The Importance of Chariot Racing for the Romans
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 en...
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... 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.
http://itsa.ucsf.edu/~snlrc/encyclopaedia_romana/circusmaximus/circusmaximus.html
http://www.novaroma.org/ludi/html/history.html
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