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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.
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 ...
However, Roman customs were influenced by the Greeks in a direct way, especially after they conquered mainland Greece in 146 BC. According to one Roman legend Romulus used the stratagem of organizing a chariot race shortly after the founding of Rome to distract the Sabines. While the Sabines were enjoying the spectacle Romulus and his men ...
Gaius Appuleius Diocles was born in 104 AD in the Roman province of Lusitania, in the Western Iberian peninsula.He made his racing debut in Rome at the age of 18, in 122 AD with the racing stable known as the Whites, but did not win a race until two years later.
The spina that stood at the center of the chariot racing circuit was still visible then; in modern Istanbul, three of the ancient monuments remain. [ 3 ] The hippodrome was filled with statues of gods, emperors, animals, and heroes, among them some famous works, such as a 4th-century BC Heracles by Lysippos , Romulus and Remus with the she-wolf ...
The Expositio, a geographical account from the latter half of the fourth century by an anonymous author, lists the Tyre Hippodrome as one of the top five racetracks in the Levant during the Roman empire.
A main source for the construction of racing bigae is a number of bronze figurines found throughout the Roman Empire, a particularly detailed example of which is held by the British Museum. Other sources are reliefs and mosaics. These show a lightweight frame, to which a minimal shell of fabric or leather was lashed.