Roman colonia of Emerita Augusta –present-day Mérida, Spain–, capital of the Roman province of Lusitania. Used for chariot racing during ancient Rome, it was modelled on the Circus Maximus in Rome and other circus buildings throughout the Empire. Measuring more than 400 m (1,300 ft) in ...