How important was chariot racing for the Romans?

Classics Coursework,

Racing has been a pastime for humans ever since we were able to tame animals and since we have had the technology to allowed us. There are so many forms of racing in the world today that have been shaped through hundreds and thousands of years. What is it that attracts us to racing? Is it the speed, potential crashes or even just the atmosphere? To answer this question many things have to be considered.

To start with lets look at the start of the Rome, at the first celebration of the Consualia in honour of Consus (an ancient god of agriculture) the rape of the Sabine Women is believed to have happened. Romulus (founder of Rome) held chariot races at this celebration. The Sabine people - An ancient tribe from the mountains of central Italy, were invited to watch the chariot races. During this time Rome had no women, the chariots were a distraction, as the men were watching the Romans kidnapped the women and took them for their own wives.

This shows a few things, we can see firstly that chariot racing has existed from the very beginning of Rome, which obviously means it holds a lot of importance to the Romans. This sport also was the foundation of the plan for getting the Romans their women, and just the fact they used it over anything else shows its significance. We can also see that the chariot racing would have been a great spectacle as it had the power to attract a mass of people containing enough women to start off a colossal empire “nobody had eyes or thoughts for anything else." Livy.

If we think about the Roman way of life, it progressively got more involved with entertainment as things developed. At the beginning there were very few forms of entertainment, in fact it is probably possible to count them on one hand. They had plays, gladiators, sports both aggressive and non-aggressive like wrestling and running other than this there was only really music and art. Now think about how many types we have, it is significantly larger than

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What the Romans had. However, if you ask someone how important say F1 racing was to them they’d probably say not too important but that is because we all have different acquired tastes. Back then you had too like what was on offer otherwise you would have nothing! However there was still some resistance to the entertainment on offer to the Romans, Pliny the Younger complains that chariot racing is exactly the same all the time, he then expresses his frustration at the people who do like it because they only like it because of the type of team “It wouldn’t be so bad if they appreciated the horses’ speed or drivers’ skill. But all they see is the colour of the tunic”. Some direct evidence of the Roman way of life getting progressively involved in entertainment is that gradually the amount of days dedicated to games per year rose quite significantly. By 100 BC, six games had been held. In total this numbered about forty-nine days dedicated to games per year, by the end of the second century the number of days per year had reached one hundred thirty-five. That’s not far from almost tripling in days over the space of 100 years, if this does not show you chariot racing was important to them I don’t know what will.

We can see that chariot racing had a large amount of supporters easily by just the sheer capacity that the Romans made the Circus Maximus (250000 people). This is much larger than the majority of any sports ground in Britain can hold. If we think about it constructing a football ground takes quite a lot of time, and this is assisted with perfect planning and high-tech machinery. Obviously the machinery was not available then and so the time and man power put into producing this would have been immense, Why would this much effort, money and time be spent on something unless it was going to have a large importance.

The races were important with the emperors to, a good show could gain you many supporters. It was obviously also a good way to celebrate any victories or festivals. It seems nearly all Emperors were almost obsessed by the races. The emperor Caligula loved the sport so much that he would be worried about the well being of the horse he supported so much that he “filled the neighbourhood with troops to ensure complete silence” - Suetonius. Another called Vitellius was a fan of the blues, when he heard a group of me chanting “down with the blues!” he had them executed. But it was not only emperors, who were unreasonable and wanting their horse to have the advantage, many lead tablets have been found with inscriptions on them. They are curses that the opposition have put on to a certain team, player or horse "I adjure you, demon whoever you are, and I demand of you from this hour, from this day, from this moment, that you torture and kill the horses of the Greens and Whites and that you kill in a crash their drivers...".

Now, to put a curse on somebody you usually have a good reason. To be honest if we found out anyone now cursed a football team like that we would be outraged but it puts the message across well about how much the Romans cared about their chariot racing. To show that much hate towards a team also shows you are very passionate about your team, passion shows a feeling of importance quite obviously.

The races were quite dangerous due to the speed the racers were travelling at and the safety of the chariots. This would have been a big reason for the attendance of some Romans. Many Romans had ‘blood lust’ which is shown clearly by another type of sport – Gladiators. Charioteers usually were lucky to live a long life, for this reason slaves were made to race. However, it wasn’t too bad if you were a good driver, some driver’s had managed to get very good payment. Diocles probably the most famous racer lived a very good life. All in all he had 4257 races winning 1462 of them, this got him roughly £3.5 million and he lived to the age of 42 which is very good going seeing as many racers would have died in their teens. But the amount of money does have some indication of how important the races were. But wealth wasn’t the only good thing about the racing; good racers would be like our celebrities, many women would have desired the racers. A poet describes this called Ovid “How I envy you Charioteer! He’s a lucky man to be picked by you”. As chariot racing developed ideas of playing dirty did as well. This made the sport even more dangerous but shows the desperation to win (as well as the lead curse tablets) by the players, which suggests that they saw it as important.

Many people saw horse ownership as a way of determining social status. Obviously just as now, horses are very expensive and a lot of money is required to look after them, I suppose this is why they are also a way of determining social status now as well. This shows importance as well as it separates the people in to classes of status, which happens in just about all societies. When the Romans realised how useful horses could be they began selective breeding to produce specialised horses (that differed for racing, agriculture etc). The fact that horses were breed to produce special racehorses shows that there is actually importance in the games – the importance being the size of the spectators.

The Romans enjoyed competing, this was because they were an outside people and liked to show off. The different colours provided them different sides to join and support.

Just like now at our racetracks, bets were put on the winners, this would have obviously got the gamblers in Rome to attend and so the chariot racing also provides another pastime enjoyed by Romans. However, not much betting is mentioned and therefore I believe these bets would have just been between friends and sometimes not for money “young men, who like to shout and swagger and make bets with their girl-friends at their sides” Juvenal Satires 11.197.

If we look in conclusion “How important was chariot racing for the Romans?” we can see that the Romans for many reasons would have seen the chariot racing as important. This is because thinking about it the chariot racing was not just about the actual race, but much more. In summary we can see it involved team spirit, bets, social life and status, blood lust for crashes, idolising racers (and horses) and a good way to celebrate for emperors.

Bibliography: “life and leisure in ancient Rome”, “On the Starting Line with Ben Hur: Chariot-Racing in the Circus Maximus” and “Daily life in Ancient Rome”. Web pages used are below.

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